Is my student loan debt unusually high?

[Anonymous]

I owe $95k and make $75 and it feels like I will never be free of it.

[Anonymous]

Depends on what your future income potential is (and your personal financial choices). I graduated with $107k and starting salary of $75k. That was 12 years ago. The first 5 years were difficult, but I scrimped and saved and bought a starter condo. I'm 12 years out making $200k, bought a house in arlington and less than a year away from paying it off (paying $2k a month).

It can be done, but if you don't have good income potential I would strongly encourage you to get a fed job that qualifies for debt repayment/forgiveness. You will be done in 10 years.

[Anonymous]

I don't expect my income to increase much...

[Anonymous]

My financial advisor once asked me what I make with my education and what I would have made without it. For me, the difference was significant. Made me realize that the cost of education was a good investment

[Anonymous]

I graduated law school with $130k student debt and my DH graduated from law school with $200k student debt (including undergrad and an ill-advised masters degree). So no, to me your debt level does not sound unusually high, although statistically speaking it is, since the average for a bachelors is somewhere in the $20ks if I remember correctly. It is certainly a significant amount of debt for someone with your income, especially since you don't expect to see a large increase there. Have you looked into IBR and any of the other federal repayment programs for which you may be eligible? If your loans are all/mostly federal it's possible that it could help you get your payments down to a more manageable level.

I do advise not marrying someone with student loan debt if you can help it, as my situation above illustrates -- it is a double whammy, and has made having a family and maintaining a middle class standard of living difficult.

[Anonymous]

Doesn't sound that bad to me. I graduated law school 220k in debt and dh 200k in debt. Yours will take a while to pay down but it can be done at your salary. Hang in there. I know from experience how much it sucks.