Those of you who have student loans:

[jread]

How much do you have and what are the payments? How long do you get to pay it off?

I have about 30k from my bachelor's degree and am now in graduate school. I'm doing an online program (local state school in TX) that does not apply very well to the direction my career has taken, so I'm thinking of transferring to another program. I have two lined up: one is another online M.S. at a state school, and the other is at the private school I originally attended (which would be on-campus). The school I went to (St. Edward's University) was absolutely wonderful and has a great reputation in this area. I loved going to classes when I was there. As a private school, though, it's expensive as hell and would cost about double what I would pay at a state school. The benefit is that I would actually get to go to classes with other people (which is something I'm really missing in the online program).

So, the big question is whether or not to add 10k to my student loan balance or 20k. Would the payoff really be that much higher and would the payments be that much higher? My loans have been deferred since I went straight into graduate school after my bachelor's, but I will eventually have to start paying it all back. I figured it would be helpful to hear from those of you who have been there and done that already.

P.S. Those of you who went to a cheap public school and/or had your parents pay for everything, didn't go to college, etc. can GTFO out of my thread because I don't want to hear it

 

[clamum]

I have 15k in student debt, and the payment plan right now is set to $200 (standard payment plan). Too lazy to do the math to figure out a endtime.

 

[Ns1]

I have 15k in stafford at around 6.8%, 10 year payment

monthly payment is 167 and change

might be a touch less than 15k, don't have papers right now to tell you for sure.

 

[Pepsi90919]

wow, ouch, i'm always very thankful that i'm $0 in debt from school thanks to my parents. i have my own debt from the car and some other stuff that totals about $8000 but i can't imagine having $30k at 7-8%

 

[ShOcKwAvE827]

Why didn't you just go to UT

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

My wife graduated from Texas State University - San Marcos (where I'm going now), and she has about $12k in debt, and I pay about $150 a month.

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
wow, ouch, i'm always very thankful that i'm $0 in debt from school thanks to my parents. i have my own debt from the car and some other stuff that totals about $8000 but i can't imagine having $30k at 7-8%

Did you not read the last line of the OP or did you post out of spite like me?

In-state school + full-ride scholarship = win
I'm in grad school now, got my tuition/fees waived for that too

 

[rikadik]

I owe about £9,000 in a student loan, the interest of which matches the Retail Price Index (so I basically only pay interest to account for inflation). I only have to make repayments once I'm earning £15,000 a year gross or more. The repayments are monthly and are 9% of whatever exceeds £1,250 a month. They get deducted from my salary automatically by the PAYE system.

I have held an interest-free overdraft for three years, currently with a limit of £2,000, which is more or less maxed out. That will go down to £1,500 in September 2008, £1,000 in September 2009 and then go in September 2010. It remains interest free throughout.

From looking at this thread I think the student finance options are a lot nicer in the UK than in the US.

However I owe my dad £9,200 for law college fees also (what I am doing at the moment), which I would have otherwise had to get a graduate bank loan at about 8% ish.

 

[Dirigible]

I had about $60k in student loans - a bit less than $20k from five years of private undergrad and a bit more than $40k from public law school. My wife had over $100k of student loans, all from private law school. All our loans are thankfully paid off now. Mine had a 10 year payback period, my wife's had 30 years. Combined, it was a pretty big monthly payment. And paying them off early meant we couldn't buy much even though we had good salaries. Believe me, when you're an attorney at a big firm and you're driving a 16 year old Civic with over 200k miles, it's an easy target for jokes.

Be careful with student loans. A lot of students don't think about how the payments after graduation will limit them. Then again, it can be a good investment. I ended up with a lot of loans, but think I made the right call. Private undergrad on the other side of the country was actually cheaper than in-state public school would have been (and I would've only had about $12k in undergrad loans from that if I'd graduated on time - my fault). My public law school was the absolute best deal possible for a legal education in my field. Together, they allowed me to earn a good living doing fairly interesting work. My wife could've gotten the same legal education for cheaper at a different school, and she didn't think about the cost, or how it limited her to high-paying jobs, before she went.

So I guess I'm of no help, except to say you're doing the right thing in thinking about it now. If the more expensive school would be worth it in the end and you could pay it back, go for it. If there's not much difference in education quality, go cheap.

 

[Deeko]

65k from undergrad. I'm on a graduated 10 year repayment plan, currently paying $480/month, that'll jump up to about $600.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
wow, ouch, i'm always very thankful that i'm $0 in debt from school thanks to my parents. i have my own debt from the car and some other stuff that totals about $8000 but i can't imagine having $30k at 7-8%

i have 17K at 2.8 % and then ~33K @ 9.5%

the smaller payment is like 82$ a month the other one is around 400$/mo
long ass payment plans 20 or so years, maye even 30

 

[Xavier434]

I started with about 25K in debt. I pay about $260 per month and at this rate they will be paid off after 10 years of payments from the time I started. I consolidated my loans which was a great decision. That and they offered me a 20 year payment plan but I said no.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

around 80k

 

[Delita]

Just under 30k for undergrad

 

[Demon-Xanth]

<-- paid $25k to get his bachelors degree, took four years to pay it off (had 10 to do it)

 

[Aikouka]

I have about 35k in loans and pay around $300 in a month.

You know what I hate? How we're told to go to college (student loans) and then get a good job but then we kinda have to pay those loans, save up in retirement accounts and also pay a ton of taxes because we actually went to college to get a good job that pays well.

Yeah... you can tell I just did my taxes .

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Originally posted by: Aikouka
I have about 35k in loans and pay around $300 in a month.

You know what I hate? How we're told to go to college (student loans) and then get a good job but then we kinda have to pay those loans, save up in retirement accounts and also pay a ton of taxes because we actually went to college to get a good job that pays well.

Yeah... you can tell I just did my taxes .

You know that the interest on those loans is a tax deduction, right?

 

[Tiamat]

12k$ from undergrad, 17k$ from grad.

I put the 17k$ from grad into a CD from ING and will probably pay it off in one lump sum if I dont have to buy a car in the near future (depends on job).

The 12k$ ill pay off as slowly as possible as it has non-fixed federal interest rate. With the economy taking a hit as it is now, its interest rate will be lower than the newer fixed rate loans I have from grad. ~ at least a 15 year plan.

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth

Originally posted by: Aikouka
I have about 35k in loans and pay around $300 in a month.

You know what I hate? How we're told to go to college (student loans) and then get a good job but then we kinda have to pay those loans, save up in retirement accounts and also pay a ton of taxes because we actually went to college to get a good job that pays well.

Yeah... you can tell I just did my taxes .

You know that the interest on those loans is a tax deduction, right?

and what citibank didn't tell me the first year i was paying out... if i didn't submit a mailed in request (no online request) for a 1098E, I could not legally claim the interest paid... fvckers. Nelnet sent one to me w/o asking. It wasn't until I went searching that they said the deadline for submission was 12/31 for the year you were trying to claim.

 

[lizardth]

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo
My wife graduated from Texas State University - San Marcos (where I'm going now), and she has about $12k in debt, and I pay about $150 a month.

We have 10-15 years to repay and my interest rate is 5.25% on one loan and about 3% on the other. Now these are Federal and State sponsered loans--I have no idea about any other types of student loans.

 

[tidehigh]

40k, 500 per month, 10 years

 

[Riverhound777]

I started off with $15k in loans at 2.8%. Payments are just under $100/month. 10 years to pay off. Better than my car loan of 18k at 5.125% for 5 years thats for sure.

 

[Safeway]

Right now, I am debt-free. In three years, I will probably have near $100,000 in student loans. Assuming I get a decent firm job, I hope to have it repaid within 5 years.

 

[Kev]

I graduated in 04 with about 23k in debt. Thanks to my recent fat bonus check I am officially done paying for school forever.

 

[razor2025]

State School + HOPE Scholarship = no debt. I'm saving up for graduate school though, since taking out a loan isn't my style.