WHAT ARE PEOPLE PAYING EACH MONTH FOR STUDENT LOANS?

[HeatherC]

With all the recent college threads, I was wondering what the average person winds up paying a month in student loans. This obviously varies by person and family financial circumstances, but just thinking about it and wondering what's an average amount?

 

[greentea]

There's just no way to give an average monthly payment when people go to different schools with wildly different costs and circumstances. Is there a specific question you have or something particular you're wondering about? If you've got kids approaching college age and are wondering what to expect, pick a few schools, check their tuition and room and board fees. Subtract what you think they might get in scholarships and aid and the amount you can contribute. Then pop that into a student loan calculator with a 10-year repayment term and it will give you an idea. That's assuming federal loans (you can Google current interest rates on those for the calculator).

I mean, I totally don't mind sharing my numbers, I just don't know how useful it will be! I borrowed around 21k in student loans. 9k for undergrad, 12k for grad school. My minimum payment was about $250/month. My spouse borrowed about $14k and his payments are only $110/month (and under 3% interest rate as opposed to mine, which was over 6%).

 

[Minnesota!]

We pay about $600 a month. Lots of school, few degrees. But, education is where I will never skimp.

 

[Colleen27]

If you're thinking about the potential consequences of a particular debt load there are payment calculator tools online you can use to get an idea. FinAid.org has a quick calculator you can use to plug in your own values and get an estimated payment. I'm borrowing ~$9600 to finish my degree @ 4.66% (current rate on direct loans) and the projected monthly payment is $101/mo.

 

[bananasplitkids]

I have about $14000 from undergrad left and currently pay $750 a month. The required payment is $170 with the interest rate ranging between 5.8%-6.8%.

 

[amandaleigh2]

With all the recent college threads, I was wondering what the average person winds up paying a month in student loans. This obviously varies by person and family financial circumstances, but just thinking about it and wondering what's an average amount?

I am 11 years out of law school and paying $170 a month on $30000 in student loans. My interest rate is only 2.25% so I don't plan on paying them off early.

 

[ImDMous]

I graduated 15 years ago with about 25k in loans. I did a consolidation of some subsidized and some un-subsidized Stafford loans a few years after I graduated and that's what I'm currently paying. At the time, a 20 year loan with a low interest rate was the standard for government sponsored student loans. So I started at 18,000 and I'm currently at 3,000 with $160 a month. Slow and steady, not a priority to pay off early.

 

[nene0182]

Because of the amount of my loan debt (undergrad and grad degree) I have a 25 year repayment schedule. My current monthly payment is I believe around $650/month (I pay more so I'm not sure of the exact amount) It'll be paid off long before the 25 years is up

 

[GatorMama]

I only had one small student loan. Minimum Payment was a little less than $50/month starting in 2009. I had no idea that it wasn't being paid (my parents had said they'd be taking care of it) until a year later. I immediately started paying double. Just paid it all off for good over the weekend.

 

[mj70148]

My husband and I together had about $55k when we started paying them off. Right now we're paying about $1000/month (which is above the minimum, so it varies some months). We first thought we wanted to pay it off as fast as possible, but over time we have decided that it's "good debt" and we should be also saving for retirement and living a little while we are still young and have no kids. We will easily pay it off in the max time (10yrs) allotted.

I will say that my husband came in with less loans than I did, and his degree didn't get him a job. He's working in service, moving his way up, which will support a family if needed, but his Film making degree isn't paying for itself. I am working as a physical therapist, which pays for itself - loans aren't much of an issue (unless I work in the school system!)

 

[Pesky]

Hmmm, I think I started off paying close to $1000/mo. Gradually paid off the smaller ones and by the end had a consolidated loan at a low interest rate that I paid $200 on for a while ($50 over minimum), then $250, and then $500 until paid off.

 

[EpiStitch]

I had no loans from undergrad, but almost $65K from grad school (private school). It was worth it to me since I had a very, very low-paying job prior to going back to school, and now I make over 3 times as much as I did previously (and got to study what I love ! ).

I currently pay about $1200/month so I can pay my loans off in 5 years, but my minimum for the 10 year plan was around $750/month. Unlike others, getting these paid off is a huge priority to me because loans for grad school do not seem to come at a reasonable interest rate (6.8-7.9% unsubsidized), and I have other things I would like to save that money for. It was completely worth it for me though!

 

[HeatherC]

Thanks everyone! Just getting an idea of what people wind up with for payments and how long they are taking to pay them off.

 

[puffkin]

I had about $12k in loans when I graduated 12 years ago. I did go back to school for a semester before changing my mind and added another $3000. Everything is consolidated at 2.4% interest and my required amount is $105/month. I am not too worried about paying them off early due to the low interest rate. I can make much more with my extra money by investing in my retirement plan which is what I do.

 

[tvguy]

My son pays $100 a month. Been paying for 10 years, has 20 years left, the hope is to step up payments and not need the entire 20 years.

 

[pixiemama91]

I don't quite remember what my original balance was. I had 6 loans. interest rates were originally around 7-8% and my monthly payment was in the 200-250 range. Over the years my interest rate dropped down to 2.2% for 3 of the loans and 0% for the other 3 and I was paying around 114/monTh. I just recently paid off the balance 1500 sonce I didn't want to be paying them for another 3 years.

 

[ZephyrHawk]

Ugh. You really want to know?

Okay, well, I tend to pay off more than the minimum each month, but my minimum payments are $880. That's for 2 individuals (DH and I) and only represents loans we took out on our graduate (Law School) education. I paid off another loan in 2014, and another very small loan years ago. I used to pay almost as much monthly in student loans as I did on my mortgage. I told people it was like having a second home...that I couldn't enjoy.

Hope to be paid off before 2024.

 

[AquaDame]

Graduated 2005 with about 13K in loans - originally at 4.5% but after a year of auto drafting on time payments they dropped it to 3.5%. Payment is $105 a month but I will likely fast track it once our other debts are paid off and be done sometime next year if all goes well.

 

[STLDisney_Freak]

We pay about $500 to $600 dollars a month and that is the income based min payment. We have approx. $75,000 dollars in loans. It is quite sad and a hard lesson learned for how DH and I would do things differently. As far as when they will be paid off when DH and I are dead.

 

[DVCcurious]

I had 127k in student loans when I finished my MBA in 2010. I paid about 3k per month and got it paid off in about 4 years.

Yes, $127k is a lot. Yes it was well worth it.