Congrats Grad! Now it’s time to PAY UP!
By Lea Erwin
There are 15.9 million students enrolled in college this fall, according to the latest census and that means on average most of these students will be graduating with some type of debt, which can be anywhere from $5,000 to $120,000.
Wikipedia’s definition of “Debt” ” is a negative quantity of wealth that originates in a transfer of wealth in which the owner does not immediately receive compensation in wealth. IN OTHER WORDS that means it will be that much harder to have a normal life, i.e. buying a house, new car, vacation or just enjoying the money you worked so hard to earn (in an already failing economy).
As a graduate student, I think about these things everyday and yet I wonder; why are we encouraged to learn everything from anthropology to cosmetology, but not one thing on school loans, investments, stocks or savings?- Basic money management.
When I was 18 I entered college with very little knowledge of what it meant to take out a school loan, let alone what it meant to pay it back. Then two days before I graduated I suffered through a 30-minute exit loan counseling video and that was it, until six months later when I received my first loan repayment bill, and REALITY hit!
Today, I have a better understanding of interest rates, types of loans, and repayment periods. I did a lot of research on consolidation and other options on how to manage my loans. This was a learning process, and as a journalism student I was taught to dig for information, but what about other students who were not journalism or economy majors? What do they do?
We are adults and we worked hard to get where we are, and like our parents we should get the opportunity to own a nice home, boat or giant-expensive sand castle and have a successful career. Our education costs us a lot of money and it should be the key to our future not the door that slams us in the face.
For more information check out these websites!
Studentloanjustice.org, - great stories and some scary ones
Projectstudentdebt.org, - interesting alternatives to consolidation (which should ALWAYS be researched)
http://www.campusprogress.org/tools/1401/college-debt-relief -Good Activist website
http://moneycentral.msn.com/home.asp-Get to know all there is to know about money
3 years ago