Student loans as far as the eye can see
What do more than one-third of college grads expect to be doing more than 10 years from now?
Occupy the corner office at a corporation? Start their own company? Run for political office?
Unfortunately, their plans are a bit more mundane. They expect to be paying off student loans still.
Thirty-seven percent said it will take them more than a decade to pay off their debt, according to an online survey of 4,000 respondents by CollegeGrad.com, a site for entry level jobs.
Ten years is the standard repayment schedule for federal student loans. The federal program has some options, which I wrote about yesterday, to stretch out payments beyond and even to have some debt forgiven. But the longer you take to repay, the more you will pay in interest.
Some positive news from the survey: Twenty-eight percent didn’t have any loans, and 14 percent expect to pay off their debt in less than five years. About one in five expect to pay on the standard schedule.
Comments
I guess I got pretty lucky to go to a state school in NY. I go to Binghamton University and I guess it's one of the best public schools in the nation and it only costs about $16k a year or something like that. I already have $10k in private loans that I'll have to pay back, about $7k I think in federal loans, maybe a bit more and this fall I'll be a Sophomore. Hopefully I don't have to buy anything very expensive in the next 30 years....
Posted by: Frank | March 6, 2009 11:23 PM