<p>If it’s 25,000 a YEAR, it would be around that much at 6.8%.
Loan Balance: $100,000.00<br>
Adjusted Loan Balance: $100,000.00<br>
Loan Interest Rate: 6.80%
Loan Fees: 0.00%
Loan Term: 10 years
Minimum Payment: $50.00 </p>
<p>Monthly Loan Payment: $1,150.80</p>
<p>I really couldn’t justify forking over $1100 a month of my salary for the next 10 years to pay for college education. Those the 10 years that people are the least stable and earn the least amount. I think a much cheaper education would get a person the same job but not leave the student with a $1100+ monthly bill.</p>
<p>Debruns, but C-mom was talking $25K at <em>graduation</em>.</p>
<p>Bt, to split a fine hair, there’s a difference between a job and a career. D’s first job is a terrific pre-grad school career builder than she almost certainly would have gotten had she not gone to a top school. The peer component of a college education is often overlooked, along with effects. D has already been on the hiring side, screening resumes and interviewing for internship applications and her observation was interesting: we don’t screen for the elite schools but students from them tend to write much stronger apps. The professionals in her org come from places like Harvard, Yale, Swat, Wellesley, Smith, William & Mary. There’s an occasional U/Wisconsin or U/Texas…but the pattern is starkly clear.</p>
<p>Btw, I would <em>never</em> suggest a student borrow $100K. Apparently there’s a rule of thumb that says one year’s salary at one’s starting job; even that is too high for my taste.</p>
<p>Parents should either save or borrow to pay their share. We hadn’t saved, so we did borrow much of the non-student cost. D worked, got merit aid, and took out $22K in her loans. We borrowed substantially more, although at slightly better interest rates than C-mom cited. Looking forward to July, when the first $10K will have been paid off.</p>
<p>A cautionary note about thinking someone with a “high-paying salary” will be able to pay off loans easily. My husband and I both got master’s degrees in structural engineering in 1986. We thought we’d be rich, lol! First off, the economy in Texas sucked at that point, so we ended up moving 2500 miles to Maine. We worked for the same firm and were laid off the same day, just under 4 years later (right before we were vested in the retirement plan, of course). We both ended up on unemployment on and off for the next couple of years. We had no student debt, thank God. We had a hard enough time just buying a house, even with a little help from my in-laws.</p>
<p>Now we’re doing well, since we started our own firm 11 years ago. But a lot of student debt would have really been difficult to deal with, even on the income of two engineers. Our house was tiny and we had only one vehicle. Be careful!!</p>
<p>Just to clarify - this was my original estimate, for which I wanted validation with real life examples. </p>
<p>**** STAFFORD UNSUBSIDIZED BALLPARK ESTIMATE *****
$5500/year ==> $300 monthly payments after graduation</p>
<hr>
<p>Thus students on other threads who say they are considering $100K debt would have payments almost 5x ($1500/mo). Debruns included a calculation above to show $1,150.80 for $100K, but it would be even more if interest (for $25K/yr scenarios I’ve seen proposed) accumulates during college. </p>
<p>I have the info I need on ballpark for relatively small loans. Just stunned that so many threads include students contemplating much larger debt. Crazy.</p>
<p>I think it is the risk of the unknown - eloquently illustrated by MaineLonghorn - that Colorado_Mom is really seeking to quantify. Obviously the future holds far too many variables to be “sure” of what that final loan amount will be. What if your son changes majors - more than once - and prolongs the journey to graduation? What if he decides to major in something that his financial reach school doesn’t offer and he needs to transfer to another school? All of these things - and many others left unlisted - add time, and time is indeed money adding up semester by semester.</p>
<p>If you want to take a trip to the dark side and get the full scare on student loans visit [Project</a> on Student Debt: Home](<a href=“http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org%5DProject”>http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org) and read some of the stories in the Voices section. Borrowing for college is certainly going into debt for a good cause but it seems that just because you can borrow X amount of money doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. The tone in your posts tells me that you have serious concern that this amount of debt is too much for you/your son to gamble on.</p>
<p>You guys are aware aren’t you, that all students can now convert their unsubsidized loans to Federal Direct Loans? And also that you can have your debt for these loans forgiven after 10 year if you go into certain fields? </p>
<p>This was written to encourage people who were hesitating, to go into needed careers that aren’t the greatest paid. For example, my brother is a drug/alcohol counselor; he received his MHS last year. He converted his old non direct loans to direct, and he will have remaining debt forgiven after ten years. Actually sooner for him, because this is retroactive to 2007.</p>
<p>I know this doesn’t help those of you whose kids are getting MBAs, but there are people who had wanted to be in service fields and had hesitated because of the low pay and high debt.</p>
<p>JRZMom - this is certainly a good incentive for a good cause and will no doubt help many achieve their professional goals without sacrificing personal comfort. BUT - what happens when there are no jobs available to you in your field of study? Projectonstudentdebt.org is filled with examples of people who can’t find work in their field. This may be a small percentage overall but if you are head over heels in debt and it happens to you it is a 100% failure rate.</p>
<p>Hi, I only included the calculations, because it seemed to Thedad she was talking about one amount and I wasn’t sure which. 20.000 debt is very common and not something I would find scary if my child was working, but some students do take on much more and I don’t know if the papers they sign in the beginning give them clear pictures of the debt and amounts to pay back.</p>
<p>Got it, DeB. We were talking about different things. No harm, no foul, play on.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the thoughts and feedback. </p>
<p>In the 1980s I had $11K low interest college loans (a lot of money then, but at 3%, 4% and 5%), deferred interst. Not sure I appreciated the good deal.</p>
<p>Just bumping this thread for the new college season. </p>
<p>**** STAFFORD UNSUBSIDIZED BALLPARK ESTIMATE *****
$5500/year for 4 yrs ==>
$300/month payments after graduation
(assumiing 10 years to repay) </p>
<hr>
<p>I know it’s ballpark, not precise. But it’s good food for thought for students condiering such loans (or heftier ones). </p>
<p>Others please chime in if they have better estimates or real examples.</p>
<p>Bump… since Tis the Season. </p>
<p>Can anybody provide more current/accurate examples?</p>
<p>I computed a hypothetical for max unsub loans each year here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1480679-unsubsidized-loan-question.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1480679-unsubsidized-loan-question.html</a></p>
<p>Real life examples…</p>
<p>$13000 in direct loans…$180 a month repayment.</p>
<p>$38,000 in direct loans (includes grad school) $405 a month.</p>
<p>Repayment is 10 years.</p>
<p>My new favorite website for repayment information is: [FedLoan</a> Servicing](<a href=“http://www.fedloanservicing.com%5DFedLoan”>http://www.fedloanservicing.com). I think their repayment calculators are really good.</p>
<p>Bumping this old thread… feel free to add current examples (including interest rate if possilbe) </p>
<p>DS is on track to have total loan amount of roughly $100K. It is not for undergraduate; it is for med school.The COA is supposedly about $80K/year. But my guess is that the school asks most students on FA to borrow roughly $25K/year, all unsub (since it is not for undergraduate.) Roughly speaking, I think the contribution to the remaining ($80K - $25K) is evenly paid for by the school (which has the unit-loan-required and need-based FA policy) and the family.</p>
<p>Not sure whether he has dug a big hole for himself or not.</p>
<p>My son had about 22000 and it’s around 260.00 a month. (10 yr)He is living home for at least a year and paying a bit more on it. He doesn’t have any other loans (car, etc) It would have been a bit higher but we both paid the interest over the years except his senior. This included grad school but only first semester when he took a Perkins loan.
He went through Salliemae and hasn’t had any issues with deferring while in school or setting up payments.</p>
<p>The Perkins loan was 2000 and very little a month but he felt if he could, just pay it off quickly. </p>