Or did you after graduation? I certainly did. I had almost $20,000 in student loans and it took me almost seven years to pay them off. I know that may seem like a long time but I had a whole bunch of other debt to pay off as well and I continued accumulating debt. To make a long story short my financial life was a mess from the time I was 25 to the time I was 32. That’s a long time.
Should student loans be maxed at an amount that can be repaid?
However now I’m almost 35 years old (in October) and I can finally say I’m in a good financial place. Unfortunately I can’t say the same for all my friends. Remember my friend Laura? She’s the one who’s boyfriend bought a house for his parents without consulting her.
Over lunch the other day we were talking about how she’s still paying off her student loans and I thought it seemed a bit weird that she still had student loans because we graduated almost 10 years ago, but to each his own. I definitely think a student’s life is a lot harder when they graduate with tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
Should education be affordable for everyone?
As I listened to Laura talk about her financial situation I couldn’t help but think back to a recent episode of Shark Tank that I watched. There was a young college student pitching an app to the Sharks that let students find a plethora of available bursaries in their area..
This student actually received over $1 million in student bursaries to help pay for his education. My first initial thought was “WOW that’s great” because you don’t need to repay bursaries (unlike student loans) so basically he received a free education. I personally think that education should be free or at least affordable for students who qualify because they are the future of our country and economy.
Should student bursaries be capped?
However after a little more thought I wondered why one student was able to be awarded over $1 million in bursaries as I’m pretty sure his education didn’t cost that much. Basically he received a free education and doesn’t need to eat Ramen noodles after graduation because he is graduating with money in the bank. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
I am all about helping students make the most of their college years because I know my grades suffered since I had to work full time. However just take a moment and think of all the other students who could have also gone to school if this one student would have just taken the amount of money he needed to pay for his education and nothing more.
Did you graduate with student loans?
Kristina Tahnyak
Tahnya is a Certified Financial Planner and former Investment Advisor turned marketing and communications professional She holds a degree from Concordia University, is debt free and currently works in the field of digital marketing.
Fortunately I didn’t graduate with student loans, thanks to the military! But I do know friends that took the loans and kept their college money from the military for their fun spending. Ouch. Even if loans are necessary I wouldn’t recommend taking out any more than you need!
During my senior year of high school, my grandmother passed away. It was a sad time, but the money they received when she passed away provided my parents with the ability to pay for what scholarships didn’t cover when I went to college. Sadly, my husband’s parents weren’t able to help him financially with his college costs, so we are working on paying his down. When he graduated in 2011, his loans were around $20,000. It has been 4 years since then and we have the total down below $8,000. I know we probably could have done some side hustles and got the total lower or completely gone by now, but we haven’t. But we have been paying more than is due each month, so we hope to be done with them soon :)
Also, I recently went back to college to get a business degree and my employer is paying for it through tuition reimbursement.
Another thing I recently heard about is that if you want to be a teacher, the state of Missouri will pay for some or all of your schooling (I didn’t hear all of the details) and all you have to do is work within the state of Missouri teaching for 4 years. If teaching was my passion, that would definitely be something I would look into.