<p>can someone help me out with what happens to undergrad debt when the student goes on to grad school? do payments wait until the end of grad school?</p>
<p>I think there’s a difference between debt for professional school which tends to be of limited duration, involves an adult (i.e. someone in their 20’s who has already done the college thing) and is directed towards a specific career with some pretty identifiable monetary rewards attached. H and I were leveraged out the wazoo for professional school, but had a disciplined plan for paying it off, knowing that our career choices were going to be influenced by the need to pay off the loans.</p>
<p>I see 17 year old kids on this board with pie in the sky notions about what kind of job they’ll get after undergrad and it does scare me. In my neck of the woods, not every kid makes it out with a degree in 4 years…a teenager thinks he wants med school 'cause he likes to help sick people, only to discover that medical training involves chemistry and physics, both of which he can’t stand; it is often possible to have a high income and a satisfying personal life but in some fields, that’s unlikely in the first few years or ever… etc.</p>
<p>So caveat emptor. Debt is a wonderful tool when used judiciously. A neighbor’s kid is now getting a Master’s in Library Science; it’s his second master’s degree; he’s got loans from here to Kansas because each field he tries sounds so appealing until he actually works in it and then discovers that he hates it. Meanwhile… undergrad debt still there, like a mountain that never goes away. One or two kids a year from his program end up in swishy information management jobs at Investment Banks and the like and make big money… the rest go off to universities and schools and municipalities and have solid careers as librarians, but don’t make big bucks… but this kid NEEDS the big job to get himself out of his hole.</p>
<p>beanie, are you in the University Professor’s program at BU? Can you get that status? Can you negotiate your way out of the core requirements? </p>
<p>Check the depth of their course offerings–and don’t stop at just the undergrad courses. Check out which grad courses are offered too.</p>
<p>calmom, I completely agree. I’m trying to be sensitive to the debt question by putting in the word sensible. Do I get brownie points for that? 
Certainly some undergrads shouldn’t be taking on any debt–English majors who want to work in publishing for example. Architects have to be careful too. Med school hopefuls have to be careful. Engineers less so depending on region. Finance majors with jobs in hand–less so. Etc etc etc.</p>
<p>Kids, there is great information on estimating your capacity to carry debt–put it on a spreadsheet and see if it’s doable. On the other hand, my FIL told me that when my DH signed up for his private university, my FIL had NO idea how he was going to pay for it. “It didn’t work on paper.” </p>
<p>But he was successful man on a rising corporate career track–one that eventually led him to be a Fortune 500 CEO with his picture on the cover of business magazines. From the ashes of abject poverty, he turned himself a big-time risk-taker. He never told my DH that money was an issue, he gambled and sure enough, he got a promotion in the middle of DH’s college career.</p>
<p>suze–I am an optimist and a realist. Graduates do need to head to the main centers to get their careers started. I tell young architects they need to work in the best office they can find in the best city they can manage.</p>
<p>Some grads need to stay in those centers to reach the top–some don’t. Sometimes, the work experience in the main center, (say Manhattan or Silicon Valley or a top medical school) will be enough cache to boost a global career. I wouldn’t have believed this myself a few years ago but now I’ve gone and proved it to myself, haha. </p>
<p>I don’t get the comments from dstark. Par for the course, huh? My best friends are passionate about their careers as surgeons, teachers, SAHM’s, geotechnical engineers, civil rights attorneys, academic scientists, academics, HR professionals, business owners, painters, literary critics, writers, Deans, philanthropists, programmers, retailers and so on. Some have already retired from amazing careers–launching major film studios for example.</p>
<p>Cheers, it is something you get or something you don’t get. It has nothing to do with where you get your education. :)</p>
<p>Alumother, I’m not trying to say anything sinister, and I’m not talking about everybody, but some of us spend an awful lot of time on here, and it really isn’t all that productive. ;)</p>
<p>Plus some of us chose families over careers, or lifestyles or hobbies, or whatever.</p>
<p>
If you have a SUBSIDIZED loan (Stafford or Perkins), when the lender gets notice of your full time enrollment, the loan payment are suspended. So you probably have to make payments the first month or so after school starts, then the paperwork is taken care of and the loan balance is stable. </p>
<p>This happens automatically – apparently all colleges send enrollment figures to Sallie Mae and it works just like magic. At least that is what my son was told when he started college as a transfer, after being out of school for 3 years. </p>
<p>For the most part, the kind of debt that people are fretting about here are loans that are in excess of the amount usually available for subsidized loans. When someone talks about borrowing $20K a year, that is WAY MORE than the maximum available in subsidized loans. </p>
<p>A “subsidized” loan means that during the period that payments are deferred, the US Gov. pays the interest. They are not interest-free – its just that the taxpayers carry the burden, not the student. </p>
<p>For any other type of loan, interest is still going to run even if payments are deferred. I think for most loans, interest is compounded – meaning you also pay interest on accumulated interest.</p>
<p>
Yes, but college was a LOT less expensive in those days. Whatever debt your FIL was looking at was probably in 4 figures, not 5 – and I’ll bet that the total for 4 years was well under what 1 year costs today.</p>
<p>calmom, you are right re relative debt load. When I attended Brown, tuition was ~10,000/year. Low level jobs for new grads paid the same ~25K.</p>
<p>dstark, some of us creative types need to do a LOT of percolating… Then we burst forth with big surges of productivity. CC is good for percolating.</p>
<p>thank you calmom for explaining that…so with an unsubsidized undergrad loan, payments don’t stop when the student enters grad school?</p>
<p>Calmom, it is my understanding that all Stafford loans, subsidized or unsubsidized, have suspended payments during graduate school. The subsidized vs. unsubsidized piece just refers to whether or not interest accumulates while the student is an undergraduate – for subsidized loans, the federal government pays the interest until repayment begins.</p>
<p>What I think you are referring to is private (sometimes called “alternative”) student loans outside the Stafford or Perkins programs. Those loans are not limited to the $17K or so total debt that applies to Stafford loans, and this is where I think most parents feel kids can get into trouble. We expect our kids to contribute to their education, and don’t have any problem with them taking on the Stafford loans, unsubsidized in our case. When kids start talking about taking loans of $10K – $20K a year, that’s just a very dangerous path, imo. Check here for more info: <a href=“http://www.finaid.com/loans/studentloan.phtml[/url]”>http://www.finaid.com/loans/studentloan.phtml</a></p>
<p>On the subject of student debt - </p>
<p>We also have to consider that the borrowing/lending landscape is substantially different today than when our parents or ourselves may have borrowed money for college. </p>
<p>There are numerous predatory lending practices (across all aspects of consumption - but including student loans) to contend with now, that really did not exist before. </p>
<p>There is also a frighteningly large appetite for debt - in fact it’s quite in vogue! Borrow to the max and buy whatever the hell you want. Call me risk averse, but I’ll never believe it’s a good route. </p>
<p>Moderate debt - absolutely, for the right reasons. Leveraging other people’s money for your gain - yes, when the rules are clear and fair. But I think too many families are diving headfirst into huge debt for an undergrad “dream school” just because it seems like “everybody does it.”</p>
<p>I think suze has an interesting post in #1694. Hard to believe - but not everyone is interesting in sacrificing everything for their carrier. A great career - yes, it’s important. But some of really like living near our families and don’t want to trade it for the BIG salary.</p>
<p>DH called his loans from grad school a “mortgage on my brain.” Made a lot of sense then, still makes a lot of sense. He was giving up a well-paying job and going into significant debt, but he was going to have something to show for it afterwards.</p>
<p>Of course, we paid for those loans until the kids were well into elem school…but some loans are not unreasonable.</p>
<p>I think grad school loans are in a different league.</p>
<p>Who said it was about a big salary? Profs at Dartmouth tend to have left their old lives behind for the opportunity to teach at a great college in the boonies. If you have true passion for your field, no matter what it is, chances are you will need to leave home at some point if you want to challenge yourself. My boss told me that on my first job and I really have come to believe she was right.</p>
<p>Hopefully, for my generation, we will find a way to pursue our passions and go for the gold while also giving to our families. I think my parents have. More and more companies are realizing that to keep top employees (especially women) they will have to give them room for families. The company I worked for earlier this year has a task force studying this.</p>
<p>Not to get flamed, but Dstark has a point. Many parents would not have the time to put the hours into CC that many here do to help their kids. Though many high earning parents have different concerns and the $$ to hire educational consultants. I’m working for one now and the surprising thing is that all of the parents are not at all rich. Many are 2 parent working families who have no time to do this for their kids and are stretching to hire good consultants.</p>
<p>Boy am I gald it was one of your own who opined that CC parents are not the most career ambitious!! Imagine if I’d said that!! But you won’t jump on one of the club. Double standard.</p>
<p>Can an ambitious anthropoligist live in Tulsa? A plastic surgeon who wants to help war victims live in Greenwich? </p>
<p>Wennie, I recall some of your posts where you talk about not paying too much for college so that you can travel. They really gave me pause because you, like me, love to travel. Is there something wrong in endeavoring to make enough $$ to travel and put your kids through top colleges too?</p>
<p>“Is there something wrong in endeavoring to make enough $$ to travel and put your kids through top colleges too?”</p>
<p>Nope. Not if that is what you want to do and not if that is what you can do.</p>
<p>“Boy am I gald it was one of your own who opined that CC parents are not the most career ambitious!! Imagine if I’d said that!!”</p>
<p>I’m not sure about those comments, Suze. </p>
<p>Do you see people who aren’t the most career ambitious in a negative light?</p>
<p>I’ll answer honestly. I do have mixed emotions when I read about parents who have excellent educations but are not in the position to pay for college. I think everyone has a right to pursue what they wish in life, but I don’t think they should moan about their kids not being able to go to expensive colleges if they made the choice of lifestyle over income. </p>
<p>For myself I wonder, what do I owe my future family? I’ve been given every advantage, do I owe the same to my kids? Is it selfish to choose a low paying career when I have options? I don’t know yet, but to answer your question Dstark, I think at this point people who have the options need to be realistic about the consequences.</p>
<p>Suze, I’m glad you are answering honestly, because I’m not interested in any other way. ;</p>
<p>Life is short. Be a good person, love your family and try to do what you love. That’s what you owe your future family.</p>
<p>The rest will take care of itself.</p>
<p>Here! Here! (though I was hoping for lilies of the field…;))</p>