Poll - How Much Student Loan Debt?

[wanderingenough]

After reading some posts on FB this morning, I started wondering where other folks stand. 

[Deleted]

Sore spot for me, it's over $50k .

ETA: And I'm not even using that degree lol.

[pooh8402]

currently??? or how much did I have before starting to pay it back?

edit: doesn't matter. my total before starting payments and my current total fall into the same bracket in the poll. 

[wanderingenough]

Feb 10, 2015 10:49:04 GMT -5 pooh8402 said:

currently??? or how much did I have before starting to pay it back?

let's go with currently 

[mrssandro]

It's a lot but the payment is pretty low. I could pay them off faster I suppose.

[HoneySpider]

$35,500 combined

It's our only debt and we've never prioritized it since we both have low rates (in the 2% range) My loans (about 60% of our total) have actually been in deferment for most of the last 7 or so years since I was in school and then unemployed.

I think we're actually doing ok in this area considering between us we have 5 degrees. Most of the loans are from UG for both of us (we both had very little for grad and I had none for doc)

[ewall]

I voted with our current SL balance. Combined we had around $32k originally. Current balance is $7k. We paid off my SL first ($125/month) then snowballed that into DH's SL payment ($150) so we are still paying $275/month in effort to pay off DH's loan early. I figure next year I will start throwing money at it to be done with it by end of 2016.

Edited to add more detail: Undergrad degrees only. I had a tuition scholarship so my SLs were for R&B/books/living expenses. DH has additional loans that his parents are paying. I'm not entirely clear on the details of those. I don't think they were all used for my DH's education as my IL's had 3 kids in college at once, DH went to school in a different country, and my FIL has a history of leveraging a lot of debt so who knows where the money actually went! I suppose we are on the hook for it if anything happens to FIL, but it's not really a big deal.

[estrellita]

I'm at about 20k or so. I think H has a little less than that but unfortunately he doesn't have the degree yet to show for it but kinda like HoneySpider it's our only real debt other than a car loan. I was putting a little extra towards the highest interest rate one for a while but now I'm not. Trying to prepare for daycare costs and build up more savings! Oh, I was also in deferment and on income based for quite a while, so I wasn't paying on them. Now we make "too much" for income based, even with calculating a family of 3. Wish they'd take H's loans into account!

[pooh8402]

it's currently ~$32,500. we do plan on taking out a huge chunk of our savings soon, (like before month end) to pay off the biggest one with the biggest monthly payment. then we can roll that payment into our car payment since we need a new car. so that total will be halved soon.

DH's loans are paid off.

[travelbug]

I don't have any and when H is done we won't have any for him either!

[bk1]

$0

I graduated with no loans (scholarships!) And DH had less then $5k. His work paid for most of it. We finished paying off his loans in 2011.

[spankswife]

$0 - We paid both of ours off. It was maybe $20k combined though. We had scholarships and pell grants thankfully.

[CrazyLucky]

I'm at 0 now, but only because I'm so old. When I got out of college, it was around $37k. Which may not seem crazy, but it was 15 years ago. My loan payments were $600/month. I was poor for a long time.

[katespade]

A little less than $4k.

I was extremely lucky to have a scholarship that paid my tuition. I still have a couple of terms worth of scholarship left, which is how I'm starting to work toward my BS.

[mac08]

Currently 13,000, started at 34,000.  Almost all from my master's.  I'm happy with where it is now since I've paid 21,000 in 7 years.

[jennybee1018]

We have no SL debt.

I received some money when my dad passed so I paid off my loans a few years ago (30K). DH had about 100K (PhD), but we we've been lucky enough to be able to pay it off since we moved abroad.

[awick14]

$0- I got scholarships for my schooling. (Well I paid for all my books and supplies, around $2,000)

DH never went to any school after high school.

Although both DH and I want to continue our education and that is going to be around $40-60k. Which will be probably in part student loans and savings. I think I want to go back to school to become a l&d or NICU nurse. And DH wants to go back to school but he doesn't know what he wants to do.

[HoneySpider]

wanderingenough the posts you saw on FB - did it make you think people had a lot or a little?

[wanderingenough]

Feb 10, 2015 14:38:10 GMT -5 HoneySpider said:

wanderingenough the posts you saw on FB - did it make you think people had a lot or a little?

The initial post was a friend who just go her first "real job" as an engineer, thereby taking her off forbearance after years of not making enough to pay. She was complaining about her monthly payments and everyone chimed in commiserating. Just got me wondering what others had going on.

We have a lot (50-99) but are on an aggressive payment schedule to knock them out, so our payments have always felt super high.

[atlas]

We have none. My parents paid for everything for me. He went on his own dime and then the army.

[grover]

I totaled them up again yesterday when updating my spreadsheet, and it was around $91k.
Trying to pay them down whenever we have extra cash. Yesterday I made an extra $400 payment on one of them.
I have both federal and private; H just has the loan from his 5th year (his parents paid for years 1-4). I'm also working on my Masters right now. I get most of the Masters reimbursed this October. I will qualify in two years for a $5k forgiveness or if I put in 4 more years I can get $17k instead.