I have 60 grand of student loan when I finished BSN

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I had my ADN in 2014, then I went back to school two months later for BSN, now I just graduated from BSN, and the student loan I owe is little over 60 grand..Oh load. I had to pay over 600 a month for 10 payment. That seems a lot to me. Any suggestions? any programs that can reduce or forgive my loan? Thank you very much!

Don't feel bad. Im in the same boat. 60k in school loans. My plan is to pay them off as quick as possible. This means sacrificing some luxuries, but oh well. I lived off of the money as well. I could not have completed school if I didn't. My advice is to make a budget and stick to it. Also, I know plenty of nurses that owe the same amount.

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Specializes in Emergency Medicine.

I work a lot because I have nothing else to do plus I love working at a Level 1 trauma facility... I believe in work hard play hard... I work at San Francisco General Hospital my pay is 64/hr plus 20% night diff... OT is time and half plus night diff... I put in 36 plus 18 hours over time... I also put in hours at another ED at Sutter Healthcare in Berkeley also in the ED... The pay 73/hr with night and CN diff... I put in 32 hours there they dont offer OT... So I do about 86 hours a week between both jobs... I build up PTO and use it to take vacations or take a sick day just to get a day off sometimes... I've been working this schedule for 4 years and haven't got burned out... I figure when I do... I'll just cut back and go back to school and do my DNP CRNA...

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I feel you! My school was $20k/semester. Since it was my second degree, and I'd already burned through govt aid, I took out private loans. After scholarships, I still had to take 60k from Sally Mae 😫😭😵

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Graduating with $60,000 in student loan debt is not abnormal. According to The Wall Street Journal, 2015 baccalaureate graduates had an average of $35,000 in student loan debt. Now, if we assess the individual's financial contributions, type of school, prestige of school, program of study, geographical location, and other factors, then this figure could be significantly higher. Anecdotally, I graduate in 2015 from a small Catholic university in southeastern PA with about $56,000 in student loan debt. However, there was another university that I was considering that was $60,000 a year.

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I agree with a lot of the other commenters, too bad you didn't weigh all your options beforehand, could have done it a lot cheaper. I also suggest do your research for some sort of loan forgiveness and get on a really tight budget to pay it off quickly? Also just do monthly auto debit. This will help you establish/maintain excellent credit because of the timely payments. Also because you are forced to live on the rest you will have to make the necessary lifestyle adjustments to stay afloat.

Kinda sad all us ADNs were forced to go back to school just to do the same job we are already doing and not necessarily get paid any more money. Makes you wonder what's behind all this and is it to drain us of more of our hard earned money, I personally think so but I won't get into all that. Anyway I wish you well, hope you find an answer to your dilemma!

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Specializes in primary care, holistic health, integrated medicine.

I have a feeling she went to a proprietary school, probably online. Not all are bad, and not all are outrageous. But that is outrageous, if she borrowed that money for tuition and supplies. These days, high schools should have mandatory money management courses, and maybe even basic research courses to teach students how to figure these things out ahead of time. It is unfortunate that interest rates on homes are far less than interest rates on student loans. What happened to this new BSN is an atrocity. Hopefully, others will see this post and not make the same mistakes. I think it would be a good idea if the OP would disclose the school that over charged her. Although, she could have just racked up too much in loans, trying to live on them while in school. Who knows? I am going to search this site for advice on schools and student loans. Hopefully there is a thread. If not, it would be a good idea. Right?

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Live like you did before becoming a nurse for the next few years and get those silly loans paid off.......My guess is that if you would have chosen a cheaper school that is competitive to get accepted you would have been put on a 2 or 3-year waiting list. Here in Houston at cheaper schools, nursing students are usually on a 5-year waiting list because it is so competitive. So figuring you probably would have made several thousand dollars less during those 2-5 years while waiting to get into nursing school at a cheaper school, tell me how are you worse off now having a $60,000 loan? At least you're a nurse and you will continue each year to make several thousand dollars more with annual raises!!! If you do the math I suspect you will find that you come out ahead when it is all said and done.

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That amount of debt it normal around here (Miami, Fl). Yes there are cheaper schools but the amount of students they take and the number of applicants, it's just extremely competitive, everyone wants to go to nursing school. I started out wanted to go to medical school so I was working on my BS in biology before I realized I wanted to be a nurse but instead of quitting I just decided to finish it off, I mean might as well I was close to being done and already had all these loans to show for it and just figured maybe all those upper div sciences and 2 years of Chem would help me down the line at some point. So yea I finished my BS in Biology and just got accepted to an Accelerated BSN program starting January at University of Miami which happens to cost 41k with fees and stuff not including books and uniforms etc. My first bachelors in bio has me with close to 50k in debt already. I didn't have a rich mommy and daddy to pay for my stuff, and in this city you need a car so between rent and car/insurance payment (not a fancy car either) and living expenses I was pretty much living off financial aid and when I decided to work more and borrow less, well I realized I couldn't do as many classes, a bio major is no joke! So it ended up taking me longer than just 4 years to complete. So now all I know is when I finish my BSN next year I will be drowning in student debt!! í ½í¸­í ½í¸­

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Specializes in ICU, CARDIOLOGY.

Are you kidding????!!!!! Why and how did you get duped into borrowing 60K to get your BSN???? I worked full time plus being on call, took care of my sick sister and paid as I went along. My job reimbursed me the tuition. So why, in this day and age of hospital reimbursement did you have to borrow such an obscene amount. I am confused.

Anyway what's done is done. There are hospitals that will help you pay your debt by working for them. I suggest you do that.

And as a bit of unsolicited advice: Get yourself into a personal finance class and start figuring out how and why this happened to you.

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Specializes in ICU, CARDIOLOGY.

I was going to give her the Dave Ramsey advice also.

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That's ridiculous. I don't know where you are located and know that tuition rates vary but it seems like you could have done better. I did an ADN RN program for like 10K at a local state college and just completed 48 credit hour MSN program for less than 30K. However, this is a good lesson for readers. Shop around when choosing a program. School is going to be a sacrifice. Regardless of the program it will take time and energy to get through it. Cost is the one variable you have some control over.

There are plenty of programs out there that offer a value. I live in Florida and University of West Florida offers an online RN-BSN program that is very reasonable. Nursing, Registered Nurse to Bachelor of Science in Nursing - Undergraduate Catalog - University of West Florida

http://catalog.uwf.edu/undergraduate/tuitionandfees/Tuition_and_Fees_for_2016-2017.pdf

Unless your degree is from the University of Penn, Yale, John Hopkins or another prestigious institution you might have paid more than you should have.

Please don't think I'm judging as it's very possible not all your debt is tuition. Many folks have to borrow additional funds so they can "live" while going to school as most pre-license programs make it difficult to work. People borrow to pay rent and buy food and I get that, it just means you're going to work harder to repay that loan.

There are some gov't programs that offer loan forgiveness if you treat underserved populations, like Indian Health Services (ihs.gov) I also think there are some military programs as RN's are needed in the National Guard and Army Reserves. Good Luck and congratulations on finishing your BSN

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I feel your pain. I have friends with 130K debt. Try nursecorps. My plan is to work 2 FT and one income be for living expenses and the other to knock that debt out.

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