Student Loan Defaulters ONLY

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Anyone defaulted. If so please share your experience.

if your husband works 7-7, can he change to 8-8 and you could do night shift?

during growing season, do you have the option of a garden?

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Specializes in FNP.

You can't afford that car. Sell it and buy something cheaper. Get a FT Night shift job, hire a sitter for the overlap. Even at $20 an hour for twins, you will save a fortune. Insurance costs what it costs, but you have to have it, so suck it up and put the savings on your car and child care toward it, and the extra income to your loans. Cancel cable, cell phones, etc. Plant a garden, start cooking from scratch, mostly vegetarian, use cloth diapers. Walk instead of drive. If you can make 500/week after taxes, your spouse makes 600 and you have no mortgage, a net income of 4000 a month is plenty to meet your basic needs and pay your bills.

No, I wouldn't want to do all that either. The point everyone is making is that you really don't have a choice. They will get their money from you, one way or another. Make it your way, not theirs. You will REALLY dislike theirs.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Geriatrics.
I have no clue....but are the fees for child care that she is listing, reasonable?

NO. Neither are the insurance rates. She apparently lives in a high-cost of living area but her wages (~$19.83/hr) do not reflect that.

Suggestions:

1. Take the full-time job with insurance option. Consider nights and weekends to decrease cost of childcare as well as increase wages.

2. Shop around for childcare.

3. What type of insurance costs $400/month? If it's car insurance you can beat that. Shop around.

4. Consider taking an additional PRN position somewhere else. 1 or 2 extra days a month would make quite a difference.

5. Do not refinance those loans to a private lender, whatever you do.

6. I know it's hard to believe but this will pass. I remember what it was like having small children when starting out your nursing career. It's exhausting and you do not make that much money. It seems like you will never get past it, but trust me you will. The twins will be out of diapers before you know it.

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OP, this is a hard situation. I think it is easy for us all to look at it and say "do this" and ask "why did you do this?" I would call your loan company and work something out. Just reading all the advice here, defaulting just does not sound like an option AT ALL.

Also, to everyone condemning people for taking out high student loans - how do people manage to pay for college? In my state, a STATE school right now costs > $25 grand a year. I'm sorry, but that's a lot. I went to a private school that didn't even cost that much. Maybe it's just raised every year - but in reality, very few people right now have had wage increases in line with those tuition increases. I don't think eveyone's parents have that money, or should be expected to pay it anyways. I have a lot of loans, I worked all through school to pay what I could, and my parents helped the very little they could. (BTW I'm not having trouble with repayment.) Until this country gets with the program, this will continue to be a very real problem. We want people in this country to take all the "opportunities" offered, but it's pretty hard. Unless you really are poor or are an emancipated minor, getting government loans is impossible. So you are left with private loan, which are similar to the crazy credit card deals we are so used to seeing.

I'm not trying to rant (I know it turned into one). I just think about what will happen when the children I will one day have want to go to college, and I get all worked up. It's just scary!

My parents paid for my bachelor's degree (I had scholarships that paid for a good portion of it, they paid the rest). After that I was on my own. My bachelor's degree is non-nursing, so I had to pay for my own nursing school. Community college (AA in Nursing) is very inexpensive and is IMO a very good alternative to taking out 100K worth of student loans to get a job that you can (easily) land with a cheap 2 year degree. In fact, in my area nurses with a 2 year degree have an easier time getting jobs than those with BSNs because it is well known among the local hospitals that the 2 year degree programs have more rigorous clinical training.

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My parents paid for my bachelor's degree (I had scholarships that paid for a good portion of it, they paid the rest). After that I was on my own. My bachelor's degree is non-nursing, so I had to pay for my own nursing school. Community college (AA in Nursing) is very inexpensive and is IMO a very good alternative to taking out 100K worth of student loans to get a job that you can (easily) land with a cheap 2 year degree. In fact, in my area nurses with a 2 year degree have an easier time getting jobs than those with BSNs because it is well known among the local hospitals that the 2 year degree programs have more rigorous clinical training.

Not to go on a tangent, but that is not universal. I opted to take out $27K in loans for a second degree BSN program rather than the $2k ADN program because in my area, the market is tough (which is a bit of an understatement) and even worse for the grads from the local community college. There was an article in the local paper about a year ago and I don't remember the exact numbers but the percentage of new grads employed at a year post graduation was low. Many of the area hospitals are BSN only for nurse hiring, and the school I went to has a strong reputation among local and regional hiring managers. It adds to our debt, but the employment rate of the local ADN graduates is abysmal and the extra money for the program that would make me more employable seemed worth it.

There are also plenty of BSN programs that have great clinical training as well as ADN programs that have the minimum (my local community college doesn't have a maternity clinical OR a peds clinical and most of their sites are LTC with few acute care spots).

If I had kids though, and if our finances were already tight on DH's end, the cost-benefit analysis might have been much different.

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I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet.

The Nursing Practice Act in my state says that defaulting on student loans is "unprofessional conduct" that can cause your license to be disciplined/revoked. Something to investigate and consider...

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It pays significantly less per hour than PRN

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Those who said I overestimated for childcare. Ten dollars per hour for two toddlers in diapers. One 12 hour shift for me inlcuding commute/report time equates to 14 hours childcare time.

I have submitted 37 application to the hospital that is 1.5 miles from me over the past three years with no offer

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you could have a full time job and get those bonus PRN hours that pay much more WHEN you are off work from your other job.

bottom line - where there's a will, there's a way. it may not be the EASY way, but there's a way. it's called sacrificing.

i know. i had a toddler and an infant throughout school and worked 2 part time jobs. it was rough.

btw, you can get it deferred if you're TRULY not making enough to make the payments. if they won't defer it, you should be able to make the payments. what on earth were you planning on doing if you didn't get free housing? :confused:

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Student Loans 200/week

I dont understand how you have to pay $800/month for student loans. I owe $32,000 and my total payments are only $300/month. I dont think we are getting your whole story.

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Call and discuss the option of forebearance, my bank has worked with me and have been great about it.

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Specializes in Women's Health.

sooo, we all did it......

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