...that I have to pay $120,000 back for it. It really makes you ask yourself "is my degree worth it?" Anything short of a Harvard degree is not. Yet, there's the reality I'm faced with. And with interest rates at a MINIMUM of 7.5% (some are 8.5%) I'll be paying a total of $390,000 back within 30 years. That's over a quarter of a million dollars for an education. And those payments are going to be around $2,000 a month when I graduate. When the average graduate in my field makes maybe $2,400 - $3,000 you see where the problem lies.
At least I am not alone. All of American college graduates are getting screwed. Read the old USA Today article. It made me cry. But the reality is my debt will be unmanageable.
It's making me wonder if all my life choices were wrong. It terrifies me to accept that the rest of my life will be spent paying off these loans and of course not contributing to retirement. What retirement? I won't own a home, I've come to accept that. I'll sell my car as soon I as I can so someone else can take over loan payments. Once I graduate, I'll have to cut back traveling for several years. If I ever get married it'll be a City Hall wedding ($10,000 could really help with loan payments) and I know that the rest of my life will be punctuated by loan debt.
When I was 18 years old, I didn't think about this. Someone should have warned me. I shouldn't have gone to school. I shouldn't have come to Australia. I shouldn't have gone to graduate school.
The point is I have. Now I realize I have to face the consequences and work to pay the $120,000 back by the time I am 55. Maybe then I can save for 20 years for a possibility of retirement.
I can't help thinking the government should have warned us. Someone should have warned us.
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