<p>I have seen threads before, particularly those which a title along the lines of How Much Debt is Too Much, and it seems like there is a changing of the tide and almost a quiet revolution of sorts underway. In the past, even over the past 10 years or so, it seems many colleges really were trying to sell students and parents on the idea that these student loans were indeed "free money" in order to ensure that they could keep racking up tuitions and getting their budgets as needlessly bloated as possible. </p>
<p>In the near future, there is going to be very intensive debate over this so I was wondering, who here, among students, those who recently graduated college and parents if there any that post here, who have taken out some sort of loans and still feel as of now that it was the right decision and are not having major, fundamental regrets over it. </p>
<p>Are there students and their parents here who borrowed an amount in the 30 k to 60 k range and feel, even after they got their degrees and job hunted, that it was essentially the right decision and was possibly an even better decision than looking for work straight out of h igh school?</p>
<p>Both my fiance and I took out about 20-25k in loans for undergrad. </p>
<p>No regrets really. We’re doing fine. </p>
<p>Btw, 30k to 60k range would be over and above Direct loans which isn’t a good decision 95% of the time. </p>
<p>I have not taken out any loans so far. It is only my first year in college, but finances look set for next year and maybe junior year. I do not want to take out any loans. My mom doesn’t want me taking out loans. I just don’t fancy the idea of having a lump sum of money accruing on the side lines from my education. Student loans aren’t the friendliest of loans, and I’m going to do whatever is in my power to avoid them. </p>
<p>IF I end up taking out loans, they’ll total to at most $10,000 for undergrad. My one year of grad school is another thing, and I’m willing to take debt on debt for that. </p>
<p>If this helps anyone … my wife and I both went to art school. We struggled our whole lives to establish careers. I would never recommend any of my children to pursue the same field. I would strongly suggest to any aspiring art school students DO NOT BORROW ANY MONEY FOR ART SCHOOL. OK, that’s my 2 cents. Sorry. We were both success starving artists for over 20 years.</p>
<p>DH and I took out loans. Can’t say I regret having done so, but it did put us behind our peers at various stages of life in terms of having money and monetary security and status. We had that extra payment that was larger than any of our car payments ever. that we made for a long time. Seems like I’ve been paying for school for over 40 years now, as I started with private school bills for my kids even before school loans were done. We’re still paying for college, and will have some school loans for our kids too. That’s our Mercedes. </p>
<p>I can tell you that my kids out of college are ever so grateful not to have loans. They find it tough to make a go of it even then, though one is doing well because he has a nice job. He’ll have a nice nest egg sooner than most who would be paying on loans.</p>
<p>DW took out ~$12K in loans for college. It took us about 8 years to pay that off. DD1 made it through with no loans and she is very thankful (particularly since it took almost a year to find a full time job). DD2 ended up with ~$12K in loans and is trying to pay it off as quickly as possible. </p>