MSU Red Cedar Message Board

I guess I just didn't think you could carry that much debt is what I'm saying. I understand the cost of grad school, and congratulations to you, it will pay off, but how are banks giving out that much money is what I'm wondering. Good for you though, and your wife, it will pay off handsomely.

This has probably been covered, but if you have a car, a house, or a credit card you owe on, this was a bad choice.
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Car is a lease. So is my house. No credit card debt to speak of. So I got that going for me. Which is nice.

Well..... You should have bought a house 8 months ago or so................................

Payments only count from 2008 and forward (or whenever it was the bill was signed into law).

i had something similar ... wife and i went back to school for our masters (in her case another undergrad too) and came out with a ton of debt ... roughly 100k but that was 15 years ago.

Just think ... when you start actually earning, your taxes will go up (way up) and you'll get to watch people on tv complain about you ... because you and wife will be part of the "top" 5%. (($150K+). You are so damn lucky!

We paid off over 50k last summer to kill our variable private loans. The fed fixed rate loans are left and under 2% for 30 yrs. It sucked setting up that debit online.

At least that debt goes to an asset. Where do your lease and rent payments go? FWIW, my mortgage, taxes and insurance only amounts to $650/month. Not many 3 bedroom 1500 square foot rentals go that cheap.

And when I'm done making payments, the car and house are mine. Don't need to reup a lease or get a new car.

As for putting the extra money toward debt, that's great if you're already financially secure and are doing it as part of a thought out plan. Paying it just for the sake of paying it doesn't do much other than make you feel better. If you don't have an emergency fund set up, for instance, that payment could come back to bite you if you lose your job or something else comes up. This is because the loan servicer isn't going to give you future credit for that. "Oh you made a large payment last month? That's nice. The monthly payment is due on the 1st still, thank you."

I wonder what the delinquency rate is nationally on student loans? Must be pretty high based on the stinking job market. I co-signed student loans for a close relative and she has missed a couple of payments. The lender is now looking to me to either pay the delinquency amount or pay the balance off of $30,000. Being a co-signer puts me in the shoes of the debtor and it's like putting blood in the water with sharks around.

My god you win. Did you do undergrad, Law School, Med School, and then evil Med School as well? That's quite a hefty sum.

That's where I was as well, and I'm still pretty bad. I've been paying on my loans for 3 years, dropped an $85k inheritance on them, and I still have 150k left with interests varying between 3% and 8%. Fortunately, I work for the state government so some of them will be forgiven in 10 years. My monthly payments (around 1200$, double the "minimum" and more than I can really afford) only touches about 30-50$ of principal.

Are you sure? A 7k lump sum payment would be less than 5% of mine...

Good for you. I just wrote an $80k check and am only 1/2 done. I try not to think about it too much.