Just curious on how most of the people in crna school or those who have recently graduated with student loans plan to manage it. With the cost of higher education increasing at a ever faster pace, I expect many of us will be dealing with this problem. Although, I am not accepted into a program yet, I do have a interview coming up in a couple weeks and have calculated that I will need to borrow around 50k for tutition and cost of living. I already have 18k undergrad debt. From what I read on this forum that the average crna student is coming out with 50-70k of debt makes me realize it is not just me who will have to deal with kind of debt. I often talk to MD resident friends of mine who average 100-120k debt and I know it is big concern for them also, especially with the trend of decreased reimburstments from the govt. and insurance companies.
Some of the questions I have are: is it real common for employers to pay back some of the loans? Does the govt. offer programs to help pay back some of the loans? It seems to me that if the crna's salaries were not in the range they currently are that it would not be practical to acquire this kind of debt, especially if you find out you can't pay it back. Now, I do realize that the % rates on student loans are at a all time low and that will certainly help us pay back such huge amounts of money, but it still seems over-whelming at first.