Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin
Congratulations on that. I didn't need loans for my undergrad degree either. The music department needed violin players for their orchestra and I was a pretty good one, so I got nearly a full ride. What fiddling didn't earn me, I was easily able to handle with the various jobs I had.
Law school was another story. It started out at around $750/credit hour and ended up at around $1,000/credit hour with all of the tuition hikes over the 4 years I attended part time. At ~$18K/semester and working as a legal assistant, limited by the American Bar Association to 20 hours per week, unless you want to lie to your school and risk expulsion, there is almost no possible way to pay for a legal education as you go.
I did rack up nearly $100K in debt, and while it's a "drop in the bucket" as some say with my increased income, the interest rates tend to be a higher than I'd like them to be, so unlike others, I'm being a lot more aggressive in getting the debt paid.
Not everyone has parents who are willing to loan them that kind of money or to pay that sort of tuition bill. Like others here, my debt is an investment which has paid off big.
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When I got my loans, interest rates for federally sub'd loans were at an all time low. I have rates at 3%. As a resident, you can't pay back loans so you defer, and then spread them out to pay over 30 years like a mortgage. When you make low wages for 6 years, you aren't going to pay off a $100,000 loan. A payment on my 30 year loan is a drop in the bucket and causes me not an ounce of worry.