From Politicalblend.com -
Student loans are the devil and I traded my soul to Sallie Mae for a college education. In retrospect, it was a decent trade. I’m proud to have earned my degree and feel blessed for the opportunity...
Student loans are the devil and I traded my soul to Sallie Mae for a college education. In retrospect, it was a decent trade. I’m proud to have earned my degree and feel blessed for the opportunity.
It does kind of blow considering I basically started my career almost a gazillion dollars in the hole. Talk about depressing. No wonder the government keeps pushing back the age to retire – Sallie Mae needs me to stay employed so I can finish working off my debt.
Despite all these negatives, education is still extremely important and the burden of student loan debt is a necessity (unless your parents are rich and then I hate you).
Still, I try to remain positive and see this as good debt to have – almost an investment in myself. By earning my college degree I have increased my earning potential, which means I can buy more things. All those flat screen televisions and sports cars I can now purchase will do nothing but boost the economy. Life is good!
My increased earnings also enable me to pay more taxes and I can’t even deduct the stupid interest I paid on my loans (I can’t believe how dumb that is!). Also, my student loan debt inflates up my debt-to-income ratio when applying for a mortgage. Life now sucks.
The government has no problem taking my tax money to bail out the people who shouldn’t have purchased homes in the first – so what about those of us struggling under the burden of student loan debt? Really, it wouldn’t be that difficult (or different) to work with lenders to refinance my student loans to lower my monthly payment.
Or, how about the government takes a different approach and creates their own cash cow version of Sallie Mae. Think about it – perhaps the ROI they get from offering low interest student loans could build some revenues to support all the other government programs I don’t qualify for. It is an $85 billion (yes, billion) industry.
In the meantime, here are some helpful hints for my brothers and sisters in the fraternity of student debt:
- Live within your means. Flat screen televisions and sports cars are cool but overrated.
- Contact your lender to stop payment for a short period of time. Your balance will still increase due to interest and there will be a small fee for "processing". Sallie Mae charges around $50 per loan.
- Stay in school and beat the system. If you stay in school you never have to pay. But you’ll most likely die with $154,548,354.23 in student loans and somebody has to pay it.
Sallie Mae might own my soul, but in 30 years I stand a good chance at buying it back – unless I get my MBA (then I’m screwed).