My student loans...

[cael]

are FINALLY below $10k!!! I just realized as I set up my next payment... I actually feel like someday maybe they'll be gone! Although.. grad school will throw a wrench in that For now I'm still happy!

Curious, what do y'all owe for student loans if you have them? When I finished I had about $16k-ish I believe, and my parents helped with some loans but I'm not sure how much (theirs is paid). That was for two years at a state college and two years at UMass.

[Jake 48]

Cael,
I didn't take students loans, paid out of pocket and used a CC, about 8k. I am happy to say that CC will be paid off this summer

[Deleted]

We owe roughly $33k for my wife's undergrad and post graduate schooling. I think we are paying it off using a 20 year amortization table.

[cael]

Great jake! We are going to try to pay for Sir's college (2 year degree, community college & luckily cheap) out of pocket for as long as we can when he starts this fall or next spring. hopefully he can finish a degree with no loans and I'll be the only one w/ them.

[Deleted]

My husbands will be done within a year.... but i cry when i look at the low number... at the current 1.4% interest rate... i wish i could take out a little more/pay it back a little slower....

[cael]

I have a friend who a year ago finished a master's degree at an expensive college in Boston, she really wanted to go there... and hasn't found a teaching job yet, and is still making $13/hour working at a daycare. She owes about $50k she is finally realizing how much her degree actually cost her, sadly too late! I wouldn't want to be in her shoes. I'm going to UMass again (Boston) for grad school so luckily it will be a bargain compared to some places.

[Jake 48]

Cael,
DW is back in school and we are paying that out of pocket too, around $350 a month

[cael]

Wow, that is cheap! Is that for one class or a few, or what? I think NSCC is between $300-$400 per class, and if he takes 2 classes we could afford to pay that out of pocket every semester probably. Since he's getting laid off he may qualify for some aid for classes too (we're hoping!)

[SVT]

I have just under $60k. I have like 29 years, 6 months left. The $238 payment I make now on the $38k amortized over 30 years will be CHEAP at the end of the loan. The cell phone bill will probably be 3 times that amount lol

[haapai]

Mine are down to $3150 from around $12,000 in 1999. My interest in paying them off evaporated in 2003 when I consolidated them. The interest rate was frozen at a rate lower than what savings accounts were paying and the payment was chopped by 40%. I'm from a different generation that went to school when it was much more affordable and took out Stafford loans that are quite different from today's version.

[Jake 48]

one class at a time, pay as you go sorta thing. Over the summer she will use the community college to get some electives out of the way, doing it all on line

[reader79]

I currently owe ~$9,300 or so, I haven't updated my excel file after this month's payments. That is $6,850 with Citibank for my Stafford's, $2,200 for my Perkins, and $280 or so on the Wells Fargo private loan. Originally my total was around $25K - this was after dropping out of NYU, I haven't completed a degree yet.

The Wells Fargo will be paid off next month after I come back from a trip. It's silly really, how long I have had that loan. The Citibank and the Perkins, I am going to try to payoff over the next two years. I have decided that I will go back to school when those are paid in full. I took classes a few years back (non-matriculated) but paid for those in cash. I plan to finish at a SUNY school and cash flow the tuition. The interest rates on the Citi loans are all under 2% now, the Perkins is 4. something, but I just don't want those hanging over my head. I want a fresh start.

[cael]

Yeah, that's not bad. That's what we're hoping we'll be able to do, although again, he may qualify for some help with school since he'll be unemployed (although he doesn't plan to stay unemployed for long thank god)

[Deleted]

Awesome Cael!

For the longest time I was just making the minimum payments just because I couldn't afford to pay any more than that. I got a statement last year and I almost cried at how little I actually paid off! So now that I can afford to pay more on them, I started to put like twice as much as I owed down per month. I did that less than a year ago and my balance is down almost $3k. Compound interest is the DEBBIL!!!!

[CarolinaKat]

hmmm, mine were 16k-ish, down to just under 12k now. I won't pay them off super fast, but the interest rates aren't the greatest (well 1 is, 2 aren't)

[cael]

Apr 28, 2011 10:03:14 GMT -5 reader79 said:

I currently owe ~$9,300 or so, I haven't updated my excel file after this month's payments. That is $6,850 with Citibank for my Stafford's, $2,200 for my Perkins, and $280 or so on the Wells Fargo private loan. Originally my total was around $25K - this was after dropping out of NYU, I haven't completed a degree yet.

The Wells Fargo will be paid off next month after I come back from a trip. It's silly really, how long I have had that loan. The Citibank and the Perkins, I am going to try to payoff over the next two years. I have decided that I will go back to school when those are paid in full. I took classes a few years back (non-matriculated) but paid for those in cash. I plan to finish at a SUNY school and cash flow the tuition. The interest rates on the Citi loans are all under 2% now, the Perkins is 4. something, but I just don't want those hanging over my head. I want a fresh start.

Yeah, I'd feel better starting grad school with no loans, but I seriously can't wait 5 years to start school again or I never will. I figure my current loans will be deferred while I go to graduate school, but I'll still try to make payments which should help. I think an average semester at UMass Boston for a graduate student is about $6-7k (last I checked), so I'm looking at maybe $24-$25k total (maybe less if I can find any grants or aid). That is manageable to me, especially since I will find another job after that (hopefully it won't take years) which will make me a little more money.

[jd2005]

I ended with $100k. Down to about $88k after 6 years of payments...but with fixed rates of 1.625% on 70% of the loans and current rates of 2.75% and 3% on the remaining 30% of the loans I am not complaining.

[illinicheme]

Apr 28, 2011 9:34:48 GMT -5 cael said:

That was for two years at a state college and two years at UMass.

Isn't UMass a state college? Just curious about your terminology.

I managed to graduate without loans through a fortuitous combination of attending an in-state public institution when tuition was still low (graduated in 2000), getting a tuition waiver my final two years by being a TA, and having parents who were able and willing to cover the cost.

DH went to a private college. I don't know what his total student loans were when he graduated, but he had about $15k left when we got married in 2006. We paid them off a couple of years ago. (Rate was ~6% I think?) Pre-paying them might not have been the best use of our money, but DH felt really strongly that he wanted to pay them off as quickly as possible.

[cael]

Apr 28, 2011 10:05:09 GMT -5 @moneyjenny82 said:

Awesome Cael!

For the longest time I was just making the minimum payments just because I couldn't afford to pay any more than that. I got a statement last year and I almost cried at how little I actually paid off! So now that I can afford to pay more on them, I started to put like twice as much as I owed down per month. I did that less than a year ago and my balance is down almost $3k. Compound interest is the DEBBIL!!!!

Awesome Jen!! Yeah, I used to pay more than my minimum, but realized I should be putting my extra money towards my credit cards, since the interest is obviously higher on them than on my loans. Someday I will have ZERO credit card debt and I can work harder on the loans!

[cael]

Apr 28, 2011 10:11:56 GMT -5 @illinicheme said:

Apr 28, 2011 9:34:48 GMT -5 cael said:

That was for two years at a state college and two years at UMass.

Isn't UMass a state college? Just curious about your terminology.

Whoops, sorry. Yes it is - Salem State college and Univ. of MA, so difference in price but yes both state schools. Just wanted to differentiate between state college and the prestigious University-of!

[Deleted]

luckily we have no credit card debt, but we are saving up for a new car we plan to get next year as well as supplementing our income when we go out on maternity/paternity leave. Because of all that, I'm going to have to start putting only a little bit more than the minimum down on the SL.

[whoisjohngalt]

Never had any for undergrad. Started VERY expensive grad school in MA in 2009 and paying as I go.

My DH had about $80K for a degree that should have cost him about $10K-$15K, but that's a whole other story. We are down to about $18K left which I am in no hurry to pay off bc int rate is nice and low.

Lena

[shanendoah]

DH & I both had SLs when we got married. His weren't very big and we paid them off 5+ years ago. Mine are a different story. (They are all staffords)

Undergrad (graduated May 2000)
Borrowed: $16,000
Still Owe: $16,667.11
In September- 10.5 years after I graduated -I will finally owe less than I borrowed. I made a little too liberal use of forbearance policies. However, they're consolidated at a 3.5% APR so I try not to be in too big a hurry to pay this back

Graduate (2006-2008)
Borrowed: $39,000
Still Owe: $26,600.91
Some of this is at 5.55% APR and some is at 6.55% APR. I am paying extra on them through June, then will go down to minimums.

DH is back in school. He'll start full time this summer. So far we've paid out of pocket, and that's the plan for the year it should take him to finish his Bachelor's. It will be minimum $850/month (rates are going up due to state budget changes). We're hoping that he'll qualify for some type of aid because he's been out of work for 2 years. At the same time, I make good money, so there may be nothing. We're hoping to do this without any more student loans, but if we end up needing to go that route, we will.

[WannabeWealthy]

I had struggled with my SL for many years. I finally got rid of it Jan of this year. It was a long process because I kept deferring it. It was $40k @ 8.25%.

I'm now debt-free and am patiently watching my wife pay off her SL ($36k). I'm handling all the other bills (including our mortgage). We both will be extremely happy when she pays hers off.

-M

[sil]

DH and I had about $90k in loans, now down to around $65k. His rate is much better than mine, but were still not rushing to pay these off.

Total monthly payment is about $700. We figure it will all be paid off right around the time my oldest son is ready for college, so once the loans are paid off, we'll just allocate that amount towards his education.

[msgumby]

I had about 10k - but owed to my dad interest free. I paid that off a while ago because I didn't like owing my dad money.

My husband has about 3k from high school (which was actually college early), ~6k from undergrad, and about 50k from grad school. His first year of grad school, tuition alone was 30k - which was very painful. We had to take out a few unsubsidized loans for that year. After that, they kept offering us loans, but we didn't actually need them to live off of. For a few years we still took out the subsidized loans and used those to immediately pay off the unsubsidized loans and then invest the leftovers. During grad school we were able to save up enough money to pay them all off, but opted to keep the money interest-free instead. We will probably have to start paying on them in about 9 months or a year, but I'm in no rush to pay them off until we have to.

[Deleted]

I graduate in May and I am sitting at 17K in SL. Since I am only taking 1 class (the final class) this semester, they are out of deferment and I have started paying on them. All are Stafford loans and on a 10 year repayment schedule. We paid for the first 2 years at a community college out of pocket, so the SL are all for the last 60 credits. The loans don't bother me. They don't seem unmanageable. DH is over halfway through his masters degree and he has never taken out a SL. Someone was always willing to pay for his schooling.

[strider]

Good job. I'm so glad I ended up owing less than $10k. I have 6k now and am in no rush to pay them off. I may do it just to say I'm debt free though.

[strider]

That's crazy that these loans are like mortgages. Going to tell my future kids to try trade schools/community colleges.

[swamp]

I had about $60K from law school. I paid it off over 7 years.

I made it out of undergrad with no loans, and I went to a really expensive hoity toity private liberal arts school.

DH also had about $60k, he incurred his later in life, he went back to college and then pharmacy school when he was 27.