Is it common nowadays for nursing students to graduate with >100K in student loan debt? I am trying to wrap my head around how this is happening so let me throw a few questions out there.
Did you go to a public or private university?
If you chose a private university what advantages did you expect over a public university?
Did cost play any role in selecting what university you went to?
What was the cost of tuition per year?
Did you use the student loan money for anything other than tuition, books or school fees?
When you signed for the loans, did you have any idea how much the payments per month would be?
If you are a working RN, what percentage of your monthly take home pay goes to servicing your school loans?
If you are a working RN, knowing what you know now what if anything would you have done differently to keep the debt to a minimum?
I obtained my associate's degree and paid out of pocket. Unfortunately, my grades weren't great, so as a non-traditional student I returned to school for two years at a private college to get my bachelor's degree (non-nursing). I significantly raised my GPA, gained a lot of great work, internship, and research experience and completed all of my prerequisites for nursing school. I received significant grant money but still ended up with $30k in debt. Do I regret it? Sometimes, but it helped me to turn my life around and grow from a high school dropout to a professional. Afterwards I got into Penn, Columbia, Hopkins, etc. for nursing school and would have ended up over $100k in debt (easily) but chose to wait a few years and go to a public school instead. The first year of my BSN program I accrued another $15k but received the HRSA scholarship and also received some inheritance from a family member, so currently I'm looking at $30k when I graduate--with a BA and BSN, and my second year of school fully covered by HRSA. It could be better, but it could also be a lot worse. I wish school was free, but I'm grateful for my education and am mostly okay with the investment in my future.
The huge loans are becoming MORE common ... but they are not yet common. I just read a statistic (from a reliable source, but I can't remember the citation) that the average debt is around $35K. While the average amount of debt is increasing, most people are keeping it below $50K.
Is that not what I said in my post, that huge loans are becoming more common?
Is it common nowadays for nursing students to graduate with >100K in student loan debt? I am trying to wrap my head around how this is happening so let me throw a few questions out there.
Did you go to a public or private university?
If you chose a private university what advantages did you expect over a public university?
Did cost play any role in selecting what university you went to?
What was the cost of tuition per year?
Did you use the student loan money for anything other than tuition, books or school fees?
When you signed for the loans, did you have any idea how much the payments per month would be?
If you are a working RN, what percentage of your monthly take home pay goes to servicing your school loans?
If you are a working RN, knowing what you know now what if anything would you have done differently to keep the debt to a minimum?
1. 4 year private university, pre-licensure BSN program, started directly out of high school at 18 years old.
2. Superior academic experience. Superior overall college experience. My school is consistently ranked as a top 40 university in the country.
3. It did not. I had large scholarship/grant offers at the 3 other schools I applied to/was accepted to but I did not want to go to any of them. As soon as I was accepted to my alma mater, my decision was made.
4. Total cost was around $33K/year when I started, when I graduated it was $48K/year. Nowadays it's somewhere around $65K/year.
5. No, I did not. My loans were sent directly to the school and applied to my balance.
6. I don't remember. I don't think so. Not that I had any idea what any of that meant when I was 18-22.
7. I am honestly not sure. I've paid so much ahead on my loans that I don't actually have a balance I owe every month right now (it's paid several months into the future), but keep paying to keep ahead of the interest.
8. I would not have done anything differently. My college experience shaped the person I am today. I would be a different person if I'd gone somewhere else and hadn't had all the experiences I had that were unique to my school.
Is it common nowadays for nursing students to graduate with >100K in student loan debt? I am trying to wrap my head around how this is happening so let me throw a few questions out there.
Did you go to a public or private university?
If you chose a private university what advantages did you expect over a public university?
Did cost play any role in selecting what university you went to?
What was the cost of tuition per year?
Did you use the student loan money for anything other than tuition, books or school fees?
When you signed for the loans, did you have any idea how much the payments per month would be?
If you are a working RN, what percentage of your monthly take home pay goes to servicing your school loans?
If you are a working RN, knowing what you know now what if anything would you have done differently to keep the debt to a minimum?
1. I went to a public community college for 2 years and a private college for 3 (2 years before I went to CC and 1 year after CC to finish up my BSN. My 1st year at the private college I was not in the nursing program)
2. I didn't go to my private university with the intent to go into nursing. It just kind of happened. I saw nothing wrong with my CC education, my CC was well known for turning out good nurses and it was cheap. (I went there for free, my tuition was paid for by state and federal aid and an outside scholarship. Not one penny of my student loan debt is from my CC). The only advantage to going to the private university was I got a BSN. Don't get me wrong I absolutely loved the school, but that was the one true advantage. A higher degree.
3. cost partially played a role in picking my private college. Out of high school I applied to 2 colleges and got into both. I picked the one I went to based on proximity to my house and cost. It was about 10K less than the other school. It was also a smaller school which I liked. I am very happy with my choice.
4. I'm not sure about my CC tuition, but my private college was 21-24K a year. It went up every year. However, once I had my license and was in my final year at the school for my BSN, I got half off my tuition but I lost the scholarship they gave me (which was about 1/4 of my annual tuition costs so the 50% off was a better deal for me haha)
5. I got a refund check every semester from the school due to overages in my account form all the aid I got (student loans, federal and state financial aid, and an outside scholarship) If I was smart I would have started paying off my debt with the refund checks and easily lowered my debt by at least 5K but I didn't. I used it to pay my other immediate expenses such as car payments, cellphone bills, car insurance, gas money, credit card bills. etc.
6. I had no idea what my payments would be. I didn't even know my total student loan debt until I was graduated. i am currently 16k in debt and my payments are 173 a month.
7. I work a few part time jobs, so it's hard for me to estimate since my hours vary, but a very small portion goes to my student loans. I plan on making double payments to pay it off in half the time.
8. I would have used my refund check money to pay off my loans sooner. Either way I would still be paying the same amount (minus interest I would have saved by paying off the debt sooner) but it would have decreased the burden quite a bit.
My cousin graduated from private school with a BSN but also an 80k loan. She however got a job in the city right out of school and worked side jobs of being a cashier to pay off her loans in 2.5 years. Granted she lived with her parents and her entire nursing paycheck went to her loans while the only money she kept for herself was the money she made on the side.
You are doing it in a very wise and financially sound way. Congrats.
I should also say I'm a little older and understand how to make better financial decisions than I did at say 18 or 19. I just turned 40, and I have really enjoyed the debt free lifestyle I have enjoyed the past 8 years. And even though I am now divorced, I still listen to what Dave Ramsey taught me years ago. If I don't have cash, I don't buy it.
I never called you a fool or stupid. I simply was stating a fact that the payment on a 100k loan is about $1,000/month which is close to what an average new grad takes home every two weeks. I was simply stating a fact. No judgement here.
There are many private universities where the low end of the scale is 34-38K a year. Some as much as 48k a year. Even one my kid was accepted to that was 68K a year.
Tuition is a very, very small part of college. Therefore, if one is living at home (or an adult) and is going to classes, that is very different than a full time student who is living at the school. Besides fees and books, there's the dorms for anywhere from 4-8 thousand a year (and I dare say some a semester) the mandatory food program (6-8 thousand a year) and so on.
It is all fine well and good to say that a kid is going to pay parents back or take over payments for plus loans. But the obligation is with the parents and not the kid.
And in some states, it is a requirement that parents keep their adult children on their health insurance plans until either 24 or 26 if they are unmarried and a full time student.
Bottom line is that there is a significant difference between an 18 year old going to college and an adult. Even if your adult child is under the age of 24 and not married the parents still provide information to FASFA with an "obligation" or "responsibility".
It is rare for a dependent kid to get a student loan on their own besides a very small amount. That has changed from the days that anyone and everyone (dependent kid or not) could get a student loan.
And rarely does a kid defer college to work to pay off tuition as they go. I am not suggesting all kids, but a number of them. Universities are learned in finding a way to make it work for them, with little impact on how they will pay the loans off once they are done with school.
With the time requirements on when you must complete programs to still be eligable for aid (i.e 150% or 6 years for a 4 year program), most students feel like they can't stop. I remember my school telling me they couldn't gaurentee me a spot if I took a summer off to work. Utter nonsense. Its a bubble, and I feel terrible for those out there getting 100k for a nursing degree at 6.8% or w/e it is now. I don't know how you beat that kind of debt with that kind of interest in most states in the US as a floor nurse. Military it is!
Myself I had a little over 26k by the time I graduated with my BSN 7 years ago. I ended up living with my parents for a year and paid most of it down. Then I worked for another 2 years before finishing it off. It felt great.
Student loans are going to be the next bubble to pop I think. It's just too easy to get a loan for school for many people that I think it prevents students from really looking at the long-term effects of student loans. While the average is $35k-ish now, I have hearing more and more people with exorbitant amounts of student loan debt. I'm not even talking about nursing students; I am seeing it in a lot of other areas as well. I would never pay $100k for any degree that wasn't a medical degree.
MiniNurseintraining
62 Posts
Will do! If that's one of your videos, I'm pretty sure that's one of the first of yours I've watched yesterday. :) Very insightful.