<p>BUAndBC82…you have a good sense humor. :)</p>
<p>we just keep trading loans …H didnt go to med school until 32…finished when 40…our thought then was pay off student loans as quickly as possible, just as they were finishing, his 3 daughters from 1st marriage began their college process…here came more loans, just as those finished…along came the loans for our oldest… and now middle son…thank goodness this one got great merit aid and we can pay the additional as we go this time. still one in grade 9 too. but the sacrifice (not good but what was the choice) is a solid retirement fund… our patients sometimes ask if he plans to retire…his response…heck no i still have student loans to pay off from kids… and she (me) will push me from room to room in a wheelchair if she has to until all the kids are done LOL</p>
<p>BC/BU --yeah, that was an early 80s rate. Also had a PLUS at, I think, 9% and the GSL (old Stafford) at 7. And some smaller ones, I think the NDSL was at maybe 4. WE also had his NDSL and my GSL from undergrad.</p>
<p>Whew! We just shredded a bunch of old checks from the 90s, and I was aghast at what we were paying out each month. Boy, I don’t miss that!</p>
<p>My DH chose not to do law school as the loans offered were in excess of 11% (early 80s) He has always regretted not becoming an attorney, but I am not sure he regrets not taking those loans! And 3 kids are now through undergrad with no student loans (though our mortgage would be paid off if we had not been funding all that education, but heck you can invest in the stock market and lose it all-or at least half!- and an investment in education cannot be taken away.</p>
<p>All our kids are funding grad school with loans & some grant funding. We hope that when the loans start to come due, we can put a chunk of money towards that amount to make it better for them, but as we all know, retirement vs education is a tough decision. The question is not whether you CAN afford it, it is whether you SHOULD afford it.</p>
<p>I have been following this thread with a great deal of interest because my DD wants to go to medical school (she will be a college freshmen this fall).</p>
<p>So I am trying to understand what monthly debt payments she could tolerate if she graduated from medical school and was working as an intern/resident. I am assuming she would make $40,000 (before taxes.) I have heard that you should use no more than 10% of your pretax income to student loan payments. (Maybe I am just pulling that number out of thin air??). Therefore she could comfortably handle monthly loan payments of $350. </p>
<p>Using a loan calculator for a standard loan (6.8%,10 years), her debt should be no more than $30000. Wow! That is just one year of instate med school tuition! </p>
<p>By working and saving her gift money, she has accumulated about $20,000. So she is close to having one year’s instate tuition saved. I guess she will have work hard and live cheaply for a few years after graduation before she can come close to affording med school without too much debt. (and go to an instate school)</p>
<p>1 idea…extend the payment term out longer, say 20 years which may allow her to borrow more and then once she is making more money increase the monthly payments to shorten the term…</p>
<p>Niece just finished residency last year and started paying off her loans of >$250K. She consolidated her loans to 30-year payments and her monthly payments are about $1000 a month. Fortunately her husband does not have any school loans. They are living very frugally and only can afford one very old car between the two of them, trying to save for a down payment for a house in expensive Bay Area.</p>
<p>There is a poster on a student doctor board who is applying this year to med school with $210K of UG debt. Add to that 4 years of med school and limited repayment during residency and that student could be talking some serious coin. I believe the average med school debt is over $100K these days, for public and private med schools.</p>
<p>oh geez, may be reading about that fellow 8 years from now!!</p>
<p>I have just scanned this discussion but there are other options to taking out huge loans to go to medical school. Many MD/PhD programs not only pay the entire cost of tuition but many also give a yearly stipend. Of course the trade off is 8 years to complete instead of 4 but it is better than a huge debt–this is what our older son is doing. In addition, there is another route which was very common when my husband and I went to medical school and that was to have the military pay your way- for every year they paid you have to give them a year service as an officer- that is what my husband did.</p>
<p>litguy, congrats to your son!. the md/phd path and military have been mentioned. the md/phd path is what my son will consider if he stays with the same plan he has now and still wants medical research rather than clinical practice…but those are tough to get into</p>
<p>My friend has a son in med school who has run up about $175K in debt. I think that the loans are structured to take into account the residence years because there is no way that he could be making payments on that amount at those salaries. He wants to go on to get a fellowship, but the debt is a major factor for him. And rightfully so. However, it is conceivable that in a few years as a doctor hew will be able to make what he owes in a year, so it is doable. I am more concerned with those kids graduating with a degree that does not tend to give big salaries and they have borrowed much more than they can expect to make in a year for a long, long time unless they hit it lucky. </p>
<p>Still, the salaries of MDs have not risen in tandem with med school costs, and I’ve heard rumbles of whether it is worthwhile to go into that much debt and put in that kind of time in terms of economic payback. With managed care becoming even a bigger issue, the salaries may be capped even more and the tax rates higher for this pay bracket, making loans for med schools a problem. </p>
<p>As for kids who go into med school with $80K in debt, and I know some who owe that much from their undergraduate loans, if they have to borrow the whole amount for medical school, the number starts getting tough for even a specialty doctor to recoup.</p>
<p>cbreeze - $250k is a big number. We were at $120k when we first started. Our payment was $1200 a month and we got it down lower after paying off some of the smaller loans. Tell your niece there really can be a light at the end of that very long tunnel. Good luck to her.</p>
<p>curmudgeon - Those are some frightening numbers. I hope that student has a plan.</p>
<p>LitGuy - We seriously considered the military, but instead opted for debt; it was a difficult decision to make. Congrats to you son.</p>
<p>Here ya go. </p>
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<p>We have always said we would not pay for grad school, but reading this, if son chose to go to med school or law school I am pretty sure we would pay a significant amount of the tuition.</p>
<p>My guess is we are going to start seeing an expansion of the military model to the private sector - a practice or managed care company will front the money for med school, and in return the doctor will work for them for some number of years at a modest but livable salary. Leave before your time is up and then you will have to repay the money. Or maybe the gov’t will fund it.</p>
<p>It may be the only way to increase the supply of family doctors.</p>
<p>^^^^ this may have to happen and not just for family doctors but any office based (non surgical) specialist…they are paid the same as family doctors, but often have longer residencies and therefore could have more loans. they may or may not have more expensive office/testing equipment to support the tests necessary for their specialty ie more office loans.<br>
another example of the recent changes in reimbursements…medicare no longer recognizes a specialist consultation… these are now paid at an office visit level… despite the increased length of time spent and documentation required to send to the referring doctor and review of all previous studies in order to render an opinion. right now bc and caid still recognize the consult codes but usually follow medicare shortly after they change things.</p>
<p>DD starts in August at the state medical school. Their projected COA is between 440-45k, assuming costs rise over the 4 years, it ought to be $180k COA over 4 years.</p>
<p>DD will hopefully be more frugal than that, we know if one $3k scholarship already and she is assigned a satellite campus where rent is half that of the big city campus. DD plans to take the full loan amount the first quarter and then reduce subsequent loans once she knows what her real expensese will be. Tuition is tuition, but living expenses may have room to shrink.</p>
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Or rise, unfortunately, for some. Her COA is $65K first year and rises every other year. Med school budgets don’t have auto expenses in them and many presume dorms or other communal living. The princess I raised has other ideas. I’m thinking she’ll bring it back down in range once she finds a roomie and determines there is no need for her vehicle.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon, is you D borrowing for med school? I know my friend’s son who went to Emory for med school did need a car for working at the hospitals his last two years. No good alternative, and he did not live in a dorm either. </p>
<p>Maybe I shouldn’t encourage S’s med school interest. The only saving grace is that my kids so far have little or no loans for undergrad.</p>