Student Loan Debt

I'm here to tell you that debt happens, and as much as you can try to avoid it and think it's stupid (See, Daivd Ramsey), I didn't have another option. My parents provided me what they could, I had ample scholarships, but I was willing to take on the debt because I believe in the power of higher education in society.

In the end, I graduated with a little over $27,000 in debt from attending a private liberal arts institution, with an AmeriCorps Education Award and my assistantship at Iowa State plus some scholarships to pay for graduate school.

What wasn't the best choice for me was taking a TEACH grant. After deciding not to teach at a specific school for a specific number of years, this was converted to a high-interest loan, which is what I have started paying off. I'm not paying it off because I have to, I'm paying it off because I want to and because I have been blessed with a wonderful job and part-time job that have enabled to me to so.

I have committed myself to making these loan payments after researching, thinking, and calculating if it would be worth it, and for those specific loans that are already collecting interest, it is. For those not collecting interest they can sit there and be all beautiful at the original balance.

I'm sharing this because I know many people google for hours trying to figure out if they should be paying off their debt. It's a very personal situation and the people who write blogs about it are typically the ones that are to one extreme or the other. Hopefully, I can offer you some questions to make the decision a little more concrete, no matter what you choose to do with your debt.

Here are some questions I asked myself before I began the journey of paying back some of my loans:

1. Can I manage to continue to drive my shitty Sunfire for a while longer? (Relate this to anything you have that you have been dying to upgrade.)

2. Will I put myself at a disadvantage? Will I have to eat ramen and never go shopping with my friends because I am financially strained?

3. Could I survive with the money I have in savings if I lost my job? (It is recommended to have 3 months of living expenses in savings, someday I will make another post about savings.)

4. Are there any major expenses coming up?

Answer these questions for yourself in an honest and open way. Your responses will lead you to your decision to put some money towards those loans, or to wait.

And a few strategies...

1. I was offered an extra 10 hours of work per week, I decided to put those dollars directly toward my loans because I had been doing fine prior to having them. If you find yourself in this situation, I think it has been a huge relief to me to see that debt go down every month.

2. Start with the smallest loan that accrues interest. I had three TEACH grants. The three values were about ~900, ~1600 and the other is ~4,000 at 6.8 percent interest. I was able to pay off the $900 in about two months and feel accomplished before jumping the next loan. While it would make more sense in terms of savings to pay off the 4000 dollar one, I wanted to feel accomplished and not drag myself down over it.

Share your experiences, thoughts and decisions toward student loan debt, comments are appreciated!

Always,

Ashley