topic Re: $52,000 in debt in Personal Finance

$52,000 in debt

Anonymous — Thu, 11 May 2017 02:12:35 GMT

I just had a chance to look at the whole picture of my student loans. It all amounts to $52,000 and that is just absolutely frightening. My summer internship should knock off a quarter of this total. Anyways, how much student debt do you have?

Re: $52,000 in debt

Al209 — Thu, 11 May 2017 03:23:47 GMT

My wife and I have a combined $35k after about 4 years each at a state university. My wife is currently graduated and working and I am a graduate student, so we we are slowly paying down some of my wife's loans. After I graduate, we will accelerate the payment and hopefully have them gone in a 1 to 2 years.

Re: $52,000 in debt

Anonymous — Thu, 11 May 2017 16:12:35 GMT

$8500

Re: $52,000 in debt

Anonymous — Thu, 11 May 2017 16:17:32 GMT

I'm lucky -- found a job while in high school and climbed the ladder without college. But that was 30 years ago, lol.

@Anonymous wrote:
I just had a chance to look at the whole picture of my student loans. It all amounts to $52,000 and that is just absolutely frightening. My summer internship should knock off a quarter of this total. Anyways, how much student debt do you have?

How does your savings-emergency fund look? If it's near $0, make sure to use some of your summer internship money to set aside an emergency fund. Paying down debt is good, but if you don't have an emergency fund, no FICO score will save you.

Re: $52,000 in debt

Anonymous — Fri, 12 May 2017 01:54:32 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I'm lucky -- found a job while in high school and climbed the ladder without college. But that was 30 years ago, lol.

@Anonymous wrote:
I just had a chance to look at the whole picture of my student loans. It all amounts to $52,000 and that is just absolutely frightening. My summer internship should knock off a quarter of this total. Anyways, how much student debt do you have?
How does your savings-emergency fund look? If it's near $0, make sure to use some of your summer internship money to set aside an emergency fund. Paying down debt is good, but if you don't have an emergency fund, no FICO score will save you.

You are absolutely right. I plan on putting 1,500 into my savings and continue to add to that throughout the months. I plan on saving an additional 3-5k and pay 13k towards my debt by August.

Re: $52,000 in debt

Anonymous — Fri, 12 May 2017 05:14:35 GMT

I graduated with $11,000 in student loan debt in 2010. After I wiped out all my credit card **bleep** in 2014 in Bankruptcy, I attacked this debt every month. I paid mine off in full in February. I now have no debt and over $12,000 in savings.

Re: $52,000 in debt

Appleman — Fri, 12 May 2017 12:22:09 GMT

A 'guy' I work with is paying $7,000 monthly on his student loans. This is over the minimum but he wants to get out of debt.

The plan is to do this for the next 5 years......

I have $30K left on my student loans.

I feel for the people that have been sucked into the for profit technical schools and come out $25K in debt and making not much more than minimum wage.

Re: $52,000 in debt

Anonymous — Sat, 13 May 2017 02:22:50 GMT

Sadly, I honestly believe that school is a scam. Especially to those poor souls who owe hundreds of thousands of dollars. They freely hand us money with very little requirements and then expect us to pay it back. Very few people understand what the consequences are and it's very similar to 2008 where mortgage requirements were near nothing.

Re: $52,000 in debt

Anonymous — Sat, 13 May 2017 11:33:47 GMT

It's been a long, twisty path, but the principal on my own student loan debt is now only around $5,300 (or less) with a monthly payment of $73.50. Went back into regular repayment in December 2015 and the principal right now is dropping by $33 per month, will increase as the total principal declines along with the interest charged on it. About 8.6 years (103 payments) left to go on it.

Actually, nowadays I'm glad I still have this chunk left over because it appears on my credit reports as an installment loan along with my car loan. The lates on the student loan should be gone in less than four years and then assuming everything else is good we should see my scores jump upward.

Re: $52,000 in debt

Aduke1122 — Sat, 13 May 2017 20:15:47 GMT

Thankfully I only owe 4800 now , this is from a loan when I was fresh out of high school and did not understand anything about it or Credit , I stopped going to class bc I was not ready at that point in my life and so this loan that was originally 2800 has almost double with interest and fees for me going into default , I did the rehab program last year and it wiped away all my negative info regarding the loans so now I'm working on payIng it back . The only good thing about it is hat it has an IR of 2.3 bc that's what they were back in 2001 lol , sadly I will have to take out more loans come August when I return to finish my degree

Re: $52,000 in debt

Creditplz — Sun, 14 May 2017 02:21:38 GMT

Joe8185 i don't think school is a scam, I've had job offers that pay up $120,000+, due to my degree and qualifications (school cost my parents $180,000).

My good friend has $100,000+ in student loans from medical school mainly and its paying off for him.

I DO however think school is getting ridiculously overpriced! It's getting unfair for those getting master degrees to be a teacher making a honest $60k/yr give or take.

Re: $52,000 in debt

Anonymous — Mon, 15 May 2017 00:41:11 GMT

@Creditplz wrote:
Joe8185 i don't think school is a scam, I've had job offers that pay up $120,000+, due to my degree and qualifications (school cost my parents $180,000).

My good friend has $100,000+ in student loans from medical school mainly and its paying off for him.

I DO however think school is getting ridiculously overpriced! It's getting unfair for those getting master degrees to be a teacher making a honest $60k/yr give or take.

Indeed.

We have to remember the original purpose of the university. It was a center for acquiring and developing knowledge. For example: In the 1300's, the huge majority of people did not go to university, and did not care. Most of them could not even read. The people who did, were genuinely interested in things that they were studying. It was like being on a sports team where ever play is a star-player. Few of these people thought, I hate being here, but this will get me a good job when I graduate.

Fast-forward to the present, and that is exactly what is happening. Most people who go to college do so to secure their careers. And a career today depends highly on the utility of what is studied. What company wants to pay someone for knowing Plato?

Then, when considering utility, where some knowledge is not very useful to a corporation, such as philosophy, and some knowlege, if you are good enough, might get you a few million $ sign-on bonus/retention bonus, one must ask the following question:

Are all degrees equally worth $50,000 in debt?

The answer is: NO.

And therein lies the problem. The university does not distinguish between types of degrees when specifying tuition costs. They present one fixed cost, and all students pay that.

So you are both right.

If you major in engineering mathematics to work on Wall Street as a quantitative analyst (stock-trading programmer), then yes, $50,000 debt is probably worth it, because your starting salary will probably be $140,000 or more. If you major in Comparative Literature, then it is probably not, at least not beyond its use as proving that you have the discipline and determination to suffer through something distasteful, a virtue that you can prove in much less expensive ways.

And don't believe all that non-sense about the Humanities degrees giving people critical-thinking skills. That's a crock, cooked up by people who studied Humanities, to make themselves feel better in the face of a flip-flop-wearing engineer driving an $80,000 Lexus. To add insult to injury, whereas a Humanties major might hate working at Starbucks "for the time being", that flip-flop-wearing engineer actually likes his job.

Re: $52,000 in debt

Anonymous — Mon, 15 May 2017 15:51:52 GMT

College doesn't guaranteed a high paying job. Like you mentioned, if I was a art or a humanities major, I would not survive after college with 120,000 in debt! There are a few lucky people who end up in lucrative careers in those fields but the majority will be at the mercy of their debt for years to come. This is why I think college is a scam. They don't tell you the cold hard truth about your major and they offer you 6 figure number CASH to pay for tuition. I can't even buy a home with NO income, how can you just willy nilly hand hundreds of thousands of dollars to high school graduates?

Re: $52,000 in debt

Anonymous — Mon, 15 May 2017 16:49:41 GMT

@Creditplz wrote:
Joe8185 i don't think school is a scam, I've had job offers that pay up $120,000+, due to my degree and qualifications (school cost my parents $180,000).

My good friend has $100,000+ in student loans from medical school mainly and its paying off for him.

I DO however think school is getting ridiculously overpriced! It's getting unfair for those getting master degrees to be a teacher making a honest $60k/yr give or take.

I'm not the one who asserted that, you must be confusing me with someone else. I do agree with you, though - college is getting to cost WAY too much. The student loan in question, for law school, totaling $25k for law school in the second half of the 1980's and that would be cheap these days.

At that, though, students going to "traditional" colleges and universities, most of which are non-profits, don't have the issues of those who are going to for-profit universities. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if some of those for-profit schools are scams.

Re: $52,000 in debt

luxeprw9 — Mon, 15 May 2017 16:58:54 GMT

Thank God I'm down to $9,800!! Will be paid off by the end of this year! Woo hoo!!

Re: $52,000 in debt

DeeBee78 — Tue, 16 May 2017 04:24:11 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I just had a chance to look at the whole picture of my student loans. It all amounts to $52,000 and that is just absolutely frightening. My summer internship should knock off a quarter of this total. Anyways, how much student debt do you have?

$0. I went to state college, and worked while I was in school. $2,200 a semester, including books. This was 2004-2007.

Re: $52,000 in debt

Anonymous — Tue, 16 May 2017 13:48:50 GMT

I have 86K WOOT WOOT! When I hear news stories about people with 20-30K in debt and unable to pay or frightening I just laugh thinking I would trade them my balance anyday lol. At least it sounds like your on the path to pay it off. My balance does not scare me, I just think of it as another mortgage since I already own my current residence. Monthly payments are 989$ which I just treat it as a entry level home payment. Thinking like this keeps me sane and not scared at all.

Re: $52,000 in debt

CleanCredit — Wed, 17 May 2017 06:44:51 GMT

Graduated two years ago with $53K in Student Loan debt. Currently at $40K. It sucks, but without that degree I wouldn't have the job I do now. My goal is to have it all paid off within the next 5 years.

Re: $52,000 in debt

Anonymous — Thu, 18 May 2017 21:50:52 GMT

About $80,000 in student loan debt. Thankfully I'm working in my field and my grad degree does help (a bit) with my salary, but I live in a ridiculously expensive city that nearly negates the benefits. I downsized my apartment, overhauled my spending habits and am getting rid of my CC debt ($5K) in order to prepare for repayment that's coming up next year.

I try to advise recent high school grads to think long and hard about their options. Education is too expensive for little return and some of these institutions are predatory.

Re: $52,000 in debt

tacpoly — Thu, 18 May 2017 22:50:01 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Indeed.

We have to remember the original purpose of the university. It was a center for acquiring and developing knowledge. For example: In the 1300's, the huge majority of people did not go to university, and did not care. Most of them could not even read. The people who did, were genuinely interested in things that they were studying. It was like being on a sports team where ever play is a star-player. Few of these people thought, I hate being here, but this will get me a good job when I graduate.

Fast-forward to the present, and that is exactly what is happening. Most people who go to college do so to secure their careers. And a career today depends highly on the utility of what is studied. What company wants to pay someone for knowing Plato?

Then, when considering utility, where some knowledge is not very useful to a corporation, such as philosophy, and some knowlege, if you are good enough, might get you a few million $ sign-on bonus/retention bonus, one must ask the following question:

Are all degrees equally worth $50,000 in debt?

The answer is: NO.

And therein lies the problem. The university does not distinguish between types of degrees when specifying tuition costs. They present one fixed cost, and all students pay that.

So you are both right.

If you major in engineering mathematics to work on Wall Street as a quantitative analyst (stock-trading programmer), then yes, $50,000 debt is probably worth it, because your starting salary will probably be $140,000 or more. If you major in Comparative Literature, then it is probably not, at least not beyond its use as proving that you have the discipline and determination to suffer through something distasteful, a virtue that you can prove in much less expensive ways.

And don't believe all that non-sense about the Humanities degrees giving people critical-thinking skills. That's a crock, cooked up by people who studied Humanities, to make themselves feel better in the face of a flip-flop-wearing engineer driving an $80,000 Lexus. To add insult to injury, whereas a Humanties major might hate working at Starbucks "for the time being", that flip-flop-wearing engineer actually likes his job.

This is BS. A person can major in anything and be successful as long as they have a goal and a realistic plan to attain that goal. All of my college friends who studied Comp. Lit., English, etc... are lawyers making bank. Whereas I know hard-core science PhD and CS majors that are totally underemployed outside their fields. I will preempt one argument by saying that we all graduated from top 10 schools (US and world wide), undergrad and grad.