How many have crushing student loan debt and difficulty repaying?

[yurbud]

I'm wondering if I'm alone on this or a lot of others have gotten into the same trap.

My college teaching degree requires a masters. I took out $40K in loans to get that, but because schools use part time faculty to teach the majority of classes, I have to string together a couple of jobs, and don't make enough to pay enough to even keep up with interest on my loans, which are up around $90K now with interest and my undergrad loans thrown in. I know this is common for people in education. Do other people have this problem too?

Hillbilly Hitler art:



Blog:

[Warpy]

1. I knew a nurse in Boston who made it through grad school

but to the tune of nearly $100,000 in debt. There is simply no way he's ever going to get out from under that heap on a nurse practitioner's salary in Boston, even if his body holds up for the next 20 years.

This is nuts. I tell friends' children to go into things like plumbing. The money is great and while the work can be nasty, the stress is generally low. It's also not vulnerable to offshoring.

[yurbud]

3. plumber could be replaced by a robot run by tech in India

[Horse with no Name]

12. There is a way out for him

Many hospitals in Texas will pay off your student loans if you are a Nurse Practitioner.
I am sure if he practices in any underserved county in the US they will do this.
Tell him to check around.
Committment is usually 5 years. Small price to pay though.

[yurbud]

2. will the independently wealthy women willing to marry post photos

and say how much my weekly allowance will be?

[mike_c]

4. currently clocking in at about $70 K-- payments exceed my housing...

...and all other monthly costs. I am in bankruptcy, partly because of my divorce and partly because I can't afford my other debts AND the bloody student loan payments.

I love my career, and would go into debt again if I had it all to do over again-- it has made that much of a difference in my life. But I TOTALLY mortgaged my future to do it. As I said, I don't regret it, but I really wish that I could have realized my intellectual potential without hocking my financial future to a bunch of bankers.

[yurbud]

5. it shouldn't be a faustian bargain of career or financial stability

[Joebert]

6. I guess I am in the independently wealthy part

Since I have no student loans.

But that would be due to the fact that I never completed school due to funds (and maturity at the time)

If I finally get whacked (outsourced) I will go finish the degree, and THEN I can be in debt with the rest of you!

[Behind the Aegis]

7. Unemployed for 2 years

This month makes it two years I have now been without a job. I have applied to over 400 positions, many beneath my skill levels. So, not only do I have 25K+ of debt, I have a degree in which I can't even use at this point. Frustrated doesn't even begin to describe what I feel right now.

[flygal]

8. I paid off about $15K in five years

It's hard - our friends all had nice things and I garage-saled for clothes. Good luck to you.

[AlienGirl]

9. $46K in the hole so far

If I go to grad school, it'll be even more.

My only chance at financial semi-solvency is to die before the six-month grace period runs out!

Seriously, I will never be able to own a house/condo, buy a new car, or retire.

Tucker

[rainbow4321]

10. Federal change puts squeeze on financial aid students

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/06/06/a1.collegeaid.0606.html

No matter how she parses it, Roberta Proctor cannot make sense of her son's college bill. Her income and her assets haven't changed. If anything, she says, her family's finances have deteriorated somewhat. So, she wonders, how could she possibly owe an extra $6,000 for the coming school year, when tuition has gone up nowhere near that amount?

But she does. Like Proctor, thousands of American families might find it harder to make ends meet with financial aid from the government, states or universities this fall, because of changes to a complicated federal formula they barely know about, much less understand.

Taken together, these changes, some based on overly optimistic predictions of the economy, have required families around the country to count a greater share of their incomes and assets toward college expenses before becoming eligible for financial aid. As a consequence, tens of thousands of low-income students will no longer be eligible for the major federal grants, middle-class families are digging deeper into their savings and some colleges are putting up their own money to make up the difference.

The New York Times did an analysis of the formula on middle-class incomes in more than a dozen states, to see whether families would have to spend a greater portion of their income and assets before qualifying for financial aid than they did five years ago. Though the effects of the formula changes vary from state to state, The Times found that families with the same earnings and assets as they had in 2000 would typically have to pay an extra $1,749 before clearing the eligibility bar for financial aid in 2005, after adjusting for inflation.

[Horse with no Name]

11. I finally paid mine off

It toooook forever though.
Am now discussing with my daughter her college.
She was offered a $22k scholarship at an inexpensive--but good--university.
With some other scholarship money she has, she should be able to avoid any loans.
However, being a stubborn child, she wants to accumulate debt so she can go to the school of her choosing.
It doesn't make sense to me.:shrug:

[happyslug]

13. Where is "I defaulted on my Student Loans" .

For I found out it was cheaper for me to default and leave the government attach my wages than it was for me to pay off what the Government wanted me to pay each month. Remember just because it is a Student loans does not mean any wage attachment can exceed the Federal Restrictions on wage attachments. The Federal Government restricts attachment to no more than 25% of your gross wage (The only exception to this is taxes and child support).

Now if I was paying child support I would be in a sightly different position, for Child support gets paid before student loans. What I mean by that is if I was paying Child Support and that took more than 25% of my income (and it almost always does), the Government would have to wait till after the Support obligations ends before it would get a penny.

Yes, I do not foresee me ever paying off my student loans, so I go for the lowest payment I can on a per month basis.

[wickerwoman]

14. A little more than 50% of my monthly salary goes to paying back

student debts and it's still going to take me three years to get into the clear. And I'm lucky to have found a job that lets me save anything.

[UdoKier]

15. I have student loans, they are a burden, but credit cards are worse.

NT

[DiverDave]

16. Yep, the wave of the future...COMPUTER TECH!

these repuke donors that open bogus schools that teach NOTHING!
They get the federal money, then don't prepare students (Suckers?)
for anything close to a real job.
I went back to driving a truck and was making a delivery right next door to the "school".
I decided that going up and causing trouble would probably get me tasered/maced, so I just happened to see the placement person ( you know, 98% get a job!}
She had the balls to tell me that the new meme is to...wait for it.......start my OWN BUSINESS!!
Yep, no practical experience, no real education...and I'm supposed to START MY OWN BUSINESS.
I just laughed and told her that said biz would last, oh, 2 weeks...
So now 16K in loans, falling farther and farther behind.
I don't know how I am going to pay it off...oh well, so much for "pulling myself up by my boot straps"

Oh, and nominated to greatest

[DiverDave]

17. Anybody else?

eom

[raccoon]

18. I didn't fall into any of those categories

but I can tell you I sympathize with 20-somethings nowadays.
I have a few co-workers, college-educated, personable, who are having a hell of a time getting a full-time, benefited job.

I think it's much harder for a person to get started in life than it was in the '70s.

I was fortunate in that I finished college in the early '70s.
My father died when I was a kid and survivor's Social Security kept on paying all the way through college in those days.

During the Reagan administration, they put a stop to that.
Another thing to thank the Republicans for. But of course both parties really belong to big business anyway. The Republicans are just more open about it.