"Out of Student Loans and Treehouse Homes, We All Would Take the Latter"
So, I thought it would be fitting to talk about student loans; since I just learned that after paying on mine for two years, I still owe more than I borrowed.
But first, I want to back up to my younger days because this is my blog and I like to talk about myself, apparently. :)
I graduated high school at 17: barely. I was not a good student; which my husband likes to "jokingly" point out since he's the School Resource Officer and has access to all that information. Only later in life--when I was working on my Master's--did I learn that I have moderate ADHD (inattentive type) and that probably has a lot to do with my poor performance in school.
My senior year, I was working at Del Taco somewhere in between part and full-time. It was probably way more hours than I should've been working which also was likely to have factored into that crap school record of mine. I started working full-time at a local Day Care the Monday after High School Graduation. I kept my job at Del Taco for the summer, to make sure the day care was going to work out. Once I started college at the local community college, I quit Del Taco and continued working at the Day Care. In College, I only took inconsequential classes, really. Photography, Health Science, etc. I wasn't quite ready to take on the scary reality of real academic college classes.
I was barely passing my classes; even once I started taking Child Development classes, as that was a requirement to keeping my job. I joined the Navy about a year out of High School and continued taking insignificant classes here and there; though I was STILL just barely passing them.
It wasn't until I was discharged from the Navy and took on Stay-at-home-mom and Full-Time Student as my official titles that I even REALIZED that I could do well in school. When my first quarter ended and I received all A's I was ecstatic! And I had a realization that if I really put my mind to it, I could actually get good grades. Y'all, I was 23 at this point and I had a realization that I probably should've had in my teens: at least.
I worked my butt off taking double the normal load so I could get as much out of my GI Bill as possible. For those of you who don't know, while the GI Bill does have a cap on the amount of money you use, if you're not going to an Ivy League School or something, you'll probably be okay monetarily. The amount of time of the GI Bill is what I was worried about. You get 3 years worth of money. Now, the good part about that is that they don't count breaks from school, so you can stretch it out pretty far if you try.
I was able to complete my Associate's, my Bachelor's, and almost my Master's using my GI Bill which I am so grateful for. I know many people who ended up with $80,000 plus in student loans, so I'm aware it could be much worse. Initially, it was looking like I was going to be just one quarter shy of my Master's when my GI Bill time ran out.
Due to scheduling conflicts, I chose to put my internship off until I completed all of my classes. I was working full-time and was expected to complete 20 hours a week at my internship site, along with 3 classes which typically met from 6pm to 10pm on week nights. There just were not enough hours in the day. Keep in mind I also had a husband and two children at home, so I was already spending an incredible amount of time away from them.
Once I completed my academic classes, I started my internship which made my typical schedule 6am to 6pm, Monday through Friday. I still had the internship class which met one night a week for an hour and a half, so on those nights I went 6am to 7:30pm. Luckily, my internship was only 9 months long, so there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
At one point, I met with the Director of our program. He was a professor for my undergrad program and I took several classes from him so we were well acquainted. We were discussing the options of student loans. He urged me to only take out the amount of money I needed to cover the cost of the courses, and no more. He mentioned how the loan officer's would dangle money in front of my face with "great ideas" like, "pay off your credit card debt," "have extra money to spend," etc. The entire time I was listening to him tell me not to take more than I needed, all I could think was, "man, I could pay off my credit card debt with student loan money? That sounds amazing! What's 5% when my credit card interest rates are between 18% and 26%!"
Seriously, don't do it.
I went in thinking about taking his advice, but as soon as they did exactly what he said, I was like, "wow! That sounds amazing! Sign me up!"
I could have graduated with a small amount of student loans, but instead, graduated with almost 3 times that amount. And yes, I paid off some credit cards and used some of the money to pad our bank accounts a bit; but I also blew a ton of it on inconsequential things that seemed like a good idea at the time.
And the worst part? Because my spending habits didn't change, I used those credit cards again. So. Here we are.
Once I graduated, if I remember correctly they give you 6 months after graduation before you have to start paying on them. The problem with that, is that you're not paying, but they're accruing interest. So once I received an email to pick a payment plan, I owed SIGNIFICANTLY more than I borrowed.
I chose the graduating payment, which is where you pay less at first. I think the idea behind this is that you have time to find a job using your degree, and will make more money as the years go on. Sounds great, right? Except that for me, that low payment of only $200 a month (eye roll) wasn't even covering the interest.
I just passed my two year mark which meant that I went to the next tier of the repayment plan. It caught me off guard because SURPRISE, there was no email with any kind of heads up that this was happening. So I logged into my account just to see what the new payment was going to be, my balance, etc.
Y'ALL! MY BALANCE IS $400 MORE THAN I BORROWED! Which, okay, $400 in the grand scheme of things is not a ton, but I've paid them roughly $5,000 over the last two years and it's done NOTHING for me.
So, my advice is to pass on my Director's advice, which was to TAKE ONLY WHAT YOU NEED TO PAY FOR YOUR CLASSES!
DO NOT TAKE MORE UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.
I mean, ya know, do what you want of course. :) I'm just sharing my opinion because when I saw that I owe more than I borrowed, my heart sank. People are not kidding when they say STUDENT LOANS ARE FOREVER!!!!
On a lighter note, thanks for everyone who has stuck it out with me thus far. Thanks for reading!
But first, I want to back up to my younger days because this is my blog and I like to talk about myself, apparently. :)
I graduated high school at 17: barely. I was not a good student; which my husband likes to "jokingly" point out since he's the School Resource Officer and has access to all that information. Only later in life--when I was working on my Master's--did I learn that I have moderate ADHD (inattentive type) and that probably has a lot to do with my poor performance in school.
My senior year, I was working at Del Taco somewhere in between part and full-time. It was probably way more hours than I should've been working which also was likely to have factored into that crap school record of mine. I started working full-time at a local Day Care the Monday after High School Graduation. I kept my job at Del Taco for the summer, to make sure the day care was going to work out. Once I started college at the local community college, I quit Del Taco and continued working at the Day Care. In College, I only took inconsequential classes, really. Photography, Health Science, etc. I wasn't quite ready to take on the scary reality of real academic college classes.
I was barely passing my classes; even once I started taking Child Development classes, as that was a requirement to keeping my job. I joined the Navy about a year out of High School and continued taking insignificant classes here and there; though I was STILL just barely passing them.
It wasn't until I was discharged from the Navy and took on Stay-at-home-mom and Full-Time Student as my official titles that I even REALIZED that I could do well in school. When my first quarter ended and I received all A's I was ecstatic! And I had a realization that if I really put my mind to it, I could actually get good grades. Y'all, I was 23 at this point and I had a realization that I probably should've had in my teens: at least.
I worked my butt off taking double the normal load so I could get as much out of my GI Bill as possible. For those of you who don't know, while the GI Bill does have a cap on the amount of money you use, if you're not going to an Ivy League School or something, you'll probably be okay monetarily. The amount of time of the GI Bill is what I was worried about. You get 3 years worth of money. Now, the good part about that is that they don't count breaks from school, so you can stretch it out pretty far if you try.
I was able to complete my Associate's, my Bachelor's, and almost my Master's using my GI Bill which I am so grateful for. I know many people who ended up with $80,000 plus in student loans, so I'm aware it could be much worse. Initially, it was looking like I was going to be just one quarter shy of my Master's when my GI Bill time ran out.
Due to scheduling conflicts, I chose to put my internship off until I completed all of my classes. I was working full-time and was expected to complete 20 hours a week at my internship site, along with 3 classes which typically met from 6pm to 10pm on week nights. There just were not enough hours in the day. Keep in mind I also had a husband and two children at home, so I was already spending an incredible amount of time away from them.
Once I completed my academic classes, I started my internship which made my typical schedule 6am to 6pm, Monday through Friday. I still had the internship class which met one night a week for an hour and a half, so on those nights I went 6am to 7:30pm. Luckily, my internship was only 9 months long, so there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
At one point, I met with the Director of our program. He was a professor for my undergrad program and I took several classes from him so we were well acquainted. We were discussing the options of student loans. He urged me to only take out the amount of money I needed to cover the cost of the courses, and no more. He mentioned how the loan officer's would dangle money in front of my face with "great ideas" like, "pay off your credit card debt," "have extra money to spend," etc. The entire time I was listening to him tell me not to take more than I needed, all I could think was, "man, I could pay off my credit card debt with student loan money? That sounds amazing! What's 5% when my credit card interest rates are between 18% and 26%!"
Seriously, don't do it.
I went in thinking about taking his advice, but as soon as they did exactly what he said, I was like, "wow! That sounds amazing! Sign me up!"
I could have graduated with a small amount of student loans, but instead, graduated with almost 3 times that amount. And yes, I paid off some credit cards and used some of the money to pad our bank accounts a bit; but I also blew a ton of it on inconsequential things that seemed like a good idea at the time.
And the worst part? Because my spending habits didn't change, I used those credit cards again. So. Here we are.
Once I graduated, if I remember correctly they give you 6 months after graduation before you have to start paying on them. The problem with that, is that you're not paying, but they're accruing interest. So once I received an email to pick a payment plan, I owed SIGNIFICANTLY more than I borrowed.
I chose the graduating payment, which is where you pay less at first. I think the idea behind this is that you have time to find a job using your degree, and will make more money as the years go on. Sounds great, right? Except that for me, that low payment of only $200 a month (eye roll) wasn't even covering the interest.
I just passed my two year mark which meant that I went to the next tier of the repayment plan. It caught me off guard because SURPRISE, there was no email with any kind of heads up that this was happening. So I logged into my account just to see what the new payment was going to be, my balance, etc.
Y'ALL! MY BALANCE IS $400 MORE THAN I BORROWED! Which, okay, $400 in the grand scheme of things is not a ton, but I've paid them roughly $5,000 over the last two years and it's done NOTHING for me.
So, my advice is to pass on my Director's advice, which was to TAKE ONLY WHAT YOU NEED TO PAY FOR YOUR CLASSES!
DO NOT TAKE MORE UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.
I mean, ya know, do what you want of course. :) I'm just sharing my opinion because when I saw that I owe more than I borrowed, my heart sank. People are not kidding when they say STUDENT LOANS ARE FOREVER!!!!
On a lighter note, thanks for everyone who has stuck it out with me thus far. Thanks for reading!
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