If you had student loans, how long did it take to pay them off?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Graduated with 5k in debt from a Virginia public school in 1999 with an undergrad only. Paid that off in 2 months. Bought my first house in Arlington in 2001 with 3% down. The best decision of my life was going to a state school, obtaining the minimum for a BS, and hopping into the labor market ASAP and quickly buying real estate.

You can buy a house with 3% down?? Or is this something that used to exist but doesn't anymore? I know not everyone puts down 20 or 25% these days -- but 3??

Oh child...FHA.

This is not an ancient concept. They are done today even. https://www.hud.gov/buying/loans

[Anonymous]

I had ~ 25k and my husband paid them off when we got married. I was 24 at time.

[Anonymous]

I paid off about $140K (mix of college and law school) in 15 years. I paid highest interest loans first but in general I had very low interest rates after consolidation. I made only minimum payments for the first few years. My first few jobs out of law school were very public interest oriented so I did not make a lot of money. My husband had no debt. We lived in a rent controlled apartment for 13 years in Friendship Heights so that allowed me to make $1000-$1200 payments a month for a long time. I used bonuses to make small dents here and there. Our income has grown a great deal over the past 5 years so that allowed me to pay a bigger chunk towards the end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Live with your parents for 2-3 years. Save for retirement (get the full employer's match), and pay off the loan. 2 of my cousins did that. Another stayed in his parents basement for 2 years even though he had no student loans (parents paid for it) and moved out with enough money to pay the down payment for his condo.

Depends on where one's parents live. Commuting distance to DC or NYC or some other major city, sure. But lots of people have parents living in economically depressed areas or even if not economically depressed, areas that are just meh for career opportunities/growth; for many (not all) professions, the career trajectory is built day one, so it is worth it to have some random 35k job in your hometown so you can live at home and pay off debt fast? Maybe not if once you're done with debt payment in 2-3 yrs, high end employers -- like NYC investment banking/consulting -- won't even look at you bc you were working at Joe Schmoe mortgage company in suburban south Jersey. And no for those kinds of employers, they don't care that you did it to pay off debt; frankly you won't even get a chance to explain that bc your resume won't even earn you the interview. Granted I think this is only true for things like IB, higher end consulting, biglaw etc. as they are very choosy re reputation. If your kid's goal is to be a supply chain manager, sure I think it's fine to live with mom and dad in south jersey as long as he/she has some corporate job and then make moves towards getting whatever job they want in whatever location once financial standing improves.

Agreed. They all were lucky because their jobs happened to be where the parents were - DC, NY, Houston. But, I am also impressed that they did choose to live with parents and their parents did not demand any money for them for room and board. They only paid for their transportation, clothes, phone, weekend entertainment. They packed their lunch most days, ate breakfast and dinner at home. Did not buy Starbucks. So essentially they funded their retirement to the max, put some money aside for emergency funds and paid off their loans.

4 years after he started working, one of the male cousins married his co-worker. His total expenditure for the wedding was 10K and he started his married life by buying a SFH for cash in a low COL state, where he is now settled - he is a software engineer and his wife is an accountant. Of course, real estate is not crazy in that state - his house was still approximately 300K. Around the cost of a student loan.

[Anonymous]

This is an eye-opening thread. Parents need to do their best to save for their kids college and maximize their education dollars by using all available options - including state schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:250k in loans after medical school. I am 10 ys out and have 180k to go. Depressing.

Wow! My son had almost $200K in student loans when he finished his residency about 18 months ago. He has paid off all but $20K which he expect to pay off by June. He is single and lives well but keeps his spending down because he wanted to pay it off within two years of completing residency.

I don't know how this is possible. You would have to have a ridiculously high net pay in order to pay $180K in 18 months.

He earns approximately $450K gross annually ......

Again, I am a PCP. Your son had an extra $325k in his first year of work to put toward his loans compared to me. Not surprising he doesn’t have much left.
To the MS3 going into peds, I love my job and have never regretted my decision not to subspecialize. But if you are interested in higher paying pediatric subspecialties, then certainly consider the financial benefits.

NP. Gotta ask -- are you unreasonably low paid for a PCP or is this just what salaries are these days? Does geography have something to do with it -- like you can make more in states that have a PCP shortage vs. states along the 95 corridor where there are tons of drs. so practices don't need to pay $$$ to attract more?

I made $125k 7 ys ago in my first year of employment. I make more than that now (but nowhere in the vacinity of $450k haha). I do not honestly know what a starting pcp salary is today in this area. It is much lower than other fields of medicine. The competition here actually helps because employer tries to keep salary competitive in order to retain me as there just aren’t many to hire if I left for a higher paying job. . There are definitely underserved areas you can move to that offer higher salaries to attract internists. It’s usually not as good as it seems though. You are often overwhelmed with patients, work long hours with little support services in the area (lack of specialists and ancillary services). And you live in an isolated environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:250k in loans after medical school. I am 10 ys out and have 180k to go. Depressing.

Wow! My son had almost $200K in student loans when he finished his residency about 18 months ago. He has paid off all but $20K which he expect to pay off by June. He is single and lives well but keeps his spending down because he wanted to pay it off within two years of completing residency.

I don't know how this is possible. You would have to have a ridiculously high net pay in order to pay $180K in 18 months.

He earns approximately $450K gross annually ......

Right. So he's a specialist. Bit different for those guys bc they know when they finish residency they'll make 300k+ or 400k+. Not sure why you're feeling so cocky about this comparing him to a PCP who likely makes less than 1/2 what he makes. Are you also shocked when Wharton MBAs who go into the hedge fund world pay off loans in 1 year while their non profit counterparts who don't have loan forgiveness can easily take 20 years?

Don't mean to come across as cocky but when one has substantial loans after any course of study - whether med school, business school or any other field - one does need to consider earning potential to meet loan obligations and not have to struggle for years thereafter.

It is a point that I have made to all my children and anyone who asks for advice. Pursuing one's passion is all very well but in the end one has to consider earnings potential as well if one is taking on a lot of debt.

By that logic we wouldn’t have any pediatricians for your special snowflakes. Or what if you didn’t have a primary care doctor and could ONLY see a high priced specialist for any and everything?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:250k in loans after medical school. I am 10 ys out and have 180k to go. Depressing.

Holy shit. Do you mean you're 10 yrs post med school or 10 yrs post residency? What specialty/area of practice? Do most drs. defer loan payments for the 4+ years of residency?

10ys post med school. Deferred loans for 3 ys of residency (most people have to unless married with another income or can live with parents/family for free), so I have been paying toward them for 7 ys. I am primary care physician so at low end of pay scale for MD. Luckily most of what is left is very low interest 2.25%. Because of that, I have been maxing 401k rather than throwing that money to the loans since I am way behind in retirement savings after all the years of school and residency.

Ugh this is so depressing to me. I'm an MS3 and I am going into peds. Its so nervewracking to think about the future.

Primary care does not pay well. One need not select a specialty one would hate but there are specialties involving kids that pay fairly well.

Was going to say the same. Do you necessarily HAVE TO be a pediatrician? And even if you must do peds, why not do a subspecialty -- pretty sure the neonatal and the pediatric cardiologists are making a LOT more. Sure they are in training for longer post residency but the given the lifetime earnings, the numbers more than work out in their favor.

I want to be a pediatrician but I am definitely considering doing a subspecialty. I like endocrine and critical care and would consider either of those but I think pediatric endocrine is actually a pay cut compared to a general pediatrician!

My parents paid for undergrad and they pay for my rent, groceries, and gas but the rest I pay for. I attend a state school for med school and will probably come out with like 175k in debt. Its pretty crazy!

[Anonymous]

About 100k of student loans from BA and MA. Paid off at age 31. Didn't have high paying job, but frugal, and some help from repayment benefits from job (about 20k).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is an eye-opening thread. Parents need to do their best to save for their kids college and maximize their education dollars by using all available options - including state schools.

My parents didn’t go to college. They had four kids and lived paycheck to paycheck. They never could have saved for college. Yet, I graduated from a state university and an out of state public law school. The debt was worth every penny to break the cycle my parents lived in and to ensure I had job opportunities. I went from lower middle class to upper class. Education was a necessity. It is so much harder to do today what I did 20 years ago because the cost of education has sky rocketed. It’s sad that higher education is becoming unattainable for so many people.

[Anonymous]

$82k after undergrad and law school. Still paying, nearly 12 years out. Interest rate is less than 2%...I’m not hurrying to pay them, frankly. I think I have about $40k left.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Graduated with 5k in debt from a Virginia public school in 1999 with an undergrad only. Paid that off in 2 months. Bought my first house in Arlington in 2001 with 3% down. The best decision of my life was going to a state school, obtaining the minimum for a BS, and hopping into the labor market ASAP and quickly buying real estate.

You can buy a house with 3% down?? Or is this something that used to exist but doesn't anymore? I know not everyone puts down 20 or 25% these days -- but 3??

Oh child...FHA.

This is not an ancient concept. They are done today even. https://www.hud.gov/buying/loans

The minimum is 3.5% now, but yes. Yes, this is a thing that happens.

Veterans can even put zero down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:250k in loans after medical school. I am 10 ys out and have 180k to go. Depressing.

Wow! My son had almost $200K in student loans when he finished his residency about 18 months ago. He has paid off all but $20K which he expect to pay off by June. He is single and lives well but keeps his spending down because he wanted to pay it off within two years of completing residency.

I don't know how this is possible. You would have to have a ridiculously high net pay in order to pay $180K in 18 months.

He earns approximately $450K gross annually ......

Again, I am a PCP. Your son had an extra $325k in his first year of work to put toward his loans compared to me. Not surprising he doesn’t have much left.
To the MS3 going into peds, I love my job and have never regretted my decision not to subspecialize. But if you are interested in higher paying pediatric subspecialties, then certainly consider the financial benefits.

NP. Gotta ask -- are you unreasonably low paid for a PCP or is this just what salaries are these days? Does geography have something to do with it -- like you can make more in states that have a PCP shortage vs. states along the 95 corridor where there are tons of drs. so practices don't need to pay $$$ to attract more?

I made $125k 7 ys ago in my first year of employment. I make more than that now (but nowhere in the vacinity of $450k haha). I do not honestly know what a starting pcp salary is today in this area. It is much lower than other fields of medicine. The competition here actually helps because employer tries to keep salary competitive in order to retain me as there just aren’t many to hire if I left for a higher paying job. . There are definitely underserved areas you can move to that offer higher salaries to attract internists. It’s usually not as good as it seems though. You are often overwhelmed with patients, work long hours with little support services in the area (lack of specialists and ancillary services). And you live in an isolated environment.

Starting pay is still around $130 for primary care physicans in the northern Virginia, from the offers my husband got last summer . He finished residency and we would have loved to stay in the area but the pay wasn’t enough for us to deal with his $220k in loans and have a life with our kids. He makes a bit over $200k out west where we moved but it is a higher needs population, as you said.
And to the pp asking about pediatric sub specialties, most subspecialties are actually a pay cut or the same amount as a pcp, especially considering all the additional years of residency that you need to go through. Peds is rough financially but very rewarding to him personally

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Don't mean to come across as cocky but when one has substantial loans after any course of study - whether med school, business school or any other field - one does need to consider earning potential to meet loan obligations and not have to struggle for years thereafter.

It is a point that I have made to all my children and anyone who asks for advice. Pursuing one's passion is all very well but in the end one has to consider earnings potential as well if one is taking on a lot of debt.

By that logic we wouldn’t have any pediatricians for your special snowflakes. Or what if you didn’t have a primary care doctor and could ONLY see a high priced specialist for any and everything?

My experience is that primary care physicians are increasingly a conduit for getting a referral to a specialist for anything that is remotely outside of the norm. Yes, run of the mill ailments and routine physicals are handled by a primary care practitioner but just about anything else results in a referral to a specialist. So, more often than not, I go to the specialist directly without seeing a PCP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Don't mean to come across as cocky but when one has substantial loans after any course of study - whether med school, business school or any other field - one does need to consider earning potential to meet loan obligations and not have to struggle for years thereafter.

It is a point that I have made to all my children and anyone who asks for advice. Pursuing one's passion is all very well but in the end one has to consider earnings potential as well if one is taking on a lot of debt.

By that logic we wouldn’t have any pediatricians for your special snowflakes. Or what if you didn’t have a primary care doctor and could ONLY see a high priced specialist for any and everything?

My experience is that primary care physicians are increasingly a conduit for getting a referral to a specialist for anything that is remotely outside of the norm. Yes, run of the mill ailments and routine physicals are handled by a primary care practitioner but just about anything else results in a referral to a specialist. So, more often than not, I go to the specialist directly without seeing a PCP.

I’m the opposite. I very rarely see the specialist and my pcp is able to keep me healthy and even manage my autoimmune disease. To each their own, but I’m thankful I’m able to keep my copays and medical charges down by not running to the specialists.