Yes, it is the nastiest 4-letter word of them all: debt. Just saying it makes me spit. I was discussing educational loan debt with my iFriend* Britta and it got me depressed. She and her husband are both in academia and so of course also dealing with the Big D. Our conversation got me thinking… and complaining and moping. I feel smothered by debt (and I’m sure many other former students do, too) and I can’t see an end in sight. When John and I add our debt together, it doubles. And in fact, with this new educational stint I’ve gotten myself into, I’ll easily quintuple my total. But even with my previous loans, I just can’t figure out where it all went. It built up so fast!
During my undergrad and graduate careers, I amassed about $25,000 in debt. Not too bad for two degrees at in-state schools. But I had a full academic scholarship my first 4 years and an assistantship that covered my tuition the last 2 years. And I’ve always held a job while in school too. So somehow, I still needed about $4000 a year in loans to cover God knows what. $333.33 per month. $10.96 per day. What did that get me?
If I could do it again, I’d never buy that damn $6 John Belushi poster. Or the $10 Nalgene bottle(s). I would have purchased more Ramen and less booze. I bought a nice bike for $300, but I failed to invest in a bike lock. As a consequence, I then had to reinvest in another bike, this time $400, and a good lock. I definitely want my $12 back for that crappy Dave Matthews CD, and in retrospect, that big $20 yoga ball was pretty useless. All those textbooks I never used? Those have to be at least a couple hundred bucks wasted. Then there was that $600 I spent on Lulu, but I guess she was worth it. Still, maybe I could put her to work as a sled dog or something. And I am positive I’ve spent over $1000 over the years at Starbucks and other coffee stores. (Thank God I’ve finally invested in a good coffee maker.) And all of that still only brings me to about $2358. I guess I only have myself to blame…
Even now in law school, I was lucky enough to get an academic scholarship. However generous it might be, it barely makes a dent in the $29,000 A YEAR tuition. I am still amazed that I have at least two friends that have graduated debt-free. One took 6 years to get her BS in Accounting and the other ended up with an MPA. And NO debt. I know they both had substantial help from their parents, but I am still incredibly jealous. We’ve been very careful to stay completely away from credit-card debt and we have a healthy savings account. But somehow, that is very little comfort to me. Even when I do finally graduate and hopefully have a six-figure a year job (fingers crossed), I will still be bleeding money to those damn loans. I guess you can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
*Henceforth, all internet friends will be called my iFriends.
I think I'm dying. 
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October 11, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Britta
I am lucky that my SL were consolidated in 2003 at a 1.5% rate. Inflation is taking care of a good portion of my loans, especially when I’m, gulp, 43 and make the last payment.
And in 2004, a law was passed to write off the interest paid on your SL at tax time (up to a certain amount).
Good for you for staying consumer debt free (we are too)!
Sometimes I look back and think about purchases, too. I went to a state school, worked 20 hours a week, had a few scholarships, actually had funding in graduate school both years, and I still needed an extra little bit. Tuition doubled from my freshman to senior year. I don’t regret my study abroad to Malta. I don’t regret working at a summer camp for pennies or doing my field school in summer rather than get a full time job. I was pretty frugal during the school year eating out rarely and shopping at Goodwill. And I was lucky in that Napster was legal when I was in college – no regrets over that Matchbox 20 CD 🙂
Sometimes when you first confront your SL debt, it takes your breath away. It’s not something I think people should strive for, but it something you can live with.
My biggest regret over the SL debt is that I loved college, I value college, but if I ever want to be a stay-at-home-mom, I can’t. I made an investment in my education and future career, and now I have to stick to it. No matter how frugally we live, we need both our salaries to pay those loans.
October 11, 2007 at 2:17 pm
milwaukeebuckeye
Ugh – Sara, I wish mine had only been about $25,000. For my undergraduate alone I had $40,000. That’s a shit-ton of money (to me). Nate had zero. He was baffled that he was “marrying into” so much debt, since I had also had credit cards racked up and he pays his entire balance off in full every month.
In all honesty? I wouldn’t be where I am right now if he hadn’t saved the day for me. I have only one student loan, and that’s from the first semester of graduate school – the rest is being paid for through my assistantship/scholarship. But even that $8000 ($8000!) makes my stomach turn – plus my other debt.
I seriously wish that as a freshman schools would REQUIRE you to take a class about real-life stuff like this. Sure, parents tell you credit cards are bad, blah blah blah. But maybe hearing real people come in and talk about the real situations they’ve gone through because of careless spending on the credit cards that charge 19% interest or the student loans that haunt you for life will really show them. Part of me thinks it’d be valuable as a senior, also, but let’s face it – most of the debt is probably piled up by then.
Ah – and that’s all frome for this 🙂 Sorry to be long-winded.