How much student loan debt do you have? - Page 5

[Lady Lilya]

I've never known of anyone in real life who had more student loan debt than the 87k that DH and I had. The people I know who went to med school and law school were from wealthy families, so they didn't have to borrow.

Selesai, I know what you mean about feeling stifled. That is why we did nothing but pay it off until it was gone. We would have loved to start a family right away, but not under that pile of debt. So we worked and worked and lived very carefully to be done with it. We were finally able to start that family about 8 or 9 years later.

I can't imagine what the wait would have been like if we took turns going to school so that one of us could work to pay for the other. Or if we did it part time so we could work. 8 years of waiting was long enough! If we had had to wait to start a family at 40, we never would have had children.

[BetsyS]

We are down to about $95,000.

Half of that is from my grad school degree. My dh's half is about half undergrad/half grad school.

I graduated undergrad with about $3000 debt. I paid it off easily and quickly. Then, went to grad school. I underestimated the amount of money I needed for school, so I had $50,000 in loans and $30,000 in credit card debt (OMG) when I finished. I overestimated how much I'd make on graduating, so it didn't get paid off immediately.

I got married 6 months after graduation, and I thought we were on track to start paying stuff off. My dh was laid off our first year of marriage. He decided to go back to school. I worked and paid our living expenses (which were fairly high because at that point we owed $50K of my loans, $25 of his, and $42K in credit card debt--cause he had some going into the marriage, too), but we put his tuition on loans. Cha-ching! Another 25K in loans.

When he got out, we started paying stuff off. We got the cards paid off, then had a baby. And I stayed home. And his salary got cut. And the big house that was at the top of what we could afford with his (bigger) salary was impossible to sell because of the marke. And, his salary got cut again (it's been cut by 1/3 since 2007). And our ARM adjusted. And we had 2 more babies. So, now, we live on less than 1/2 of what we made together, with a large (for us) mortgage payment, and we just make it. But, not a lot extra to throw at loan payments.

So, that's our story of why we still have most of our student loan debt 10 and 6 years out of school. We've struggled to survive at times. We're doing okay now, but not great. He's working hard to change industries (he's in building materials; it ain't coming back anytime soon), and hopefully a raise will help us pay them off.

Would I do it again? NO!!!! I would figure outa way to get the degree cheaper, absolutely, 100%.

[sewaneecook]

When I graduated I had about $2500 in loans. Everything else was scholarship, financial aid, or paid for by my parents or by me (I paid about half and my parents paid half of the balance). My school had a great program that turned student loans in to grants (that didn't have to be paid off) if a certain GPA was earned. Luckily I was able to study hard, work hard, and graduate with nearly no debt. This was from a private liberal arts school.

DH had a similar circumstances and graduated with $8000 in loans.

To be honest it wasn't until recently that I even realized how much debt most people have after graduating from college. I feel very grateful for having so little debt starting out.

[3xMama]

Wow, I'm kinda surprised, I thought more ppl would have higher debt.

Right now, I only have about $200 left on my loans, but DH just graduated a year ago and has just under $40k in debt. He went to a small, private school that does not offer scholarships. Supposedly, the financial aid dept sent our info for grants etc, but after further dealings with the school and how much debt we've ended up with, I don't think they actually did. So basically, we are $40k in debt for a *^%$#*#@ associates degree and we found out afterward that he could've gotten the same education at a community college nearby for much much less. The school actually has a class action lawsuit against it because it doesn't does not do what it claims it will (job placement, grants etc). Wish we had known that before DH started there.

[mnnice]

I had no undergrad debt. I lived at home one year and attended community college one year and attended a relatively cheap state school the three years. Worked several jobs and had some parental support too.

I ended up with about $22,000 in grad school debt. I am old and it has been paid off for almost ten years. I was pretty hardcore about paying it off. It took me about five years.

I had grad school paid off before I started a family.

[Siennaflower]

None so far. I was in the military and used my GI Bill to pay for my Associates. When I go back to school next year for my Bachelors I will be using the newer 9/11 version of the GI Bill which will pay 80% tuition and the rest I'll have to cover with grants and/or loans.

[freestylemama]

$0. DH has a PhD and I will have mine in May. We're minorities among our friends. Most of our peers have between 20-100k.

My parents paid for my undergraduate degree. DH had scholarships for his undergraduate degrees. I worked and had various assistantships during graduate school and DH had a fellowship. We chose the graduate school that offered us the most funding (both of us had tuition, stipend and health insurance) and lived very frugally during graduate school. We also waited to start our family until DH had a full time job and was done with school.

[Teenytoona]

Originally Posted by pumpkin

I've been out of school for 13 years so mine was paid off quite a while ago.
Posted via Mobile Device

Haha, pumpkin, I got my BS in 1997, too, but still have around 25K in debt. I don't think the original amount was much more than that (maybe around 30K).

I went to a private school, stupidly. I had no money, no parent support, I worked alot but that funded things like living expenses and books, all my tuition and such was scholarship or financial aid - so some grants but certainly loans, and the school was pricey (For the time, it's pricier now, too). Way pricier than I should have gone to, in retrospect of course. But that was not something anyone told me about back then - counselors just talked about getting into school and all I wanted to do was move out of my abusive home.

I could have gone to a state school and still done ok and made out with less debt. After college I had a string of "i don't know what to do with my life" jobs and so didn't make squat with which to pay down bills.

The job I have now is decent, but as my signature testifies, we've got enough family to keep us from rollin' in the dough. My job also has nothing at all to do with my degree. I learned it from my then partner, now DH.

IMO, degrees just aren't worth the money we pay out for them. I mean I enjoyed college, but I didn't do anything career prep during college, really. I enjoyed it socially and academically, but what to do with that experience was the biggest question. I didn't know what avenue I wanted to take for a graduate degree, which left me floundering after graduation.

I know lots of jobs where the degree is not exactly neccessary or just any degree will do, so long as you went to college. If I could do it over again, I still would have gone to college, but gone to a state school and had less debt to deal with.

[Denvergirlie]

zero debt

My parents paid for all of housing and classes my first year, then I transferred to community college.

They paid for classes and books for the rest of my degree at community college and local college to get both an Associates and Bachelors degree.

After the first year at an "away private school", they paid for classes and I paid for living expenses. (I lived a home as well as in a condo, but paid rent at both places, and when I lived at "home", I had chores and duties in running the house as well as paying rent).

I worked full time after the first year as well.

[yeahwhat]

As of right now, less than $4000. When I graduated, around $25,000. Then a certain amount was forgiven and I was left with $16,000 and change. It was in interest relief for a few years, and then I ran out of interest relief and started repaying it. I was repaying at the amount set when interest rates were higher but repaying while interest rates were/are at all time lows, so having variable interest rate loans with set payments has worked out very well for me and they'll be totally paid off well ahead of the 10year repayment timeable set with the original interest rates

[jeteaa]

i have about 11K left and I graduated 8 yrs ago.

[Ianthe]

$8000, but I'm only a sophmore!

[petey44]

I racked up a fairly reasonable amount of $40,000. However, my husband has somewhere in the $90-100,000 range. It's incredibly difficult, we can't afford to do anything but pay loans (mostly his). We actually just applied for IBR, so hopefully we'll get that. Also, I'll have $5,000 of mine forgiven in another year and a half (teaching in low-performing school district for 5 years), and I think he has a similar forgiveness situation (social worker). One parenting point that we are in complete agreement on and very passionate about is that our child(ren) will NEVER have to take out student loans. We'll push them towards scholarships and grants, we'll make them work, but anything beyond that we will pay for!!
*Im my parents' defense, they did pay for my first undergrad degree. I was just an idiot who decided to major in something useless, and then go back for another bachelor's degree, and now a master's. Higher education should be free!!!