<p>Are you worried your child is taking on unmanageable student loan debt?</p>
<p>Have you taken out loans in your child's name?</p>
<p>Who will be responsible for paying these back, you or your child?</p>
<p>I've seen varying perspectives on this. Recently some articles have come out suggesting that student loan debt actually increases borrowers' confidence levels, because it tends to correlate with personal enrichment.</p>
<p>It would also be interesting to see how a student's choice of major affects how much loan debt is comfortable, and to hear from parents whose kids are already in the repayment stage.</p>
<p>My son will only have to borrow $21,500. That’s unsub staffords for soph - sr years. So, we’re not terribly worried about him. </p>
<p>My D will probably borrow 4 years of unsub staffords ($26,000) for undergrad, plus who-knows-what for physical therapy grad school. (Assuming she sticks with that life plan.) I’m a little worried about this. </p>
<p>Son recently decided he wants to be a theatre major. We said, “fine, but we’re not paying $55,000 per year for that. Change schools or pick a different major.” He decided to stay at the school he loves and make theatre a minor. </p>
<p>Will we help them pay off their loans? I don’t know. Maybe. It depends on what our financial situcation is in a few years. For now, they’re both operating under the understanding that they’ll be paying.</p>
<p>LOL - DougBetsy - my D IS a theatre major and we are taking out loans for her to attend NYU because it’s the best possible place for her to maximize her potential in the industry. The program she is in is multi-disciplinary so she has lots of options for employment in the industry from the technical side to stage management to acting/singing/dancing. She is taking out subsidized/unsubsidized loans and I am taking out some Parent PLUS loans so our end-debt will be ahem substantial. She will be responsible for her loans and I will be responsible for mine except if she makes it big on Broadway, she will pay them off for me! She is bright, ambitious, hard-working and talented but we still know this is a risk…not for everyone.</p>
<p>LOL, writestuff54, I’m sure NYU is worth the sacrifice if your D has talent and/or experience. My son has neither. Really. All he’s done is one line in one school play, and it was underwhelming. I doubt he could pass the courses, much less make a living at it. Harsh, but I kid you not. </p>
<p>(We didn’t tell him that we doubted his ability to succeed. We kept our position completely financial. Which is, we think, justifiable. He understands and is happy to stay at his school as a theatre minor.)</p>
<p>I’d prefer my children to not have any debt but that will not be the reality so I’ll always be a bit concerned although we don’t plan on them having more than the minimum available staffords. If I end up able to help them, great, but right now I expect it will be their responsibility and I think it’s a good life/financial lesson for them as well.</p>
<p>Concerned? I’m completely obsessed. We have struggled with debt all our lives (married too young, hit some bumps with health issues, etc) and know the stress and limitations. We do not want that for our kids. My youngest is only 10, but we already anticiapte all 3 will need loans. I’m ok with the Staffords - basically ok with loans that are in the price range of a mid-level sedan - but once you get over $25,000 in total debt I have heart palpatations.</p>
<p>What bothers me most is that so many kids/families we know are taking on a high debt load that my son views it as common and neglects the impact it will have on career and lifestyle.</p>
<p>Our son just finished his masters degree.
He has about $21,000 in sub Staffords for undergrad and grad that he will pay.</p>
<p>We paid for the rest of his undergrad; he had a tuition scholarship for masters.
We will pay off the small loan that we took for him, it is in my name.</p>
<p>Longhaul that’s my situation too - in fact I only just finished paying mine off because I was 18 when I had my oldest and along the way we struggled financially and then a divorce wiped me out so a few forebearances, etc but I did it - and I didn’t have that much in student loan debt!</p>
<p>So what scares me is that the minimums now are much higher than the average loans I had to take out and I know the path life can take.</p>
<p>Fortunately though my kids have travelled that life with me and understand sometimes it can be a struggle and that you never know when a medical situation will arise (had that too). So it has made them a bit more frugal I think though I doubt they will really get it until they are on their own and have to make those types of decisions.</p>
<p>I’m a little concerned. S will be attending Cornell for engineering (computer science) and will most likely be taking 30K total loans (16K subsidized Cornell-based loans, 14K unsub Staffords). I wish he only had to take about half of that; I think he’ll have good earning potential when he graduates, but it does make money a bigger factor than might be ideal his first job out of school. </p>
<p>We haven’t decided whether we’ll help him make interest-only payments on the unsub loans while he’s in school. But other than that I expect that he will be on his own to pay them back.</p>
<p>No loans. DD chose a full tuition scholarship over having some loans at what had been her top choice school. She enjoys telling people that her dad does not pay her tuition.</p>
<p>MD Mom, Our son is proud that his parents do not pay tuition as well. It’s nice to see. </p>
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<p>It doesn’t matter how your son views it. You have the life experience and common sense to not co-sign for excessive debt. Just be sure to make that crystal clear to your son. </p>
<p>No, I’m not concerned about my son’s student loan debt because we refused to co-sign for an amount that would give us concern. It’s pretty simple.</p>
<p>One of my kids took some loans for grad school and another is taking them for MD. I do worry, yet we told them they would graduate from undergrad debt free and the rest is on them. So, we have no obligation to pay anything, in terms of expectations; however, I would like to pay some amount.</p>
<p>Then I wonder, if the kids have different balances, how do I decide what is fair? Same dollar amount to each, whether they have loans or not? Same percentage to each?</p>
<p>Nope. Older d. had less than $10k, all subsidized Staffords. Younger d. will have $20k, all subsidized Staffords, and will easily be able to pay it off quickly from jobs she’s already been offered. (After four years, she will have both a B.A. and M.S. degree.)</p>
<p>Not a concern at all. We took out no loans whatsoever, and have zero credit card debt.</p>
<p>I’m concerned about paying for college so that the kids can graduate with a debt of “0”. Who knows what the future holds? Can we stay employed for the next 7 years until kid '14 is through undergrad? Will the markets hold up? </p>
<p>I’m concerned that what happened to me will happen to them. I had no loans; then I married one. </p>
<p>I’m concerned that changing majors could add an extra semester or year, and then loans are going to have to come into the picture. Really don’t want that.</p>
<p>I’m going to be a freshman in the fall at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and have to take out about $23,000 just for my first year. State school and Illinois is in debt so they barely give out any financial aid. I seriously don’t know how I am going to manage this, not to mention the next 3 years…</p>
<p>Kids have no undergraduate debt. Chose state schools, got bright futures (which regretably is decreasing in Fl), merit aid, (although losing Robert C Byrd for D this year), and money saved for college. S will start law school in the fall. We will be helping there, too, but he will be taking the max he can in sub stafford loan. D’s plan, at the moment, is grad school in engineering so hopefully she’ll have a stipend from the university (excellent grades and research experience as an undergrad). They work and keep their grades up, and we have been fortunate to be able to help them. So they should graduate with minimal debt. I have been worrying though about who they might date and choose for life partners and what kind of debt potential spouses might have. After reading some of the stories in newspapers and magazines lately about students’ debt loads, that does concern me. I’ve been telling the kids they need to factor that all in, too. Marrying someone with A LOT of debt means you need to go into the relationship with your eyes open and understand that you might have to alter life goals, i.e. owning a home, etc. Also, it might mean that there’s a difference in how each of them look at money. We’ve always shyed away from debt, and we, as a family, have made decisions that maximize that factor, including choosing different schools for undergrad than we might have.</p>
<p>With different priorities, different students will graduate with vast differences in debt. I have actually talked to my older child about finding out about the debts of significant others. I think that this is going to be a very real issue for these young people.</p>