Hello, I am going to start college this fall and got my first payment statement just earlier today.
Here is my background; Commuting to a private 4 year university in NC, tuition is about around 29 thousand. Received aid from the university, around 19 thousand a year. That leaves around 10 thousand that I unfortunately cannot pay, so I am planning on taking a student loan from a bank. I am a male and have enrolled as a pre-nursing student. I have a part time job that I plan to keep to supply my needs such as health insurance, which is required by the university, my meals and my books, etc.
My question is; As of this moment, if I successfully graduate after 4 years, my debt would be of around 40 thousand. Is that a lot? If I get accepted as an official nursing student, by maintaining my GPA competitive and all, would a nursing job be able to let me pay off my debt consistently without me suffering?
Thank you for your time and help.
My niece graduated from a 4 year nursing student with debt of 120k. She got a job right after school, stayed at home for 18 months while working, and payed off her entire loan! She was in NY where the salaries may be higher, but she took on considerably more debt. Nurses make money. 40k seems very reasonable
Do you have a co-signer? You can only borrow $5500 freshman year. Does any of the $19000 in aid consist of loans?
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so I am planning on taking a student loan from a bank. I
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Will you qualify?
Were there already full loans in your FA pkg? If so, then you’d have more than $40k of debt. You’d have $70k.
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My niece graduated from a 4 year nursing student with debt of 120k. She got a job right after school, stayed at home for 18 months while working, and payed off her entire loan
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Your niece had a NET INCOME of $120k within 18 months - and that would also mean that she didn’t spend ONE DIME on herself…no travel costs, no clothing, no anything? That doesn’t sound believable.
She would have had to have a net income of $80k per year. …and again, that would have required that she didn’t spend ONE DIME on anything during that time.
@brajansantiago you are asking a good question, an important one.
First, if you can use your federal student loans that is preferable to private loans. But they are limited to this amount each year: fresh 5,500/soph 6,500/jr an sr 7,500 each. So it is very important to know if you are already taking this amount out already. If not then you will need extra and students can’t get private loans by themselves, you will need a cosigner who will qualify for the loans.
Is your parent able to help at all or are you just living at home and they are providing room and board. Aren’t you covered under your parent health insurance? If you are then you can get the school insurance requirement waived.
To know if you can pay the debt, look at the employment placement rate for your school to know if it is feasible to get a job quickly. In my area, students without experience can expect it to be very difficult and take up to a year or more. When you finally get some experience it is a lot easier. Look at starting salary and estimate living expenses compared to that.
If you are borrowing only 40k the monthly payment will be about $425 a month for 10 years. If you can live at home for cheap you can pay it off faster. Not bad as long as you can truly finish in 4 years and get a job.
@Madison85 I have not chosen the bank that I will get the loan from, the university gave me a list of banks that they have worked with and will supply me with the money that I need. I will use my mother as a co-signer. I received around 19 thousand in aid from the school itself that I will not need to pay back. Thank you!
@mom2collegekids I just pray and hope that I will qualify. Thank you!
@BrownParent I do not plan on taking federal student loans. My mother does not have health insurance, the insurance the university is providing me is around 1 thousand a semester and I do not plan on adding that to my balance! Since I have a part time job already, I guess I have some experience right? I will start to look at jobs on university campus as soon as possible! Thank you!
(What about Obamacare - why doesn’t your mom have health insurance? Does she have a job?)
Were you offered a subsidized federal student loan? If so, why would you turn that down for a more expensive bank loan?
Does your mom understand that if you don’t repay your loans then she must?
Will she qualify to co-sign loans for your 2nd-3rd-4th years? What is her income?
Is there a reason you are choosing not to take federal student loans? They’re generally more favorable than private loans; a portion of the student loans might have interest subsidized by the federal government while you’re in college.
You should definitely borrow all you can in federal loans first, then the balance in private loans. In addition to the reasons given above, federal loans have flexible repayment terms. See this link for information: https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types/loans/federal-vs-private .
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My niece graduated from a 4 year nursing student with debt of 120k. She got a job right after school, stayed at home for 18 months while working, and payed off her entire loan! She was in NY where the salaries may be higher, but she took on considerably more debt. Nurses make money. 40k seems very reasonable
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Don’t believe the above story. The numbers don’t add up. A new nurse will not net $80k per year, and won’t likely not spend one cent for 18 months on anything. Sounds like the person here heard/misheard the story and didn’t “do the math”.
In NY she/nurse may have worked a lot of OT. Living at home and pouring everything on debt, she probably needed more than 18 months because she needed to pay taxes on her earnings.
I would not be too surprised about taking on other debt while aggressively paying on student debt (perhaps parents were watching the student loan debt and what she paid on it). Staying at home and not learning savings, may have paid down student loan debt while having other debt creep up.
OP, is there a nearby option for you to go to CC and get an AD in nursing, RN. Then you could work as a RN and go on to BSN program. You would still need someone to co-sign since unless you have some other grants not already tabulated, because there is a schedule on how much a student can sign for alone as UG Fr, So, Jr, Sr as brownparent has detailed.
You have to be very careful on the student loan situation. Different rights and responsibilities; different loan rates…
“If I get accepted as an official nursing student…” You cannot afford to go one or two years and then have substantial debt.
Are you working and saving now?
Obamacare does not make insurance available to everyone. In 24 states, medicaid was not expanded so while a high school aged child might have medicaid, it is gone at graduation. His mother might not earn enough to qualify for a tax subsidy so can’t afford insurance.
It’s a much bigger problem than people know. My brother makes a lot of money, too much for a subsidy. He had good insurance before the ACA, but his insurer dropped him and to get another policy with similar coverage (but a $5000 deductible) would be over $1000/mo, so that’s $17000/yr before he sees much benefit except an annual physical an a few preventative services. Oh, and pregnancy. He’s covered if he gets pregnant, after the deductible.
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In NY she/nurse may have worked a lot of OT. Living at home and pouring everything on debt, she probably needed more than 18 months because she needed to pay taxes on her earnings.
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It’s just not believable that she could go 18 months and not spend a dime on subways, insurance, gas, food, beverages, clothes, hair cut, and so forth…and that she’d earn enough to NET $120k to put towards the debt while also paying for minimal expenses. Frugal is one thing, spending nothing is not believable…and netting $120k isn’t believable either.
One of my relatives became an RN 5 or 6 years ago and, after a year or two of working Upstate, got a job in Manhattan. She was living with one of my sisters (who only asked her to chip in for utilities & groceries so she’d have a chance to start paying down her debt), and she didn’t make anything like $120k. Half that number is more accurate, and I think even that was gross, not net.
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got a job in Manhattan. She was living with one of my sisters (who only asked her to chip in for utilities & groceries so she’d have a chance to start paying down her debt), and she didn’t make anything like $120k. Half that number is more accurate, and I think even that was gross, not net.
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That is more like it. That other story is pure fantasy fiction. Likely, the girl (and maybe her parents) were embarrassed by that ridiculous amount of debt, and they stretched the truth about her paying it off. Those who listened to the tall tale never bothered to “do the math”. It’s more likely that she paid off her federal student loans during that time, not the private loans (the bulk).
I think it is better not to have a side discussion in the OP’s thread, but the post about taking on huge debt and it all working out great is a disservice for sure. I’ll PM him to see if he will come back. It would be a shame to try to take private loans for the portion that can be covered by the more favorable student loans.
Depends on the type of nurse. Paying off $120k in 18 months is probably difficult for an RN or even NP, (even when working some over time and not having to pay rent or mortgage), but it’s definitely doable for higher paid nurses such as CRNAs (who salaries are comparable to those of primary care physicians). Then again, CRNAs have to first work as an ICU nurse for 2-3 yrs and then go back to school for 2 years to get a Masters level nursing degree, and all that is on top of the 4 year undergraduate nursing degree.