<p>My financial aid counselor says I shouldn't worry, but as an art major, perhaps I will be shooting in the dark. This is coming from a private art college, which has given me a "half-ride" in financial aid. I have accepted subsidized, unsubsidized and Parent PLUS loans, and after 2-3 years the total will be $30,000. </p>
<p>I am asking for your experience. What is the average comfortable monthly payment for a debt as large as 30k? In 10 years? In 20 years?! </p>
<p>I am thinking about what I will do after graduation. Alongside job hunting, I am considering traveling to Europe or getting a Masters, so how possible are these wishes? To what degree might this debt limit my future freedom?</p>
<p>dont do it. it will be more than 30k because of interest. many people graduating from art schools cant find jobs. you will probably be paying it for more than 1o years. also, traveling to europe will less likely to happen</p>
<p>My financial aid counselor says I shouldn’t worry,</p>
<p>lol…who???..the FA officer at the art school?..If so, do you really think that person has YOUR best interests at heart? …or is her job just to get you to enroll and help pay HER salary?</p>
<p>Seriously…art majors have such a hard time finding jobs that pay enough just to get by…certainly not enough to also make loan payments. </p>
<p>What are your other options?</p>
<p>My financial aid counselor says I shouldn’t worry,</p>
<p>Who? The FA counselor at the school? That person’s job is to get you to go along with this. She doesn’t have your best interests at heart.</p>
<p>Art majors have a hard enough time just earning enough to make ends meet. They don’t make enough to pay back loans.</p>
<p>How much are your parents paying?</p>
<p>What cheaper options do you have?</p>
<p>Currently, I have no other options. I may defer for one semester from this school, to spend some time thinking about my decision and thus looking for other colleges. But I made up my mind this is the place I wish to be. Either I am stupid or too hopeful.
It hurts a lot already that it will add up to this amount of debt. </p>
<p>Has anyone ever needed to meet $30k+ in college debt???</p>
<p>I’m gonna take a different tack here. $30K isn’t that much debt <em>for a college student</em> in general, and there’s no reason that you have to be a starving artist painting in a Lower East Side closet. If you are willing to do some more lucrative art business (photography - like portraits or wedding photos, graphic artist, billboard design, whatever) and/or you are willing to work in another field to pay the bills while struggling…$30K is about the average for undergrad students. There’s definitely a persistent stereotype of the starving artist, but it really depends on WHAT kind of art you are planning to do and what the job outlook looks like in that particular field.</p>
<p>Now, note that I’m not saying it’s a good idea in your case to take on that debt. I’m not sure. It really depends on your art school - I would say go for it if it were RISD or Parsons. Not so much if it’s some for-profit diploma mill. </p>
<p>Assuming your interest rate is around 6.8%, your monthly payment will be $345. It’s estimated that you’ll need to make a little under $41,500 a year in order to pay that off comfortably. My total debt is about $25K, but that includes grad school and undergrad, and with my PhD I don’t anticipate any problems paying that off. IF it is all federal aid, you can also use an income-based repayment program to help you manage that debt.</p>
<p>I am agreeing with Juliet here. $30K is about the maximum debt that I personally can see a student undertaking. That is the total of sub and unsub Staffords and interest. I notice you are counting some PLUS amount that your parents are taking and thinking along the lines of 3 years. Are you planning to get through in 3 years or are you transferring from a community college? </p>
<p>An important thing is what your parents’ financial situations are. It 's one thing for a student whose family is on good financial footing to take on these loans, but a whole other for one whose parents are struggling to do so. When you graduate from college, it’s highly unlikely that a high paying job is going to be waiting for you with a big fat bonus to get you settled. You are going to have a whole list of needs to job hunt and get started on your life outside of school. And it costs money. My sons don’t have any school loans and they still had a lot of trouble with this hurdle, and that’s with parents who could help out nearby and both were able to find work of sorts. I know too many kids who could find nothing that they could take. They literally could not afford to consider certain jobs because their parents were tapped out and so were they. It’s not like you can take out a loan to join the work and independence force. </p>
<p>So having a loan payment to pay can be quite ornerous when you need to get a car, insurance, supplies, clothes for a job. Not to mention a place of one’s own. </p>
<p>I don’t think being an artist is any worse than being any arts and sciences type major in terms of finding a job that can support you. Unless you took courses that put you into high paying career fields that are looking for workers, such as accounting, nursing, engineering, finding that first job is very difficult in a “real” job. </p>
<p>This may be your best alternative. Only you and your parents can determine the wisdom or folly of doing this.</p>
<p>I graduated with a BFA many years ago. I owed $10,000 in student loan debt. It took me 7 years to pay that back and some months I was paying back $400 because my loans were not consolidated so I’d get whalloped when the quarterly loans came with my regular monthly repayments.</p>
<p>Don’t do it. Here’s why… it takes years and years to build an art career. If you are saddled with a lot of debt, you will be forced to take on jobs to pay that debt and they probably will not be art related jobs. You will be working, working, working to pay bills and you’ll never have time for your art work or an active studio practice. Go to a community college and then a state school. A state school often has some really great teachers who went to “name brand” schools. It is tough to find good teaching jobs so you’ll find good teachers in surprising no-name schools. You will also find less competition for the studio spaces. You will graduate with an art major degree but will have done it at a reasonable cost. Your portfolio is what matters in the art world, not where you went to school. Please, kid… don’t get yourself up to your eyeballs in debt. It is so difficult to be young and eager and then your “dream” school admits you and you want it SOOOOOO BAD! I totally understand that, but I am here to say that my name brand degree did nothing for me but put me into debt for a very, very, long time. It is also the reason I didn’t go to grad school and only now when I am in my 40’s am I even considering grad school. Also-- like everyone else has said-- DO NOT listen to the counselor at the school minimizing that debt load. They are paid to get you in the door. Some schools are better than others and some will tell you you can’t afford them, but most will make you feel like you are special and talented and suck you in and get you to sign your life away. It is difficult to keep your wits about you. Look at it this way-- that $30,000 could buy you a pretty sweet studio space. In some places it could buy you a house, for crying out loud. You have to look at it from the perspective of what else you could do with $30,000 if you had it, because if you owe it, it is like you had it, only you never saw it. </p>
<p>Good luck. I know it is hard when you have stars in your eyes, but you don’t need a private art college to develop a talent and a great portfolio.</p>
<p>Well, the loans would get so backed up that you’d probably have to take a job as a museum curator in a not so good but not so bad museum immediately after graduating to catch up with the payments. Then you’d get so overwhelmed with the debt, that you wouldn’t be able to leave your job and pursue your passion in art, essentially becoming stuck in that position.
Then 25 years later, you’re closing the museum on a Friday when you lay yourself out under the constellation star display wondering “How did it end up like this” </p>
<p>soo yeah, not a good idea…</p>
<p>Where can $30,000 buy you a house?</p>
<p>$30,000 is around the average amount of debt that a public school student comes out with anyway, so going to a state school isn’t necessarily going to reduce that.</p>
<p>$30,000 is a very, very nice downpayment on a starter home. It pays for a lot of post-graduate art supplies and studio rental.</p>
<p>That’s assuming the $30,000 is only 30k-- it would/could mushroom quite a bit bigger if interest not paid during school–and which could mushroom further if no job and you defer–if you even CAN defer. Remember, student loan debt is not something you EVER can shed via bankruptcy. </p>
<p>Personally–I would think long and hard before racking up that debt for any degree that didn’t offer pretty assured employment.</p>
<p>I’d look for other options if at all possible. This is what I would tell my own children.</p>
<p>JUILLET: "Where can $30,000 buy you a house?</p>
<p>$30,000 is around the average amount of debt that a public school student comes out with anyway, so going to a state school isn’t necessarily going to reduce that. "</p>
<p>Again, your post seems to minimize debt. I really think your advice and shoulder shrugging about “average” student loan debt is extremely reckless, especially for an art degree. Do you work in the financial aid industry? </p>
<p>By the way, you can buy a house in Florida for $30,000. The housing market has tanked along with the job market. Good luck paying back $30,000 worth of loan debt if you live in a similar area. Please stop advocating huge debt as if it was no big deal. It is a big deal and there is nothing “average” about kids mortgaging away their futures because they got bad advice from people like you telling them that massive loans were what everyone was doing, no biggie.</p>
<p>I was just checking prices for condos near where my M-I-L is renting in Miami, and there are quite a few on the market for $30,000 or less. In my old hometown in Iowa, you can find single family homes in good condition for that price. So yes, if you are going to be a starving artist, you may be ahead to use that money on a home instead of a fancy degree. At least you will have your roof guaranteed.</p>