And the results are in....

Nurses General Nursing

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My student loan payments, with consolidation, and everything else I've managed to do are still going to be a whopping 770$/month.

Seriously, don't go to a private school, ever.

I'm a working (thank God) RN, but that would hurt anyone's budget.

Alright, too late for me, but save yourselves!

Specializes in Emergency, Trauma, Critical Care.

My loans range from 15 to 20 years. I live in california. Private loans accrue a ton of interest if you defer then. Do not default especially if sallie mae is in charge. You will end up doubling it. Just trying to fore warn others

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

Thank you for posting OP,

This is certainly a topic that impacts us all.

Personally I got a great education for 30k worth of loans. Payments are ~$430 Unconsolidated, and I'm rounding up to $500 a month to pay down the higher balance early.

Proper money management and budgeting is something that needs to be learned. I was lucky to have a gym teacher devote a few days to teaching us the basics in 7th grade in a way that really stuck with me.

Anyway, investing in yourself is USUALLY a smart move, just be mindful of credit pitfalls. I always look at it as a game of mitigating losses. Things like consolidaring loans are smart if you can't pay them down individually, but the down side is the lower payment and longer term means you pay WAY more. I know this is obvious to most of us, but I'm constantly shocked by how many people I know that can't plan beyond I need this bright shiny thing right now.

Back to the OP, I want to say congrats on graduating and landing a job, hang in there and make the sacrifices you need to in order to pay off your highest interest/balance debts as soon as you can.

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Specializes in School Nursing.

I would not say that no one should ever consider private school. In my case, a private, accelerated BSN program (already had a non-nursing bachelor's) ended up being cheaper once you factored in an extra year of pre-reqs required for the community college, and a 1-2 year wait list. I crunched the numbers and figured out that by earning my RN 3 years sooner (and thus RN wages 3 years sooner), I was coming out ahead.

I have $35k in loans, mostly private, with a payment of about $350 per month. Until recently was paying between $500 and $1000 monthly to knock it down quicker. With the economy and my hubby's job being comission based, paying extra is not a luxury we can afford right now, but we are able to may the monthly note with no problem.

My point is you have to look at ALL the options available to you and find the one that works best for you.

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