Did you graduate from college with debt?

[WDWFigment]

My good friend just graduated with $150,000 in loans from law school.. after 6 months she finally received her "pass" from the bar, and took a job making under $40k/yr as a public defender.. yikes

She may qualify for loan forgiveness by serving as a public defender. I am about to graduate from law school in May and I know plenty of my classmates have around $150-200k worth of debt from law school (just law school, not even counting undergrad) and still don't have jobs lined up. Now that's a little frightening, I'm sure. I received a full ride for law school so luckily I have no debt from the past three years, but I do have around $15k worth of debt from my undergrad.

 

[tavettava]

I graduated in 2008 and have $42,000 in student loans. Since I can't find a job I have asked for a deferment.

 

[RadioFanatic]

I didn't have to, but my dh had to take out loans for college and grad school which ended up being about as much as paying for a small home. We graduated in 1997 and are still paying them off and expect to be for about 15 more years. It did affect our lives because we had to wait until just two years ago to buy a house because our school loan payment was like our "mortgage" (what we jokingly called it).

 

[jt8595]

Rupert B Puppenstein speaks wisely. I work in a financial aid office. I tell students all the time to make sacrifices now in order to have a better jump on the rest of their financial life later. Paying for college now is very different than it was 20 years ago. Costs have risen significantly while financial aid has not. It is extremely hard for the students who do not have any parental assistance with their finances. To all of the parents of little ones, start saving whatever you can now. It is great to give your children whatever help you can so that their future isn't hindered by unmanageable debt.

 

[eliza61]

My good friend just graduated with $150,000 in loans from law school.. after 6 months she finally received her "pass" from the bar, and took a job making under $40k/yr as a public defender.. yikes

Like Crisi said, I think the problem is really "no one knows". My roommate also went to law school, came out got a job working in the Gore presidential campaign and now is a big time lawyer in Washington DC. Got a bonus one year that wiped out her entire 200K debt.

who knows?

My oldest son just finished his first year at a out of state college and so far we've been able to cover his entire tuition. His second year is looking good also. The problem will come during his 3rd year because our youngest starts college and he too is looking at an out of state college (University of Texas).

 

[bored]

I worked my butt off in high school and got 3/4 of my tuiton/housing paid by scholarships and grants. I worked all summers to help pay some and my parents were gracious enough to pay for the rest so I graduated with no debt.

I plan to do the same for my DD as it made the transition to "adult" life much easier without debt hanging over my head.

 

[arielmomma]

I can tell you about my DH and I:

Me: I had no debt. I was very blessed and received 100% scholarships and grants for my Bachelor's degree and 100% scholarship to law school. I had high test scores, good grades, and poor parents.

DH: He had a fair amount of debt ($34,000). His parents promised to pay and then back out in the end (they didn't like that he married me ) anyway, we still paid no interest. We got married 6 months after I graduated with a nursing degree. DH had 1 year left with Federal Subsidized loans. During that time, we lived cheap and I save literally half of my income. While married, we also paid cash for his classes. When he graduated and got a job as a starting engineer, we saved his entire income. By the time the first payment came due 6 months after graduation, we paid the entire loan in full. It was very gratifying.

 

[Shleedogg]

Yep! $47,000 worth of debt and I went to a state school! My parents couldn't pay anything, so it was all loans.

Because you can't consolidate private bank loans and the gov't stafford loans, my monthly payments combined are about $450/month. So we definitely had to change the way we lived. That is a huge payment. DH and I were very poor our first few years out of college. We haven't paid them off yet. My small student loan (which started at $16,000, stafford loan) is getting tackled in May with DH's bonus check. We had other loans with higher interest rates to pay off first, car loan, credit cards, DVC. DH has gotten a series of raises and profit checks in the last 2 years that has enabled us to start traveling more and have more spending money. We graduated in 2005, so for 3 years it was pretty rough. Luckily DH's parents paid for his BA completely.

 

[shamrock30]

DH and I both graduated with student loan debt, but mine was larger. It took 10 years to pay off, and it affected our lifestyle somewhat. The monthly payments were not huge but it was hard in the early years. However, I can't say we regretted it. After the loans were paid off, I took out another loan for graduate school, but paid that one back very quickly.

 

[patsal]

Together DH and I had about $50,000 from undergrad it took us 16 years to pay it off (we refinanced it and put it all into one loan which stretched it out). I do not feel we made any sacrifices as a result of this. It was in the budget from day one and we knew we would not have had the salary we were making at the time if we did not have the educations we did. When the time came to go to graduate school, we both also took out loans. Mine was for $31,000 and DH's was for $5,000--his work reimbursed for the majority of his. We are still paying these, my payment is $100 per month and his is $52.00. This does not require us to make any sacrifices either. Though now I am thinking of accelerating to just get them all paid off and out of the way!

 

[Golf4food]

A little over $12,000 worth. Private university. Had full scholarships for tuition but had to pay for room and board, but was able to get an off campus room right next to the campus for cheaper that had a small kitchen so I only did the meal plan one semester, and saved a little that way. Graduated in 2003 so I was able to lock in a low rat - 2.5% I think - so I'm in no great hurry to pay them off at $100/month.

 

[PinkRhombus]

Did it alter your life-style after graduation? Were there things that you wanted to do, but couldn't because of the debt?

I couldn't help but smile at this because I had no life during college so the only life-style change I made was working M-F and I wasn't worried about studying in the evenings any longer.


Do whatever you can to help her NOT have debt from college. Help her fill out as many scholarship applications as you can. I mean, apply for HUNDREDS or more. Lots of little ones add up. She may need to work part-time during the school year. Summer vacations should be spent working full-time (temporary office work pays a lot better than retail).

Neither my husband nor I had college debt. It helped us out tremendously in getting started out properly.

 

[TiffanyK]

Thanks for all the replies. Dd has decided to go to community college. She doesn't want to rack up a lot of debt and the majors she is thinking of will not yield a high income. After 2 years, she'll need to transfer to another school to finish.

Even though she earned substantial academic scholarships, it was really just a drop in the bucket. We've got 4 kids and she's the oldest. There is no way we can finance $10-15K/year to put her through and then have nothing left for the next. And that amount is after we pay what we can, she pays what she can and she takes $5500 of loans per year herself.

It's been kind of disappointing for us to not be able to send her to one of the schools she visited and liked. But, we're all just repeating the Dave Ramsey mantra to ourselves - "Live like no one else, so you can live like no one else". Right now that means going to community college while she watches some of her friends head off to private schools.

 

[malibuconlee]

Dh graduated with debt. Not as much as it could have been. He spent two years at community college that he paid cash for as he went. He also worked all thru college and was in the national guard. When he had to get out of the guard because of a job he took a couple of years after graduation he no longer got their tuition assistance. But he was making more money and paid double payments. He paid off his loans in about 4 years instead of the 10 they were originally for. We did make a big payment at the end from our savings to wipe it out.

That being said I think the offers the guard has for GI bill are better now than they were then. It was nice to get those paid off.

All in all he only had about $13K in student loans. I do remember him having to take out a personal loan from the bank his mom works at his first year away at the state university. They just wouldn't give him enough to cover everything even with his monthly GI bill, his guard pay and working part time security at school.

I do know some people that don't work in school and spend like they are rich! They pay for it for a long time! Had a friend that went to private school her last two years. Spent money getting her nails done, etc trying to keep up with the rich kids she met there. Stupid. Bouncing checks, maxing out her credit card. It was crazy.

 

[kidd_freeper]

I graduated in 1983 with a BS in engineering.

Seems like almost everyone graduated with a loan debt back then.

The loan amounts sounded like a lot of money when I took them. I had ten years to pay it off (I forget the amount). As a single person with an engineering salary, the payments were very easy to make.

If you graduate from college and know that you've got these payments to make, you adjust your lifestyle to accomodate the payments.

 

[LaurLaur04]

I had absolutely no debt when I graduated! I went to a community college and got my degree in Radiography (X-ray Technologist) and it was roughly $500-$600 a month for tuition plus a couple hundred for books, which most was paid for with grants. It may not be the college experience most hope for, but I am very happy with my choice!

 

[tiredsigh]

Graduated in 2006 with $100K in student loan debt (all government loans and now consolidated into one through Direct Loans/Government) that covered undergrad, grad, and law school. You can't work more than part time in law school or you can be forced to do the part time law school program (ABA rules, I think?). I was a single mom of one elementary student at the time so my loans did pay for child care and other things that I couldn't cover through work.

I had to defer for 6 months due to a difficult end of pregnancy and needing to stay home with child until he was old enough to get into a good day care.

I don't practice law but work in the alternative legal field arena. We make good money so have already lowered the debt to $90K. We started Dave Ramsey late last year and should have it 100% paid off in less than 4 more years

Does it change our lifestyle? It does. We do live on a budget and don't just blow money on junk.

I don't regret it for a minute though. I make a nice income and wouldn't have that level of income without the degree.

My biggest lesson learned is that I don't want my kids to go into debt. We (got married while in law school) now have a preteen and plan on funding her college at a reasonable school. We aren't stressing that point to her just yet. We want her to excel at school and get good grades so that there may be some scholarship money as well.

 

[alymae1010]

First post... yay!!!

Anyway, I graduated in 2002 with no debt from a private school, and it was the best gift my parents could have ever given me. The started saving every month when I was around 2 years old. Then when I was old enough to babysit, I had to start putting half of everything I earned into the bank. Try explaining the concept of 'saving for college' to a 12 year old. I hated it at the time, but it taught me savings skills too.

My parents are by no means rich, so I also got a great scholarship from a small private college, and then I one some smaller ones. I also worked throughout.

That's pretty awesome that she weighed the options and chose what was best for her instead of following others.

 

[ZephyrHawk]

After undergrad I had no debt and DH had a sum total of $5,000 (which has since been paid off). However, after law school (for both of us) we both ended up pretty mightily in debt. As to when it will be paid off...your guess is as good as mine. DH works for the government, so he has the opportunity to get into a new loan forgiveness program that will have his loans paid off in 10 years...mine...not so much. I went to a more expensive school and I work in the private sector.

We do live on a budget, which is strange to think of for 2 lawyers. I tell people that my monthly student loan payments and my mortgage payments are roughly equal, so you can kind of think of it as me having 2 homes.

 

[Sadie22]

Thanks for all the replies. Dd has decided to go to community college. She doesn't want to rack up a lot of debt and the majors she is thinking of will not yield a high income. After 2 years, she'll need to transfer to another school to finish.

Even though she earned substantial academic scholarships, it was really just a drop in the bucket. We've got 4 kids and she's the oldest. There is no way we can finance $10-15K/year to put her through and then have nothing left for the next. And that amount is after we pay what we can, she pays what she can and she takes $5500 of loans per year herself.

It's been kind of disappointing for us to not be able to send her to one of the schools she visited and liked. But, we're all just repeating the Dave Ramsey mantra to ourselves - "Live like no one else, so you can live like no one else". Right now that means going to community college while she watches some of her friends head off to private schools.

Congratulations to your very mature daughter. Her levelheadedness will pay off many times down the road.