Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with schoolloans

Being an adult sucks. Can I be 18 again?

lizjohn — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:44:25 -0800

Help me/us gain perspective about working while in school, please! My husband and I have been going back and forth about what to do about school and work.

The boring background information: I worked full-time while I put myself through my first degree. My grades were good enough to graduate with honors from a state school, but they weren't stellar. I believe in accruing as little debt as possible while in school. When my husband attended college (he didn't finish) he was in a very time consuming program and only worked at his college radio station one night a week. He essentially didn't work and took out a loan to get by. We only recently paid off that loan.

Now: We are both going back to school and both have eyes on very competitive programs. My husband in struggling balancing school and work. We both have about 50 hours of school work left until we can apply to our professional programs. We have our two school days off, but the problem lies in the rest of the week. We both work in the retail world and could be scheduled anytime between 7am and 11pm. Simply to keep these jobs, we must maintain very open availability. The job market here is poor and most job moves we could make would be laterally in pay and in requiring open availability.

My argument: It's better live off your current wages and take out loans for tuition only. No point compounding loans when we can just take out as minimal as possible. Caveat, I know that once we get into professional school we will definitely take out loans. The question lies in the undergraduate and prerequisite courses.

His argument: School loans are among the cheapest/best type of loans to take. It is better to do your very best in school to get into the best programs then to just get by and get into an OK program (if you get in at all). We could power through school faster and with the "good jobs" we could get with these degrees, the loans would be easily paid off. We could scrape by living simply for years.

Further financial details: We own our car and we rent an apartment. We have some credit card debt and we are actively paying it down. My husband receives some grants for school, which cover most of his tuition. I have 5k in bonds set aside for emergency, some of which will mature soon. In 2012 we will receive the proceeds from a moderately sized annuity which we had earmarked for a down payment for a house. I have decent health insurance through my job, for which I need to maintain full time status. Neither of us could support both on one paycheck.

What to other people do? Do most adults work through college? What about when their spouse in attending school as well? How common is it to live off loans?

Sorry if this is rambly, we'd just like some outside prospective. We've been going back and forth about the loan situation for months.

If it matters, I'm going into pharmacy and he's going into law

Ready to pay off school loans. Where to start?

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:32:59 -0800

I'd like to pay back my student loans. Where to start? I have student loans that I defaulted on 10 years ago. Yes, I was irresponsible and immature. I'd like to now correct my mistake. But since I'm pretty sure my loans have been sold off to other collectors I'm not sure where to start. I'm not even sure how much I owe, though I believe it's around 10,000.

Who do I contact? Any pointers in the right direction would be great. Thanks.

Get me out of my dead-end legal job.

Gaz Errant — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 07:34:49 -0800

Help me figure out to do with myself. I'm an early-30's lawyer with school loans well into the 6-digit range. I live in NYC. I hate what I do, I know what I like and am good at, but have no idea how to get from what I'm doing now to what I need to be doing. I graduated from a top tier law school with middling grades in 2001. I have little substantive law experience, because I've been working document review for most of my legal career.

I currently work temp jobs as a document reviewer in NYC (working 55-75 hours per week with no benefits and no job security). The work pays well enough for me to live in NY, pay my giant loan bill, and still save some (small amount of) money. But it's horrible, dull, annoying work, and document reviewers are often looked on as a lower caste of lawyer by the attorneys who are actually working the case.

For a couple months earlier this year, I worked as a legal recruiter. I found that I love working with people, putting a deal together, negotiating through problems... but I absolutely HATED calling people to drum up business. So I quickly realized that line of work would not work out for me.

I also love (and am quite good at) spotting and solving problems, working with technology (I'm unofficial tech support everywhere I go), and explaining concepts in a clear and concise fashion.

So, to sum up: I hate my job, and it doesn't actually use any of my skills. I can't afford to take time off to get another degree, and I can't really go to school at night considering the hours I work. I also can't afford to take a job unless I'm going to net (after taxes) at least 40k/year (due to the loans). I am not committed to remaining in law - I just want something that uses my skills and pays me enough to live on, while giving me job security and benefits.

Thoughts?

Can I sell a body part?

anonpeon — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 05:37:36 -0800

I can't afford to repay my student loans, entirely my fault, what should I do? Several years ago I took out education loans from Wells Fargo, loans that I have yet to pay on. I essentially disappeared for several years and now the debt collection agency has caught up with me and is attempting to collect. 3 separate loans, totaling about $55,000. They'll settle the accounts if pay half that amount within the next 30 days . I can't afford to pay this. I can't afford to pay the nearly $1,000 in monthly payments to either.

I also have about $30,000 in Federal student loans, which I pay about $200 a month on, which is also getting to be unaffordable, due to mortgage, car and child payments. Plus I got a notice saying the interest rates were supposed to go, which means more trouble.

My wife an I only make about $50,00 a year, bring home about $2000 total a month after taxes.

Yes, this mess is completely my making and yes I've been remiss in taking care of it. I accept that and realize that much of the rest of my life might be spent paying this off. I'm looking for practical advice on how I can straighten out this, please.

I'm not good with money and all of this is extremely overwhelming to the point I don't know what to do.

Is there someway I can consolidate these loans, either as a whole or partial?

Am I in danger of bankruptcy? The house and car are not in my name, they are in my wife's name, could we lose them? What would bankruptcy mean?