Student Loans got you down?????

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Specializes in Medical Surgical/Addiction/Mental Health.

i am a student in an accelerated bsn program that is going to cost be about 50k to complete. i also have student loan balance of about another 50k from a previous degree. so, after graduating, i will have student loans in access of 100k. now, i have seen so many posters who frown upon having student loan debt, but i have come to the conclusion that it may not be so bad. here is why.

there are many programs that will help pay off your debt by working in one of the listed positions. also, the government has provided two options for repayment: the income contingent repayment option or the income-based repayment option. when i read the posts and i respond with this information, i am surprised by the number of people who are unaware of such programs. i have attached the web link for you reference. http://www.finaid.org/loans/publicservice.phtml

for me, i already know i want to be a nurse educator, so i know the government will pick up my balance after ten years of on-time payments. there are also employers who are contributing to paying off nurses student loans (perhaps not so much now given the current economy).

if anyone else knows of other programs that aid nurses in paying back student loans or grants for going into the field, please share them in the post so that students will have enough information in making informed decisions about their education.

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This is a GREAT question and I look forward to people's reply!! LOL...I have been wondering the same question but no one has anything good to say :crying2: so I truly hope somone will!!!

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PBC, please dont take this as a personal attack as I really like the posts you put up on the AN forums.

But I think you overlooked the part that states this only applies to federal loans. And you didnt get 100k in federal loans for undergrad as the max is 31k or 57.5k depending on status. Thus there is still going to be alot of money left to pay after the 10 year federal repayment time is up.

The program is still a great option, but it doesnt free anyone of all their debt.

I know you are trying to help, but your mis-information could do some serious damage, so please be careful.

Debt is still something to avoid, of course some debt is unavoidable, but even then its best to keep it as low as reasonably possiable.

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As far as schooling goes then would you have a suggestion as which route to take for someone who cannot get into a nursing program right away but will have to be waitlisted for the next 3 years? Would you suggest a private university that allows you immediate entry even though you will be paying alot for it??

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Specializes in Medical Surgical/Addiction/Mental Health.

i will be more than happy to explain myself further. i have about 48k in private loans. i already have an employment contract signed at a disproportionate share hospital (dsh). after three years of service, a total of 85% of that loan balance will be given to me by hrsa. here is the link for more information: http://www.hrsa.gov/loanscholarships/repayment/nursing/fundingpreference.html this forgiveness does not require the loans to be federal.

there is another loan forgiveness program with hrsa that offers loan forgiveness to primary care practitioners. here is the information about it: http://nhsc.hrsa.gov/loanrepayment/ these loans not only have to be federal, but they have to be direct loans!

finally, there is the public service loan forgiveness program. the information for that program can be found at: http://studentaid.ed.gov/students/attachments/siteresources/loanforgivenessv4.pdf for this program, a person must work in the listed position for ten years while making loan payments. these payments can be income contingent or income based. more about payment options can be found at: http://www.direct.ed.gov/repaycalc/dlindex2.html

this post was meant to simply illustrate options that are available to nurses. i decided to make the post because i find many people on an who really don’t have a good grip on borrowing or the options that are available to them. my post in no way suggests that people should go out and max out their credit. i don’t see how any of this is misinformation when it is on the government’s websites.

actually, after i get finished, i anticipate having about 150k in total debt. i will have two undergraduate degrees and two graduate degrees. so, 102k will be in federal loans that will be paid off completely after serving my contract. my payment with the income based loan repayment program will be $227/month http://studentaid.ed.gov/portalswebapp/students/english/ibrplan.jsp . that equates to $27,240 over ten years. so i guess you are correct. my entire 102k will not be paid off, but $74760 will be.

for the record, i am not offended. when i read my post, i realized i was not very clear. i think this response does a better job as all of the links are available now.

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Specializes in Medical Surgical/Addiction/Mental Health.
As far as schooling goes then would you have a suggestion as which route to take for someone who cannot get into a nursing program right away but will have to be waitlisted for the next 3 years? Would you suggest a private university that allows you immediate entry even though you will be paying alot for it??

There are a lot of mixed feelings about attending a private school. The program I am in is at a private school. I attended Harrison College at first until I realized the importance of accreditation. I have nothing bad to say about the school, but I wanted to be certain to not limit myself as far as job prospects. I decided to attend a different school and work on my BSN instead. It's up to you. I suppose one could do the math to figure out how much money is lost in salary while waiting to get into a program and compare it to the tuition difference. For example, suppose you would make 46K a year as a nurse. Multiple that by three...that is 138K you would be missing out on in salary over three years. Now, if the program at the school that is waitlisted costs 15K and the private school is 40K, that is a difference of 25K. You have to ask yourself if it is worth putting out 25K more in tuition in order to make the 138K over the course of three years.

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Thank you for clearing that up with the addition of the HRSA. I guess that is what you ment by many programs that will help pay off your debt by working in one of the listed positions.

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There are a lot of mixed feelings about attending a private school. The program I am in is at a private school. I attended Harrison College at first until I realized the importance of accreditation. I have nothing bad to say about the school, but I wanted to be certain to not limit myself as far as job prospects. I decided to attend a different school and work on my BSN instead. It's up to you. I suppose one could do the math to figure out how much money is lost in salary while waiting to get into a program and compare it to the tuition difference. For example, suppose you would make 46K a year as a nurse. Multiple that by three...that is 138K you would be missing out on in salary over three years. Now, if the program at the school that is waitlisted costs 15K and the private school is 40K, that is a difference of 25K. You have to ask yourself if it is worth putting out 25K more in tuition in order to make the 138K over the course of three years.

Thanks soo much PBC for all your information is helps the ones who need assistance but are having trouble finding exactly what they are looking for!! :D

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Specializes in Medical Surgical/Addiction/Mental Health.
Thank you for clearing that up with the addition of the HRSA. I guess that is what you ment by many programs that will help pay off your debt by working in one of the listed positions.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention. After reading the original post, I thought it was a horribly written post. In fact, I am a little embarrassed by it.

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Depending on how much money I'll save up this summer working (hopefully a lot!) I'll graduate with my RN with between 15 and 18,000 in federal loan debt. I'm considered an independent student, so I'm hoping that I'm able to continue to get loans to go on and get my BSN after I get my RN - of course, I'll be working as a nurse then, so I won't have to borrow as much money.

Thanks for the information.

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none of these can be signed up for when the student takes out the loan. this assumes the rules will be the same years later when today's student qualifies.

i think it is more likely that instead of a lower number of students getting into loan repayment problems because they miscalculate how much they can pay back, we will have greater numbers of students getting into trouble because they ignore how much they might be able to pay back. flooding such systems, which will cause greater restrictions on who can access them.

there might be other reasons for the demand to outstrip the funding even more than it does now. budget cuts, perhaps, or budget freezes.

the feds might decide there isn't a nursing shortage because so many nurses are having so much trouble finding jobs. sort of like people used to count on signing bonuses and tuition help as perks when they were hired by hospitals.

"you have to ask yourself if it is worth putting out 25k more in tuition in order to make the 138k over the course of three years." 138k minus what you would make if you worked full time instead. even a $10 per hour job would make the real difference $48k instead of $138k. you might also ask yourself how sure you are that you will find a job that makes what you expect and that you can find such a job right away. the loan repayment can really add up and bite with even a few months of job hunting.

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