Another cautionary debt story

JL50ish
Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:43:58 +0000

It just sickens me that F/A packages from college include so much in student loans. This is just like dangling a carrot in front of a starving rabbit. All the kid sees is that he is going to get to go to his “dream school.”

When my son wanted to take out loans to go to his dream school, we put our foot down. Both my husband and I had SMALL student loans to pay back when we went to college (rates were CHEAP back then) and yet we still grumbled each month that we had to write out those two checks (mine was $50 and his was about $80).

Together, we had borrowed about $10-12k (that was for two people, folks. I borrowed about 5K and he borrowed about 7k). And, yet, paying back that combined $130 EACH AND EVERY MONTH got old REAL FAST.

It didn’t take us long to admit that we could have gotten to the same place “education-wise” without having gone into debt.

Seriously, if CC could achieve ONE THING GOOD, it would be to help students and parents realize that taking out all these loans is like signing your life away - in many cases. ( I give exceptions to those who borrow for med school, law school, and similar. But, even those people should avoid borrowing hundreds and hundreds of thousands because those professions don’t make a lot of money right away.)