Oregon and Washington Science Network
Student Debt
Hi All,
I am sitting here at the begining of the month getting ready to pay my student loans. I was wondering if people felt prepared for the monthly costs or were you suprised when it came down to it? For those of you still in school do you feel like you will be able to afford you student debt?
I think that in the begining when signing my first contract it seemed like so much money from what I was used to after being a student for sooooooo long. The reality is that once the monthly bill are paid there is not as much left as I thought there would be. It is a bigger pill to swallow!!!
I am sitting here at the begining of the month getting ready to pay my student loans. I was wondering if people felt prepared for the monthly costs or were you suprised when it came down to it? For those of you still in school do you feel like you will be able to afford you student debt?
I think that in the begining when signing my first contract it seemed like so much money from what I was used to after being a student for sooooooo long. The reality is that once the monthly bill are paid there is not as much left as I thought there would be. It is a bigger pill to swallow!!!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Dan Lewer on -
I agree that student loans are too much of the monthly paycheck. I have recently consolidated and the individual handling this offered a program to me that at first I felt guilty about but then realized that ultimately it made good business sense. Due to the fact that we graduate in June, that means our first yr we only receive half a yrs paycheck. This means that due to our now current monthly bills compared to annual income that we would qualify for economic hardship. Economic hardship means that we can defer again for a yr, but can make payments without interest accruement. This for me meant I save 8k in a yr. That is kinda a big deal.
Ultimately we made a commitment to our practices, and I know that our generation X (as a whole) is getting a bad review, but having been on the numbers side of practice management now, a hard working semi competent veterinarian is worth their wt in gold. Due to the learning curve of the first yr, and training purposes and the costs associated with training, most of us if not all of us are in a great position to re-up our contract with a 20% salary / benefit increase. Don't let the baby-boomers try to tell us (obviously if certain clinics aren't doing as well as others this statement could change) that times are tough and we're going to have to either stay at current salary or take a pay cut. We all have HUGE student loans (me = 112k) and need to still be able to live life comfortably as we deserve. My "comfortable" defined as being able to have one wk long vacation (not flying anywhere) in a yr and be able to purchase a beer and feel guilty.
It is a huge bummer that we graduated with rates as high as they are. When I graduated undergrad rates were 3%
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Permalink Reply by Tori Steinmetz-Lewis on -
Hi Guys,
Well, I just defered all of them. I will have to start paying on some of them in June, but the federal loans are deferable under economic hardship for 3 years. Even without the fudge factor of only working 1/2 a year, we still qualified for economic deferment.
The loans are a gut wrenching amount of money though, and quite frankly I will find every way possible to defer them until I can't any longer, because as graduate leverage taught while we were in school, the slower you can possibly pay back your loans the less vet school costs you because our loans are generally lower in interest rate than the rate of inflation. Yeah, I don't really know, but they are all have MBAs from Harvard.
Tori
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Permalink Reply by Kolby V on -
Whats up everyone,
With regards to the loans, I actually started paying them back in January, My wife and I wanted to start lowering the debt as fast as we could. For the first 6 months we paid the interest on my private loan from freshmen yr and extra principal if possible. I feel that the new grads in the nexts few years w/this economy are up for a real challenge as the debt increases and salaries might not be increasing,, It does suck with one of my checks more than half of it goes to loans but I guess that is life. $800 a month for me is a lot but we are finding ways to make the payments and still live comfortably. The real test for us will be soon as we introduce our newest son this month and there come more baby expenses. Oh well,
Take care everybody
Kolby
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