Not About the Payoff: Confessions of a Reluctant Student Loan Borrower
Hi everyone, welcome to the next installment of my student loan repayment guest post series. Today, we’re hearing from Greta. She reached out to me on Twitter when I first announced my Not About the Payoff series, and I was thrilled to have her write a post for my blog. She has a unique experience because both her, her husband, and her son took out loans for school.
Until I sat down to write this post I never considered how I felt about student loan debt. It was just something I accepted I had to do to get the education I wanted. Reflecting on my years in school, and how long I have been paying off student loan debt, I realize I have mixed feelings about education loans.
I didn’t truly understand what that debt entailed until my husband decided to go to school after we married. He signed the papers and got his education. Then he got a job. Then we received notice of the debt and what was owed. It seemed to be a lot higher than I anticipated, but we chose a payment plan and began making payments. It’s been ten years—yes, ten years—and we are still paying Navient.
Even armed with that knowledge, I signed on the dotted line for my own student loan with Great Lakes when I returned to school a few years ago. The payments are affordable, the debt steep, and if I make the minimum payment, I expect they will take just as long as forever to pay off.
So why did I – for the third time – make the decision to take out yet another student loan and incur more debt for my oldest child to go to school? For the same reason I did with my education and my husband with his. Because higher education, whether a technical school or a college, is too expensive for us to pay outright.
Exploring My Relationship With Student Loan Debt
My relationship with student loan debt is a reluctant one; it is something I had to do in order to get what I want. First it was for my husband to have an education. Then it was for me to have one. Now, my child. And I can’t say I don’t like them. Without them, I don’t know that I could have gone to school—or anyone else in my family.
And companies make it so easy to obtain them. With the promise of various repayment plans and low interest, it’s hard to say no. In fact, I don’t know that I comprehended the total on the loans the first two times we signed those papers. We didn’t see an accounting from the student loan servicers until after we had received our education and graduated. And then we were hit with the bills—interest included. When we signed for our child, though, I decided I would go ahead and pay toward the interest. That way after graduation, the bill won’t be such a shock to the system.
How Much Is The Value of My Student Loans, Actually?
Truly, I think that’s the worst of it. Getting that first bill from the student loan servicer. Seeing the full price tag of the student loan debt I incurred. Wondering how a piece of paper (my degree) could be worth thousands of dollars. And I think that’s much of the problem, isn’t it? We feel like the debt we accumulate for education is a mountain in comparison to something like a car loan. And I think it is because we could turn around and sell the car. There’s monetary value to it.
But with a student loan, the value is only in how much we can earn working. If I can only get a minimum wage job, then the value isn’t as much as it would be if I got a job making over one hundred thousand dollars a year. The value of the loan was significant when I went to school, but it lost some value when I didn’t make as much money in my chosen field because I didn’t have experience.
Student Loan Rebellion
But I don’t regret taking out any of the student loans. Even with the enormous amount of time it is taking to pay them back. Did I know it would take this long to repay them? Nope. I didn’t even think about it. What I did think about was how small of a payment I could make each month to ensure it had the smallest impact on my budget.
I think it’s important to note here that it is easier to look at the low payment, the small increment that has to be repaid monthly, than it is to look at the bigger picture of the total due. It’s absolutely an insignificant amount in comparison to other loans…until you add up the interest on something like ten years of student loan payments. It also wouldn’t hurt right now to point out that if I changed that way of thinking and paid more than the minimum due I could repay the debt sooner.
And even lower the overall amount due because I’d pay less interest over the life of the loan. I don’t know why I don’t. It’s almost like as much as I cringe when I log into my student loan account, I want to rebel and pay the smallest amount possible when the total is so high. Or maybe it’s because I have other debt that doesn’t have such affordable payment plans. I don’t get to choose my payment option for my house, my car, or any credit cards in my name. Maybe that little bit of control over that one payment makes all the interest I’m going to pay worth it.
One day my student loan debt will be paid off. So will my husband and my child’s. I will get another loan to pay for my other child’s education because it is an investment. In the person and in their future. Like any other investment, maybe it will pay off and maybe it won’t. But by choosing not to just to avoid the debt, you’ll never know.
Greta Gunselman is a personal finance freelance writer. Proud owner of a BA in English, she spends her time talking about finance over on Twitter (@thisgirlswalle1) and post-military life at lifeafterthemilitary.blog. If you’d like more information about Greta’s writing, please contact her through her website, thisgirlswallet.com.
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Interesting that she has that psychological reaction to her student loan debt. I see debt and I want to pay it off as fast as possible. But everyone reacts just a bit differently. And of course if you don’t meet your car or mortgage payments those can get taken away. You don’t get your degree taken away by paying only the minimum on s student loan. So perhaps her approach makes the most sense until the other debts have been taken care of a bit more.
I think that’s been the most interesting part of this guest post series. People have much different approaches to student loan debt. It’s been really interesting to peer into the corners of their minds and see that.
Thanks for sharing this story here! I think Greta’s situation is really common, and yet not one that gets written about very often.
Yep! She did a great job talking about the realities of multi generational student loan debt. Because it is a reality for a lot of families… and it’s hardly talked about, and definitely never in a positive light. I really loved editing this piece because she did such a good job with the nuance of it. <3