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$600 in Monthly Student Loan Payments

Here is how $100,ooo of student loan debt is affecting one woman registered on the StudentLoanList: 

Having over 100K in student loan debt means I have to pay around 600/month in student loans (and that’s with my federal loans being on the income based repayment while my private loans don’t offer that).  This means that I can’t afford to live somewhere on my own.  I currently live with family.  I also have one vehicle with over 100,000 miles on it that I’m trying to take care of, but if it ever dies, I won’t be able to afford the payment for a new vehicle unless I stop buying food.  I drive about 40 miles a day for work so that’s always a concern for me.

If I didn’t have to worry about student loan debt, I would be able to relax a little and actually enjoy life a little instead of having every last penny going to bills and barely surviving.  I’m not materialistic and don’t want for a lot of things, but it would be nice to be able to afford to travel, or go out to dinner with friends, or just know that I can afford to actually start a savings for the future.

I know that there are people out there that believe if you took out the debt, you should have to pay it back.  I also know that many of us who have so much debt incurred it to pay for school, assist with their cost of living while attending classes, and maybe also help pay for a spouse’s schooling in hopes of getting a high paying job after they graduated when the reality is that most people don’t ever make that huge income they were “sure to get”.  The schools really push you into feeling like the debt you’re taking out will pay off right away.  They make it easy for you to take out more than you need and dangle dreams of making close to six figures a year in front of you once you graduate so that you’ll pour everything you have and all of your future into attaining a degree.  They tell stories of the person who graduated and landed the great paying job to motivate and entice you.  Who wouldn’t want that, right?

The American Dream laid out by colleges is that you go to school, get a degree, and make tons of money after you graduate.  The reality is that you go to school, incur a lot of debt because of it, and, for most of us, make a modest amount of money that doesn’t include enough to afford rent, food, gas, a car payment, insurance, AND the 600-1000 dollars per month for your student loan debt on top of it.  Student loan debt really limits your life for at least your next 30 years and what you can contribute to society.  If we weren’t paying off student loans, then more of our money would be going into other parts of the economy including small local businesses.  We could live and be part of life instead of merely surviving it.

 

 

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