I never knew debt did not have to be just a part of life
That may seem odd, but until I really started thinking about debt and reading about other people’s perspectives, I never considered a life without debt. Without credit card debt, yes, but without debt at all? The concept just seemed strange.
When I applied for college I filled out a FASFA because I came from a lower-income family and I knew there was no way I was going to college at all without some (read: lots of) financial aid. I ended up getting a very generous financial aid package to my top choice school that funded about 85% of my tuition and room and board via grants. But the other 15% was split up into loans (~10%) and my parents expected contribution (~5%).
I never even considered *not* taking out the loans for the full amount specified in my financial aid package. Part of my parents contribution section was me having a work study job on campus, so there really wasn’t a whole lot of time for me to find a separate job to pay the “loan” portion up front. And honestly, as I said, I never even considered it. This is just what was “done”, I was told. As the years in college went by, my “loan” portion crept up in my financial aid package until by my senior year, instead of ~$2000/year in loans it was closer to $5000. Really I know, in the general scheme of going to a private liberal arts college I paid very little. I left with just over $15,000 in loans to pay back “in the future”, since I was immediately starting my PhD and the loans continued to be deferred interest free until I was no longer a student.
I had a friend in high school who instead of accepting the loan portion of his financial aid package, came up with the money (I don’t know if it was through his parents or working or what) to pay the “loan” portion in cash each semester. I kind of just thought that was odd. Not odd bad but just…. odd. Why not accept the loan and pay for it later? Interest didn’t accrue until after graduation anyway!
How I wish I had done the same he did, or at least saved up the money in cash while I was in school and my graduate program and paid the loans in one fell swoop once they became due. Again, I’m not really sure how but I could have at least taken a smaller loan each year and paid *some* of it up front and tried to save a little more in graduate school than I did. I never even thought about dealing with my student loans aggressively. And by the time I do pay off my student loans (and my spouse’s as well) I shudder to calculate how much I actually have paid. I’m sure it is well over the original $15,000 in loans. But, at least now I am taking the bull by the horns so to speak. I think the expected payoff date for my loans according to Sallie Mae is sometime in 2017. Paying them off by 2010 has got to save me something ;).
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