Student Loan Debt

I have had student loans for 12 years, only 8 years to go

I worked full time for the university while I went there, so other than my freshman year I didn't have any student loans.  I also happen to be in a financial position to ensure my children will graduate without owing a dollar as well.

The upside to student loans is that students could attend any college they met the academic requirements for, regardless of cost.  The downside is universities knowing that the loans were available and guaranteed by the federal government continuously raised tuition prices to where they are today.

I'm torn between paying off my whole loan or just continue making the minimum payments as is and just forget about it until it is paid off.

The other option is for me to just make 3 or 4 times the minimum payment and reduce the amount of years I will have my loan.

I just have to sit down and make the calculation and how much it is going to cost me to continue the loan and for how long!

In general I was lucky that I only needed to take out loans for just my last two years & then my grad degree so it isn't as much as it could have been!

I feel for anyone paying loans as it can be a burden especially with the economy going up and down!

Same here.  I decided to just pay the minimum since my interest rates are under 3% on the loans.  I can do better by paying down other debt first.

I think the fact that my interest rate is at 2.5% right now this weighs heavily on my decision as well!

The interest rate on most of my loans (federal unsubsidized Stafford loans) is 6.8%. For my last year it was 3.86%. I graduated in January, loans came due in June, I got a forbearance for a year because I didn't have full-time employment. Now that I do have a job, I'll probably cancel that around the end of the year and start making payments. I'm going to be paying them off for about a dozen years. My parents were in a position where they could pay for part of my tuition, but where I didn't really qualify for any need-based aid, aside from the federal unsubsidized loans. Some of the schools I was accepted into (specifically Northeastern and Boston University) offered merit-based aid, though only to the point where it would have brought the costs down to the school I ended up going to (University of Delaware). Also didn't help that my UDel raised costs about $7,000 or so between when I applied and when I graduated college. Most of my friends - especially those who got a degree in something that is less specialized or pretty much requires grad school or doesn't really lead to full-time employment right away, or those who didn't go to a public school - are in much worse shape than I am, although just the fact that I found a job is pretty darn lucky. I dunno. I liked Delaware a lot but if I could do it all over again I would have put much more thought into UMass Amherst. I applied there and they accepted me, but it was my safety school and I got into all my reaches. My MCAS grades qualified me for free tuition. Could've gotten out of there practically in the black.

Good school. I liked the campus, and took 3 courses there one summer.

I'm trying to figure out ways to get scholarships for my son and daughter. School is really expensive.

Just read an article that 40 million Americans have student loan debt. Over $1 trillion. Over 47% of all students that graduate from a 2-year or diploma post-secondary program default on a student loan payment within the first 3 months. These are some of the facts about student loan debt.

It's the next economic bubble coming to the USA...

I just pulled this up right after you posted this.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/10/pf/college/student-loans/

This is a lot of money. If the graduates are able to find jobs, they might have a better chance of paying the debt.

One possible solution is probably something on the lines of creating more jobs in the private sector. This is something we don't really need to vote on.

That's one piece. Another is for kids to stop believing they need a 4-year degree and maybe grad school to "make it." Especially since they often finance the entire thing. Another is for for-profit diploma factories to just go away and have on-the-job training. You can get a $15,000 student loan for a 9-month diploma in medical assisting or massage therapy and be competing with about 200 other graduates in your class. I used to teach at a for-profit school and many of the students were just there because they didn;t want to work in retail. Some were on their third diploma program, all financed by the Dept. of Ed. I've spent a lot of time studying this topic. Basic financial education is absent from the minds of many teenagers. Upper middle class whites are guiltier than most, in my experience. Not the rich. Not low-incomes or minorities. It's the kids like the gang from Ferris Bueller who end up at a private school and come out with a mortgage payment owed to the Dept of Ed.