Who here has student loan debt? How much, and what is your level of education? How has it been paying it off? How much do you pay for month?
I'm about 14k or so in student loan debt (federal stafford loans) from my undergraduate Bachelor's degree. Not too bad. My payments are around 50 per month. I think I am only paying that low because I told them I plan on going back to school.
My degree is a humanities degree but actually I was able to find decent work with it. Decent as in enough to pay the bills and have some extra money... routine boring office-work, but a little specialized to my area of study.
Still though, it really wasn't what I wanted to be doing. I'm 24 and, besides writing, there is nothing I really want to do job wise. Copywriting was okay but I couldn't do that forever. I'm not trained in journalism so I can't go there, nor would I want to. The only thing I think I would enjoy would be teaching at a college level or teaching English as a second language. Office work was soul draining.
So I applied, and got in, to a fancy NYC private art school to do an MFA in writing. If I ever want to teach at a university level in my field, a masters is required. Plus it gives you a lot more credibility and connects you to networking opportunities for things like publishing. I have work coming out in two journals so far, but I think even more doors would open with this degree.
Only drawback is, even with the above average funding they gave me, I still need to borrow about 19k to pay tuition this year, and another 19k next year if I don't get a T.A. position. So combined with my undergrad debt, I could be in as much as 50k debt by 26 years old. I'm a little worried about that. But all of my loans are government, not private. And I would qualify for an income based repayment plan.
But will this degree actually help me land a better job? Not necessarily. It'll definitely help my writing though, and possibly finding a wider audience for it, more opportunities.
But I wonder if I could eventually do that on my own without having to go to graduate school and plunge myself into all this debt.
So I'm seeking some advice from people that have been through undergrad and maybe grad school too. Was it worth it? What's it like living with the debt? Is 50k even that much? I won't have a car, house, or credit payment, if that makes a difference. (I rent, use public transit and I don't pay for things using credit - well, unless you consider tuition, since it has an interest rate).
I'm about 14k or so in student loan debt (federal stafford loans) from my undergraduate Bachelor's degree. Not too bad. My payments are around 50 per month. I think I am only paying that low because I told them I plan on going back to school.
My degree is a humanities degree but actually I was able to find decent work with it. Decent as in enough to pay the bills and have some extra money... routine boring office-work, but a little specialized to my area of study.
Still though, it really wasn't what I wanted to be doing. I'm 24 and, besides writing, there is nothing I really want to do job wise. Copywriting was okay but I couldn't do that forever. I'm not trained in journalism so I can't go there, nor would I want to. The only thing I think I would enjoy would be teaching at a college level or teaching English as a second language. Office work was soul draining.
So I applied, and got in, to a fancy NYC private art school to do an MFA in writing. If I ever want to teach at a university level in my field, a masters is required. Plus it gives you a lot more credibility and connects you to networking opportunities for things like publishing. I have work coming out in two journals so far, but I think even more doors would open with this degree.
Only drawback is, even with the above average funding they gave me, I still need to borrow about 19k to pay tuition this year, and another 19k next year if I don't get a T.A. position. So combined with my undergrad debt, I could be in as much as 50k debt by 26 years old. I'm a little worried about that. But all of my loans are government, not private. And I would qualify for an income based repayment plan.
But will this degree actually help me land a better job? Not necessarily. It'll definitely help my writing though, and possibly finding a wider audience for it, more opportunities.
But I wonder if I could eventually do that on my own without having to go to graduate school and plunge myself into all this debt.
So I'm seeking some advice from people that have been through undergrad and maybe grad school too. Was it worth it? What's it like living with the debt? Is 50k even that much? I won't have a car, house, or credit payment, if that makes a difference. (I rent, use public transit and I don't pay for things using credit - well, unless you consider tuition, since it has an interest rate).
but the balance combined is only a few thousand so the repayments should be over before statute expiry (15 years). Also interest rates are rather low floating at 3,5% (prime plus 2,5%)...and these low rates areone of the disincentives I guess in NOT paying it off earlier. But now it could be worth just paying it off....tossup
I had to get a few deferments, but I was able to pay all loans off back when I was meanfully employed. 
