Dating Girl with Hefty Student Loans (attracted, cancer, mature, straight)

[josh u]

OP: You shouldn't care her debt load right now, but what you should care about is her SPENDING HABITS. Is she the type to get a new iPhone every year with an $80/month plan? Drives a $30k new car instead of a $5k beater? Eats out every day instead of cooking? If she lives beyond her means then she'll be the high-maintenance type who racks up even MORE debt and passes it on to you.

But if she lives beneath her means, I wouldn't worry about her debt because someone who's responsible with money will find a way to pay it off.

[The Dissenter]

Originally Posted by KidArizona

"Love is blind"

Blindness is no excuse for stupidity.

[11thHour]

Going $150k in debt for school to get a $75k job seems extremely excessive. I'd be very wary of this situation. Who knows it could work out, but even at $75k, that's a huge debt load. It could easily not work out. It would be a huge red flag waving me away, personally.

[Currency Pair Crocodile]

Girl texts me, saying she is with a patient and will call me tonight.

I'm sure she must feel very fulfilling helping people out every day. Maybe that 200K loan is worth it. If she pulls 500K in 10 years, she will be the only one laughing. But who knows. Ten years is too much time.

[foulball]

Originally Posted by v8killah91

Hi,

I've been dating a girl for about two months and recently she told she will have approximately $150,000 in student loans once she graduates in a couple of months. She is going to school full-time and does not have a job, so this amount will not decrease in the interim. However, she will graduate with her master's degree in a high-demand field where the average starting salary is $75,000. I'm trying not to let the debt drive me away from her because I really like her, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to take on that kind of debt if things get more serious. For reference, I am under 30 and have no debt. Any opinions?

Thanks!

You're dating a hot girl who has a lot of school debt. Where you view it as a crisis, I view it as opportunity. :-)

[foulball]

Originally Posted by Braunwyn

I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks 150k in student loan debt for a person who is not a physician or perhaps a lawyer hailing from an Ivy, and only an Ivy, is not financially realistic or responsible. There is something very wrong with a person that leaves college in such a mess.

I disagree. $150K is a lot of school debt, but is manageable. Here's a true story. I have a friend who graduated with $180,000 of debt. She is not a doctor and did not go to an Ivy- she studied at Cambridge. Anyways...

Living expenses: $60,000/year
Loan payment: $40,000/year
Savings & investments: $110,000/year

The loan is on track to being paid-off in less than five years. -And it's not like the debt is some big burden. She vacations all over the world, time permitting. She lives well on $60,000 in a high cost of living area. (So, these people who say they struggle on $75,000 really puzzle me.) There you have it. Real life, Real finances.

[11thHour]

Originally Posted by foulball

I disagree. $150K is a lot of school debt, but is manageable. Here's a true story. I have a friend who graduated with $180,000 of debt. She is not a doctor and did not go to an Ivy- she studied at Cambridge. Anyways...

Living expenses: $60,000/year
Loan payment: $40,000/year
Savings & investments: $110,000/year

The loan is on track to being paid-off in less than five years. -And it's not like the debt is some big burden. She vacations all over the world, time permitting. She lives well on $60,000 in a high cost of living area. (So, these people who say they struggle on $75,000 really puzzle me.) There you have it. Real life, Real finances.

You're comparing $210k/yr to $75k/yr. Huge difference. Not much difference in school loan amount however.

[Braunwyn]

Originally Posted by foulball

I disagree. $150K is a lot of school debt, but is manageable. Here's a true story. I have a friend who graduated with $180,000 of debt. She is not a doctor and did not go to an Ivy- she studied at Cambridge. Anyways...

Living expenses: $60,000/year
Loan payment: $40,000/year
Savings & investments: $110,000/year

The loan is on track to being paid-off in less than five years. -And it's not like the debt is some big burden. She vacations all over the world, time permitting. She lives well on $60,000 in a high cost of living area. (So, these people who say they struggle on $75,000 really puzzle me.) There you have it. Real life, Real finances.

As 11hour notes, you're comparing 210k with 75k. That's ridiculous, but expected. Isn't this stuff taught in HS anymore? Accounting, home economics, any class with basic reasoning to teach a kid to actually function as an adult? The responses in this thread are irrational.

Originally Posted by 11thHour

You're comparing $210k/yr to $75k/yr. Huge difference. Not much difference in school loan amount however.

[cpg35223]

Originally Posted by foulball

I disagree. $150K is a lot of school debt, but is manageable. Here's a true story. I have a friend who graduated with $180,000 of debt. She is not a doctor and did not go to an Ivy- she studied at Cambridge. Anyways...

Living expenses: $60,000/year
Loan payment: $40,000/year
Savings & investments: $110,000/year

The loan is on track to being paid-off in less than five years. -And it's not like the debt is some big burden. She vacations all over the world, time permitting. She lives well on $60,000 in a high cost of living area. (So, these people who say they struggle on $75,000 really puzzle me.) There you have it. Real life, Real finances.

I'm calling baloney on this. Are you telling me that your friend is earning $300,000+ annually? Because once the government takes its bite in withholding, that's how much she would have to earn annually for your numbers to compute. $300,000 is a more typical salary for CEOs of small-yet-healthy corporations, not someone fresh out of school. Heck, even top-flight MBA grads from Harvard starts out at an average of $120,000 according to the most recent salary surveys.

All that tells me that either you have your numbers wrong, or this woman is a congenital liar. Or maybe she was an investor in Facebook when it first started up. If it's the third option, she would have been able to write a check and covered her debt in one fell swoop. Meanwhile for the rest of humanity, even those who went to the best schools in the country $150,000 is a daunting amount of debt. Or she might be a Kennedy or a Walton or one of Bill Gates' kids, in which case she shouldn't have needed to borrow the money at all.

Real life, real finances my foot.

[Yzette]

Originally Posted by josh u

OP: You shouldn't care her debt load right now, but what you should care about is her SPENDING HABITS. Is she the type to get a new iPhone every year with an $80/month plan? Drives a $30k new car instead of a $5k beater? Eats out every day instead of cooking? If she lives beyond her means then she'll be the high-maintenance type who racks up even MORE debt and passes it on to you.

But if she lives beneath her means, I wouldn't worry about her debt because someone who's responsible with money will find a way to pay it off.

Gets my vote for best post on the thread.