<p>But what is the interest rate and how long is the note for…10 years? How many credits did you earn there and do you actually need them to transfer to a 4 year school? How long before you’ll want to transfer? </p>
<p>If you’re living at home and earning $500/month plus getting a refund of your student loans, it seems as if you could make a significant dent in that debt.</p>
<p>As a side note about private loans - do not just apply to a couple hoping to get one without a co-signer. Each “hard inquiry” made on your credit (which is each time a lender pulls your credit report to make a decision whether you loan you money) stays on your credit report for 2 years. Too many hard inquiries (3-4 or more) can start to decrease your credit score and makes you look desperate. So if you do consider private loans, do you research thoroughly, ask an adult to look things over with you, and only apply to one that you think you have a reasonable chance at getting.</p>
<p>If you’re at a community college now, I would recommend taking a semester or two off and just working - even if you have to pick up two jobs - and pay that debt down as quickly as possible. It will be much easier to go back to school knowing your debt is paid off than having it hanging over your head for a few years.</p>
<p>And maybe as a little motivator - I have $65k in debt from student loans. I don’t have the greatest full-time job, but I can make those payments. To me, 10k would be simple if you work hard for a year or two and pay it off. Then, get more serious about your studies and the money you’re putting into them.</p>
<p>It’s more just that I really want to move on to another 4yr school and I’ve always heard all these horror stories about it being hard to go back to school once you take a long-ish break from it…I more just want a faster way to pay off what I owe to NJIT, that’s all…</p>
<p>For every “horror story” you’ve heard, there are many many many more stories of people who just made it work, got their degree after a delay, and are now successful, in careers, owning businesses, married, owning homes, raising kids, going to graduate school, etc. You don’t hear about the success stories because these people (and they are many) aren’t sitting around whining to anyone who will listen. :)</p>
<p>There is no horror in taking a year or two off from college. You are already on a non-traditional path having dropped out of NJIT and transferred to a community college. </p>
<p>Please also note that getting a bank loan does not get NJIT “paid off faster”–it just juggles the debt.</p>
<p>Perhaps you can work with your father to have him loan you some or all of the money and have you pay him back. I suggest that you offer to make immediate and ongoing monthly payments to him even if you stay in school so that he knows you are going to keep up on it. This may be in combination with you still taking a year off so that you can work fulltime and try to pay some/all of it off in that time as well.</p>
<p>Like others have said–this set of mistakes/miscalculations have ended the dreamy college path where a kid just enters the 4year college and graduates on time 4years later. You still get to graduate and have an awesome life, but you need to put some hustle into it now, because the private loan route is not going to pan out since you have no real work history, a paltry income, and no cosigner.</p>
<p>Or put in another way, you say you feel there is “no way out.” This is simply untrue. However, there is no easy way out–each path out will likely require a lot of sweat equity from you.</p>