<p>is 40,000 a lot of debt after graduating from college?</p>
<p>yes. a lot.</p>
<p>its alot, but it depends on what school you will be attending. i think if you are going to a top university/ivy league you may be able to get more paid internships/scholarships maybe knocking off 20,000.</p>
<p>Yes, and dependent on the type of loan, that proposed 40,000 will not long remain at that amount. In the last few years with the private and unsub loans, and even with the subsidized notes there has been a free for all regarding the sale and resale of these notes. And usually every time these are unilaterally refinanced there are fees, hidden and overt, added. It’s not been unknown for the people who get terminal degrees and who’ve had these loans to find the amount increased by a quarter or more.
Additionally if your education doesn’t work as quickly or successfully as might be expected there will be trouble. The accrued interest and fees on a few deferments can quickly become excessive. Also if a few payments are missed, these companies will try to rush the loan into default. They do this because of the way the regulatory environment has been structured to their supreme advantage. Essentially they make more money by pushing these into default, getting the federal subsidy, and then recollecting the enhanced fees and amounts from the student borrower. Because of the special privilages they have been given by the department of education they simply do not have to make an attempt to reasonably deal with student borrowers.
The whole mess has become a massive scandal, one in which student borrowers have long been masticated between the excessive costs of college and a student loan system which has become overtly predatory.
As the situation is now, it would be better not to take out any student loans at all, or perhaps even to avoid college until this system is reformed. There have been some attempts to ‘save’ access to student loans, but these have been largely aimed at benefitting the big lenders who control the market with little or no attempts to protect the student borrower. For example the department of education has been attempting to buy extant student loans, in part this move is to increase liquidity and more so as a move to diffuse a potentially disasterous (for the GOP) political issue. However the sale of these loans has been blocked (largely by the company which controls about 40% of this system) until a buyout rate more overtly and excessively favorable to them is forced. Which is ironic given that much of the money being bandied about is derived from the government (and the tax money of the public, including students). Its transparent that many of the current attempts at reform are really attempts to continue the feeding frenzy of a protected and abusive industry.
Because of these current conditions, gods yes, 40,000 is excessive. And you might consider that many of those who did get high ticket educations (be that by actual tuition or the padding the bill by the loan company’s) will never be able to pay the tolls. Lord even the AMA has asked help from the education department for extended loan forgiveness and deferments for its members. Simply put, if established docs are having trouble paying these loans, a graduating student simply doesn’t stand a chance.
40,000 is excessive, don’t do it. It would be better to wait until the political heat attendent to this issue forces reforms. And it will, as the student loan mess is already developing as a political and social equivalent to the disasterous mortgage mess. And the continued habit of trying to fix a broken and inequitable system by handing out a few more billions to the large companies will very soon provoke massive political resentment that neither the GOP or the Democrats will be able to ignore. And at that point, when our co-opted congress and executive finally realize they must help students, and former student borrowers will be the only intelligent time to consider taking on a debt for college.</p>
<p>if i want to go to a top graduate school, is it better to graduate with around 20,000 in debt at a really good undergrad school or graduate with 32,000 at a slightly better undergrad school?</p>
<p>As noted before it would be better not to have any graduate debt or to wait to attend college until the system has been reformed. However if your going to have to borrow the money (and what diety you follow protect you, because the system won’t) it would be better to focus the money on the graduate level.
Especially if your considering a top tier graduate school, it’ll be quite a struggle to pay the bill during and after studies. And as long as your undergrad schools are roughly equivalent going to the more affordable school isn’t going to be to your disadvantage.
Plus having sat on a few admissions committees, where someone got their bach isn’t the only deciding factor…</p>
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[quote]
its alot, but it depends on what school you will be attending. i think if you are going to a top university/ivy league you may be able to get more paid internships/scholarships maybe knocking off 20,000.[/quoe]</p>
<p>don’t count on it.</p>
<p>acc0205 - go for the school that will leave you with the least amount of debt.
Atana is correct. Save it for grad school.</p>
<p>yes but I really really want to go to the other school in which I would accumulate more debt.</p>
<p>I really want to go to Europe for the summer.</p>
<p>More debt for a “slightly better” school? Are you out of your mind? That is like saying you will pay $5 for a Pepsi instead of $3 for a Coke!</p>
<p>For that kind of price difference, the product has to be “significantly better”. Save the debt for grad school.</p>
<p>I am not so sure that it is just a matter of the school. What field you are entering is also relevant. If you are going into a field where jobs are aplenty and the pay is pretty certain, it is one thing. If you have no idea what you want to do and will not be making much money, this can be a problem.</p>
<p>Absolutely don’t count on the fact that you’re going to a “top” undergrad school leading to a large entry-level salary. Employers are primarily interested in how your skills and talents relate to a particular job opening.</p>
<p>The basic risk in taking on college debt, is that there really is no good way to assess whether the results will truly be worth it. My personal experience with college loans has left me very very risk averse about loans in general. Back in the last quarter of the 20th century, I finished college with what was then considered buckets of debt. There were many things that I could not do because of that debt including taking a year off to reconsider my academic goals, and taking an unpaid (but critically necessary for my original career goals) position immediately out of college. Because of that debt there were things I could not afford to have, including a car, furniture that wasn’t from yard sales, books that weren’t used, or even a TV or stereo system. I had my debt paid off by age 34 mostly because I married a guy I met in grad school who was completely debt free. While he finished his PhD, my salary went to pay the rent and my debts. His graduate assistantship paid everything else (utilities, food, travel, insurance, savings, etc.). He never once said to me “Honey, that debt is yours. You have to figure out how to pay it off on your own while splitting the household expenses with me.”</p>
<p>I did indeed graduate from the college that I “really really want(ed) to go to”. Ultimately, I do not regret that decision. However, I am fully cognizant of the financial and personal costs of that choice. Please take a long hard look at your life, and your choices, and consider the financial and personal sacrifices you will have to make in order to attend your “dream” school. Run the calculators at [FinAid</a>! Financial Aid, College Scholarships and Student Loans](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org%5DFinAid”>http://www.finaid.org) to see how long it will take you to pay off those loans. Think about what it will mean to you if you can never, ever, take an unpaid internship. Think about the effect your debt level could have in a marriage or other committed relationship.</p>
<p>Your decision is not an easy one. I wish you all the very best as you face it.</p>
<p>Happymom quite true that assessing the relative merits of a college degree is problematic. Obviously the colleges expend much effort in conveying propaganda to the effect that an advanced degree is the ensured ticket to silk, wine and feasting. However that is very contingent on the field. Teachers for example tend not to make anything close to being compensatory to the costs of their education. And gods help those in the humanities. And the core truth is that although these people may be adaptable their degrees often have very limited potential outside the field studied. Which cannot be hidden by skewing the stats. Especially since the formally safe fields are now having trouble as indicated by the AMA’s desperate requests for more loan forgiveness or deferments.
The problem is for those who graduated in the 90’s and 00’s was the incredible increases of college costs compounded with the ethically bankrupt loan machinations lobbied for and attained by the large loan companies. Because of these new conditions many will never be able to fully pay these loans. If their education fails and that’s more probable in our failing economy they will be subjected to impossible pressures. Due to the way regulations have been biased towards the sole benefit of the loan cabal, those who cannot make their education work, will fall. The whole situation is a social disaster which has been moldering for some time, it won’t be much longer before the resultant crises arises.
And even for those who do succeed often the excessive demands of the SL industry constrain them from making economic contributions much beyond the economic betterment of the SL holders. And increasingly that includes the inability of buying houses, cars and consumer goods. Which is detrimental to the general economy, no matter how beneficial it might be to the individual CEO’s or their loan corporations.
In that regard, it’s a difficult choice to make as to whether the attainment of an education is worth the potential. And with colleagues and some former students I have observed the angst of the consequences of loans actually reach suicidal levels. And as an academic, at this point I’d almost prefer to tell students to wait in the hope that the whole system is drastically reformed. But since there is so much money involved, which is directed to the benefit of a very few powerful vested interests that such hope could be a chimera.
But in all, the situation is a social and economic plague and if remedies are not found or ignored for the benefit of vested interest there will be a reckoning. And it could be far worse than the mortgage mess, because our economy could lose an entire generation of human potential and capital.
As as a society what will we do when many of our most intelligent, ambitious and driven are lost to our system or in frustration chose to turn against it?</p>
<p>Taking out large loans is particularly problematic for those kids whose families are not going to be able to help them with repayment. Many times when you enter the work world another outlay of cash or credit is needed for clothes, housing deposits, etc.</p>
<p>It’s a price of a car. I would forego a car to get the kind of education I want. No, I don’t think 40,000 is too much debt for the right school.</p>
<p>A car is a tool. It is transpotation. If I could afford it I would spend $40,000 for a car. If I could not afford $40,000 then I would pay less. I could get a car for $10,000 that would get me to work and back. It just might not have all the bells and whistles of the $40,000 car.
Then again if I could afford $40,000 for a car, I might buy one for $10,000 and be $30,000 richer.</p>
<p>Car lasts you 5 years, the right education lasts you a life time. College experience is more than just academic. It depends on what kind of profession you are going into. Money is all relative. I wouldn’t take more than 5 years to pay back college debt.</p>
<p>$40,000 is a lot for a car!!!</p>
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<p>huh? hate to break it to you but kids graduating from college don’t NORMALLY jump into jobs that pay $80,000. Those that do end up paying mega bucks for living expenses.</p>