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[quote=unixfed;35602430]Curious to hear from those who bit the bullet, took out student loans, and now have been working in the "real world" for some time... Was it worth it to take out those loans? How are you making a dent in them? Did the resulting degree really make a big difference?[/quote]
No. So far the two degrees I have (Business Administration; Nutrition Science) have been a very expensive piece of paper. The market pay for jobs available in this area don't even touch the surface of the cost of education. In most positions, the education is seen as "preferred" but not required. There are MANY people with BS/BA degrees that are saying the same thing. The secondary education in this country is in a HUGE bubble.
I wish I never went to college in the first place. I would have greater success if I never had been so foolish to take out student loans. The results would have been the same, but with less debt.
And as the Bible says..
Proverbs 22:7
The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.
and the Bible is always right. I wish that I would have listened this council early on.
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I had very little in student loans as I went to state schools and had some scholarship money, but yes, absolutely. The degrees have paid for themselves many times over. I would never have been able to get jobs I enjoy and allow me to live without them.
Curious to hear from those who bit the bullet, took out student loans, and now have been working in the "real world" for some time... Was it worth it to take out those loans? How are you making a dent in them? Did the resulting degree really make a big difference?
I've been in the real world for a little over 10 years now.
My loans for my undergraduate degree (Business Administration, Finance) were definitely worth it.
I am questioning the loans I took out for my graduate degree (Master of Business Administration). Though I am happy that I have my MBA, I'm questioning if it's really been a benefit to me in terms of my career. There was no substantial pay increase after I got it in 2009 and when I finally did get a big pay increase in 2011, I don't think it was because of the MBA, I think it was because I changed jobs from the hospitality sector to federal government consulting. And then when I became unemployed because of sequestration and the budget cutbacks in 2013, I think having the MBA actually hurt me, because I got a lot of responses back saying that I was overqualified, I was tempted to take it off my resume just to see if that would increase the amount of responses I got. If I had to do it again, I might have just gotten some certifications instead of the MBA.
In terms of the student loans, both my wife and I have some pretty substantial undergraduate and graduate school loans. We have no problem making the monthly payments and before I lost my government contracting job, we were 3-6 months ahead on all of the loans. Now we're not ahead on anything, but we're not behind either. We'll hopefully be able to pay them down quicker when I get a higher paying job in the near future and when we come into lump sums of money (i.e. tax refunds, escrow refunds, etc.)
Depending on which field, college degrees are worth the time and trouble. I don't think you'll get a great deal of disagreement on that.
Whether they are worth the burden of the loans, is another question. I would encourage students to figure out how to take on as little debt as possible in obtaining these degrees. One student wrote a book about living his van while getting a graduate degree in order to graduate debt-free. Other students live at home or take a job as a live-in assistant to an older person, take on work-study jobs during the school year and work two jobs in the summer.
I can't tell you how many students I know who lived in apartments, went out partying with pals, etc. all on borrowed money. Now several are on the hook for 30 years of $1,000/month loan payments for their 6 years of undergraduate and graduate school. Yikes!
Buying latte macchiatos and mojitos on borrowed money is beyond foolish and way too many students are doing this.
No regrets at all whatsoever here... especially considering I have a career and I can afford to pay off these loans and all my other bills and still live my life with my wife and baby girl.
Taking money out of it though... it was still way worth it for the college experience itself. Met some of the best people and experienced many things that helped jump-start my adult life.
Some-what worth it. I'd go back to college no doubt if it weren't so expensive. I prefer school than work.
That said, my field I'm doing now doesn't really require a B.S. However, I was blessed with my current position... getting paid big bucks and seniority at 24 years old. I wouldn't have been able to get this opportunity if I didn't have a college degree behind my name.
Depends on the field. There are plenty of fields which a college degree isn't that important. There are field with training programs / certifications which are more important than a college degree.
College degrees usually just get you into the door now but the certifications get you promoted.
I think you will have a hard time trying to find someone with a good degree who says college wasn't worth the effort or cost. It certainly paid off big for me and my friends. On the other hand I know a lot of people who went to college and never finished. For them it must be a huge regret since its a double whammy. No degree for future revenue growth AND student debt, yikes.
My cousin went to a VERY expensive ($35k/year) private catholic college. She got some sort of degree for teaching religion only to find out that there was zero job opportunities. So she had piling student loan debt and now grows marijuana for medical use. That would be the select type of folks who probably regret college.
lol, and they wont admit it here..haha
I have read posts from people who claims their "friends" have huge student loan debt ( more than 100k ) and making less than 50 k a year. That would suck.
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That would be the select type of folks who probably regret college.
