Debts are the Whips and Shackles That Will Enslave You

[KeepItRealRN]

1. The truth out there is that for the most part with rare exceptions, Hospitals don't care where you went to school. Taking out tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt to get a "designer" degree will not make you more competetive. It will however limit your opportunities because you have to generate a siginificant cash flow in order to pay off your debt.

2. When you do finally land your first job it most likely won't be the one you want. We all have to start somewhere to get our "foot in the door". When you have big debt you don't have the luxury of being able to be "between jobs". You will need to keep your crappy job no matter how much it sucks unless you have another one lined up and ready to go. Being without a paycheck even for a couple of weeks is not an option.

3. Big debt puts you in a position where you must "put up" with conditions you might not otherwise be willing to put up with because you can not afford to lose your job.

4. Money has been described as the "root of all evil", but the fact is that in our society (money=freedom). If you don't have it, or worse yet if you owe it to someone, then you are being controled.

Having said all of this, your outlook on life in general will be much improved when you go to your job because you "choose to" rather than "have to". I'm not saying that I am independently wealthy by any means. I have to work to live like everyone else but I do it on my terms.

Think about this, a lot of us before school worked jobs that didn't pay nearly as much as nursing and we got by OK. We did however had to work full time and then some to make ends meet. If you stay out of debt, you can make the same amount of money working a minimal amount of hours. This affords you to have a large quantity of something that is simply priceless and that is "time".

There are 3 types of poverty in this life and they are

1. Poverty of cash

2. Poverty of time

3. Poverty of the soul.

Solving "poverty of cash" by living in "poverty of time" is not a good trade off. We are all given a limited amount of time here on earth. When we work we are basically selling our time. I don't know about you but my time is priceless to me and I will only sell it to the highest bidder on my terms. However this is only possible if you plan it that way and stay out of debt.

[tater.jake]

3. Big debt puts you in a position where you must "put up" with conditions you might not otherwise be willing to put up with because you can not afford to lose your job.

Such an awesome point

[Wishinonastar, BSN]

This is an interesting topic. I think what it comes down to is making choices that are right for you. Because I am a nurse I was able to work part-time while my son was growing up. I earned enough to scrape by on less hours so I had many precious years with him. We never got anything paid off during that time. We never had fancy vacations or nice cars. The debt stayed the same, and here it is still. But time was more important to me then and I will never regret it.

Now I am at a stage where I have to play catch up. I have to get more pay and get the debt down. It is not easy and now the job market stinks. Still, because I have a degree from a good university I get called for interviews for better jobs. It may not get me the job, but it gets me the interview. I could never even apply for many of the jobs that I have applied for without at least a BSN. That is what they are asking for.

I have some debt because I did not go to the cheapest school. I checked it out and it was not what I wanted. I don't regret it, sorry. I am proud every time I tell people where I went to school. Everyone has their own idea of what they want from a school. Sometimes it is only a piece of paper. Sometimes it is the educational focus that they want. That is how it was with me. Colleges are all very different. I think employers know that. Once you have been in nursing for a while experience counts more, but sometimes the school you went to does matter. I know the places that I have worked look at that sort of thing. Of course I have worked for some very highly educated people, some of who have taught in nursing schools.

[klone, MSN, RN]

You know what's sad is that it's not the big things like college tuition that keep people poor but it's the foolish things that people waste money on:

1. Cable TV

2. Expensive cellphone packages

3. Not shopping around for home/auto/life insurance; paying low deductibles

4. Eating out

5. Gym clubs and other types of memberships

6. Wasting money on nick-nacks and chotskies(you'd be surprised)

7. Shopping at Walmart and dollar stores-absolute money wasters

8. Late fees and other types of avoidable fees, high interest rates

I bet if people took a good hard look at how they were spending on those items, a large student loan payment would pale in comparison.

I would add to that list (and put at the top): brand new cars, paid for with a loan. Worst.investment.ever.

[PatMac10,RN, RN]

I am thankful for public universities and Community College A.D.N programs. For someone like me who will be starting NS in an A.D.N program in a month, have a 2 year tution rate of $8,789 (given as an ESTIMATION by our program director, this includes tution, books, and other costs associated with NS such as ATI aand NCLEX fees.) is a true blessing! No student loans for me! After my AND program My school has an atriculation agreement with 3 public universities so I will only have to pay for a year and a half of of University tution due to taking a semster to get 2 BSn prereqs that I might manage to take while in my nursing program. Paying the public university tution is only if I do not qualify for financial aid, my hospital of employments emloyee assistance agreement, or any RN-BSN scholarships floating around. Now grad school may be a different story, but I hope my potential earnings. And scholarships/ laon repayments after grad school will off set that. If not I'll have to suck it up and work to pay it off, which doesn't bother me bc I still saved money for my total nursing education in the end. Ha! Take that student laons!!!! Lolz!!b I'm actually waiting right now to be notified if I've received a $10k nursing scholarship. That, alone will cover all of my tution, clinical, testing/ testing prep (for the NCLEX-RN) supply, book, and graduation/ activity fees/costs for my 2 year A.D.N program. Most of my financial aid money can come right back in my pocket to save for a rainy day or for my BSN.

[Warpster]

Thank you for the wonderful summary of reasons I decided on an ADN rather than going into hock for a 4 year degree. As it was, I was able to graduate debt free, working while I was in school to generate enough cash for courses and books.

Were I young enough to keep working, I might be interested in the RN to BSN programs with the MSN in my future, but I'm gratefully retired these days.

If I had it to do all over again, I'd still do the ADN. It was a tough program that prepared me very well to face life in hospital nursing.

[NickiLaughs, ADN, BSN, RN]

I agree with that, I have student loan payments almost as much as my rent. Unfortunately, in order to support my family a variety of circumstances existed in me taking out more student loans that I would ever want to. Husband's illness, an unexpected baby, and just bad timing for some really bad luck.

[Kyasi]

"Solving "poverty of cash" by living in "poverty of time" is not a good trade off. We are all given a limited amount of time here on earth. When we work we are basically selling our time. I don't know about you but my time is priceless to me and I will only sell it to the highest bidder on my terms. However this is only possible if you plan it that way and stay out of debt."

This is so very true and has been my philosophy throughout my entire nursing career. I was lucky to not have any education debt when I graduated from one of the last hospital based diploma programs. My entire 3 year education cost around $3,000.00 and that included room and board. So having a debt free start definitely helped. I never felt the need to increase my education and not having a BSN never hurt my job advancement ability through the years.

My husband and I also made a conscious decision to minimize debt on everything possible. We bought used cars that we could pay cash for instead of new, we never used a credit card if we couldn't pay the balance off at the end of the month, and we chose to live in a house that we could afford on one income instead of our dream house. Buying houses at low cost, living in them for many years while rehabbing them and later reselling them for profit allowed us to get our dream house later in life. Good things are worth waiting for. In short, if we couldn't afford it, we did without it.

Because we weren't dependent on my income because of the above decisions we made along the way, I was free to choose the jobs that were best for the season of life we were in. I chose home care because of the flexibility of hours. I could work around my young family and their needs even though it paid less. Now that the kids are grown and on their own, I'm working toward our retirement. Choosing a higher stress management job w/it's better salary wasn't an option for me when I had young children. I knew I wouldn't have enough mental or physical energy left at the end of a day to give to them. But now I have the time and energy, so it was a good a good job choice for me now that my desire is an early retirement, I want that higher pay to sock away and to help build up my SS benefits for my later years.

Your article was very insightful. Thanks for sharing!

Kyasi