As my brother so politely pointed out in his comment below, yes, student loans are considered to be "good debt," meaning that you can deduct the interest payments from your federal income taxes. However, when it's not the interest payments but the principal payments that are killing you, this is of little comfort. All I know is: we can't afford to get another car so both husband and I can drive to work (one of us has to take public transport), can't afford to go on vacay, can't even really afford the gym payments we were making so had to quit, can't afford a bigger house/house in a nicer hood. Even the mundane things that shouldn't be big become big.... I need new sneakers but they cost so much. Why? Because about 10k a year is going into my loans.
At least when you get your mortgage, you know that you will be paying it for the next 30 years. However, when you are in school and your parents suddenly cut you off from tuition payments, but also won't let you quit school, you suddenly find yourself desperate to get a loan, any loan, to keep going to school. And there's not exactly a lot of options for the student loan payments- you can't really shop around as much as you do for your mortgage. There's the minimum amount of federal loans that you can get because your parents make X amount of $ (even though they aren't giving any to you), and then there's the private lenders who are looking to make as much off of you as they can. You don't realize when you sign that loan check to keep going to class that you are really signing away the rest of your life to the evil corporation that is the American education industry.
So, any multi-millionaires out there (Paris, hello, I'm your new BFF) who feel like being charitable, let me know.
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1 comment:
I hear ya! Study loans can be a real burden in some countries :-( I'm glad in The Netherlands (my country of origin) we have a good system and my study loan isn't preventing me from living - you pay an acceptable minimal amount monthly.
Here in the UK - I don't know a lot about it as I obviously didn't study here - their study debts get taken from their salary when they earn above a certain level. Which isn't a bad way of doing it either as it means you at least have the level to properly support yourself and live / buy a house etc.
I'm sure you will get through it though and life will turn out just wonderful in the end. Just isn't really a help right now I know :-/
Good rant though, if you feel like reading some others or even posting one check our rants section.
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