student loan debt
I thought I graduated college with a lot of debt, $20,000. Not all of it was from student loans but the majority of it was. Have you read the recent article in the NY Times about the student who graduated from NYU with $100,000 of student loan debt. Yes, thats 100K that is needing to be paid back for attending NYU. I could just imagine how much she was able to pay with grants and scholarships and still come out with this much debt.
Of course I don’t want to slam her for being naive as a teenager but if you read the article it talks alot about who is to blame for this. The article makes a good point in saying that the mother of the student who co-signed for some of the loans is to blame since she was to act as the adult. The articles also mentions that the financial aid office at the school is to blame for not sitting down with her and giving her a reality check.
So how much money is she having to pay every month to carry this load of debt? $700 if they weren’t being deferred. To defer payments is to put off the payment until you can get more money. This sounds good but you will still have to pay the interest on the loans when you defer payments. Either way, it’s not a good idea to owe this much money for going to school.
She is currently working as a photographer making $22 an hour. All I have to say is ouch. This is not fun and really this is the reason why so many couples are getting married in later years because debt is scary for a spouse entering the relationship, you don’t just marry the person but you marry the debt.
This is why it’s best to attend a state school with plenty of financial aid available to you. If needed, start off at the local junior college and work your way through school like I did, it’s managable.
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The woman in this article is not a rare occurrence either. Many people I know personally are in debt with student loans to the tune of 65k up to 85k. One thing they all have in common: They have their respective degrees but they certainly aren’t making the INCOME that they desired when they set out to get the degree.
One such person I know, took out MORE loans to CONTINUE going to school, because he couldn’t afford to START paying back his student loans. Thus, he is deferring his debt until much much later, when it will almost be impossible to pay back.
@David, it killed me while in school to hear about people who’d take out 30k a year to be an art history major. There’s so many people like that!
Not all of us were lucky enough to have a mom like mine who told my brothers and I to figure out what we love to do but be sure to learn a skill in that field you love so much. A brother of mine loves music, he’s sound tech, another one loved trains so he became a transportation planner and so on. All of us held full time jobs while in college to come out with a manageable amount of debt since college was out of our own pockets! It’s hard work but totally do-able.