Student debt--what's your plan for paying it off?

[Indylady]

I'd love to hear your plan for paying off your student debt, and any tips you have for doing so. Thanks in advance!

 

[sonnyjane]

I started in 2009 with $82,000 in debt. I currently owe $21,000. That means I could have purchased three cars in the last 4 years lol!

The first thing is pay off the highest interest rates first. Pay the minimums on all the accounts but pay extra toward the highest rate. Also, I steal from my paycheck. Literally, on pay day, I transfer all the excess above what I need for food and bills toward my Sallie Mae balance. If I have $300 left after retirement, bills, and groceries each check in the budget, it ALL goes to Sallie Mae immediately. If it stays in my checking, there's a high likelihood I'd spend it, so I don't let it sit there longer than a day. Also if at the end of each pay period the night before pay day I have a bit left (say, $30-$40 here or there), I transfer it to Sallie Mae as well. I just put everything toward that.

I do keep a "fun" account that I put $50 or $100 into each month, so I'm not totally depriving myself, but I'll feel much more free when all the debt is gone. Good luck!

 

[JulieN]

Live like a monk. If you qualify for IBR/PAYE, GET ON IT ASAP. This will lower your minimum required payments, so that you can allocate more (if you can afford it) to the ones with higher interest. Whenever I start thinking about fun things I could do with the money, like new clothes, new purse, nice dinner, I make a payment.

I bought myself a new watch since I started my new job a month ago, and that's it, and it was 78% off of MSRP from Ashford.

 

[SB621]

Live like a monk.

Yup this exactly. I graduated in 2004 with around 115k in loans. I consolidated whatever I could and started repayments. Because I went back to school for my MBA some of my loans defered but I still made monthly payments. I never ate out, never went to the movies, worked 1 full time job and 2 part time jobs. I lived off the wendy's dollar menu to $5 a day for breakfast/ lunch/ dinner. I got a credit card that let me use points to pay back my college students loans, then I OK'ed it with my boss to forgo the company card and use that card for purchases. I also split a small apartment with a friend so rent was around $400 a month with utilities.

I won't say it was easy. I creid often and the stress of the bills I still blame on leading to early gray hairs I found. I basically had ZERO life and the ONLY time I ever got out was when my DH (BF at the time) paid for me. In the end I ended up paying all of it off except for an interest free loan I had for 8k in 3.5 years. My DH and I were getting married and I didn't want him taking on any of my college debt into our lives. My goal was to get it down to under 10k by the time our wedding rolled around, you can imagine this also led to us having a small wedding.

My recommendations is to:
-Consolidate as many as you can into 1 loan
-Start paying off whatever has the higest interest rate first vs. paying small amounts across many loans
-Pay whatever you can extra per month (without incuring more debt as a result). I set up automatic payments from my account on a weekly basis. That way every week I had a check going out to my loan company. the faster it was out of my bank account the drive to spend it was a heck of a loss less.

Goodluck!

 

[luv2sparkle]

My son doesn't have the debt, we do. I am so excited that the last 20K will be paid off in a couple of months. He graduated in 2012 and we have been making payments but have started ramping it up. DH took now days off in 2013 and we cashed those in and with our tax return this year (which is done) we will pay off all debt except our home. I am so excited. It was a lot of sacrifice for 2013.

 

[vc10um]

While I didn't live *quite* like a monk, I certainly lived relatively frugally the entire time I was paying off student loans.

I graduated in 2007 with roughly $115K in debt, just like SB, began repayments in November of 2007, and my husband and I paid the last bit off just before Christmas 2013. (Note: we could've paid them off sooner, but opted to also save a 20% down payment on a house and a 25% down payment on a car as well, so that extended my loan term...but with my interest rates being so low we were willing to do that in order to get the home and car we wanted.)

Aside from the awesome suggestions you've already received, I'd make the additional suggestion to monitor your interest rates and keep abreast of what the Fed is doing with them on the federal level. When I graduated, my private loans had a variable interest rate somewhere near 6.5%, IIRC. I resisted the urge to fix the loan, though, because I didn't think they would go any higher, but knew they could go lower. By the time the economy crashed out and the feds made all their cuts and whatnot, my interest rate had dropped to 2.75% and my minimum payments had been lowered by over $200/month.

Just be diligent. Any bit of money that's not in your emergency fund: put it toward the student loans.

Best of luck to you, and everyone else paying down these debts!

 

[yssie]

Good god.
Eighty thousand - over one hundred thousand - dollars spent for education - that's... Obscene. How on earth did we get to this point - on what planet is that a burden anyone should ever have to take on in the name of higher education? And where do these soaring costs end?!

I'm in awe, truly, of people like you, Sonny, Julie, SB, luv, VC, the commitment and confidence it takes to take on that sort of monstrous responsibility so young, or for your children, and to have paid it off so quickly... Congratulations!!!!

I was very fortunate in that my parents were willing and able to fund my undergraduate studies. This thread brings it home for people like me - that our higher education system really is f'd up beyond belief!

ETA: sorry, Indy, my post isn't exactly helpful to you. I'm just... Sitting here gaping at my screen, and couldn't not comment...

 

[sonnyjane]

Good god.
Eighty thousand - over one hundred thousand - dollars spent for education - that's... Obscene. How on earth did we get to this point - on what planet is that a burden anyone should ever have to take on in the name of higher education? And where do these soaring costs end?!

I'm in awe, truly, of people like you, Sonny, Julie, SB, luv, VC, the commitment and confidence it takes to take on that sort of monstrous responsibility so young, or for your children, and to have paid it off so quickly... Congratulations!!!!

I was very fortunate in that my parents were willing and able to fund my undergraduate studies. This thread brings it home for people like me - that our higher education system really is f'd up beyond belief!

ETA: sorry, Indy, my post isn't exactly helpful to you. I'm just... Sitting here gaping at my screen, and couldn't not comment...

Ha. It was my (dumb) choice and my choice alone. I went to a private university out-of-state. I had a full athletic scholarship for the first two years of college but was miserable so decided to quit the team, so bye-bye scholarship. Then, I also went back to school for two extra years to pursue an additional degree. The loans that I took out were mine and mine alone (didn't involve my parents). I think part of the reason I am trying so aggressively to pay it off as fast as possible is because I fully understand that it was a debt that I created by myself. I had options to be debt-free earlier but I chose not to take them. Just like buying those expensive shoes or an expensive bag, an expensive education was my choice.

 

[SB621]

Good god.
Eighty thousand - over one hundred thousand - dollars spent for education - that's... Obscene. How on earth did we get to this point - on what planet is that a burden anyone should ever have to take on in the name of higher education? And where do these soaring costs end?!

I'm in awe, truly, of people like you, Sonny, Julie, SB, luv, VC, the commitment and confidence it takes to take on that sort of monstrous responsibility so young, or for your children, and to have paid it off so quickly... Congratulations!!!!

I was very fortunate in that my parents were willing and able to fund my undergraduate studies. This thread brings it home for people like me - that our higher education system really is f'd up beyond belief!

ETA: sorry, Indy, my post isn't exactly helpful to you. I'm just... Sitting here gaping at my screen, and couldn't not comment...

Oh honey that is with a nice scholarship that I got on top. My school costs roughly 45k per year. It was also private and out of state. I'm on the fense saying was my degree worth it. I don't use it and it has nothing to do with what I do for work now. however, I met my husband there. I also met a teacher who recommended me to a great company that I got an internship with and later hired me. This company also paid 100% of my MBA degree. They also allowed me to get a position where I could work from home insuring that no matter where my DH got stationed I had an income. Once I got my MBA I was able to switch to a different company, still telecommute and got a huge payraise. For m everything lined up. Whose to say if I could have done better or worst going someplace else.

I definitely don't wish the stress though on my kids so we will pay for a good portion of their degree, but at the same time I hope they do take out some loans. Paying off my loans taught me quickly how to balance a budget, survive off of nothing and how hard I had to work to make a buck. Sorry to go off on a tangent but I guess I'm trying to say it retrospect it sounds crazy but many positives came out of it too.

 

[yssie]

I think I worded my post poorly - I'm horrified, but not by the fact that people choose to go to college and incur this sort of debt - it's the fact that anyone *has* to make that choice at all that I object to, viscerally. My family has always valued higher education and instilled that in me, and I applaud anyone who chooses to educate himself beyond the minimum necessity!! But it's outrageous that it should come with such a price tag - wherever you go, however many degrees you pursue I know exactly how much my parents shelled out for my private brand-name education and I was horrified by that number, too, at the time, but it's only after I started working that I fully understood just how much of a sacrifice that must have been for them. I am also genuinely awed by the resolve it must have taken to pay those loans off so substantially and so quickly - that takes incredible responsibility and commitment and I can certainly see how one could benefit positively in terms of learning money- and time-management to handle it!

 

[justginger]

I am also horrified - my knowledge of the realistic cost of higher education in the States is skewed - I went to a private, $30k/year school nearly 10 years ago, but was there on a full scholarship. I didn't really consider what a whopping huge bill that could have been. Alternatively now I'm doing a second bachelor's, in Australia the amount a university can charge per year, based on discipline of study, is capped. Medicine is set at ~$27k/year. However, 2/3 of that is paid by the government, leaving my program at ~$9k/year.

For all of those who had staggering debt and knuckled down to take care of it - kudos! It will feel incredible when you get to the end of those repayments!

 

[sonnyjane]

I wanted to add that I created an incredibly thorough and nerdy spreadsheet that breaks down all of my loan payments and total debt and also contains a box telling me how much I've paid each year in total. That's my little "kudos" box to let me know how much progress I've made.

 

[TooPatient]

We have a credit card that gives 3% cash back on all purchases and more on a few select categories. I use it for as much as I can (pay off as we use so it isn't getting any interest charge) and all the cash back goes to pay any loans we have -- starting with the highest interest loan first.
I've been taking any "left over" money at the end of paying monthly bills and transferring it straight to pay loans too. A few dollars here and a few more there can add up pretty quick!

I have minimal loans so far because I was lucky enough to not qualify for any aid (including loans) for a good chunk of my school so far. I say lucky because I was forced to work and DH & I paid out of pocket each quarter. It has been rough but it has certainly kept my loan amounts down!

I'm anticipating finishing both bachelor's degrees with about $20,000 total in loans (26,000 if you count the last bit from a mistake I made choosing a technical school right after high school).

 

[anners11]

I graduated from Medical school in 2008 and finished residency in 2011. When it was all said and done my grand total for my student loans was well over $200,000! I sat down with my financial planner and came up with a plan. My goal was to have all of my loans paid off in 10 years. We came up with a payment schedule that had a fixed amount that I paid per month which would get me to my 10 year goal. As everyone has said before, pay off the highest interest rate loans first then work your way down. The other thing I did was to make sure that my lowest interest rate loans were at 30 year terms so that I could allocate more money monthly towards the higher interest rate loans.

After a year and a half I felt like I wasn't really making any progress and so I decided to do something pretty radical. I changed my time table to 3 years instead of 10. I did this for several reasons but mostly it has to do with the uncertainty of the american healthcare system for the future. I had taken a part-time job over a year ago for extra money to build my dream house and to help pay down my loans. About 8 month ago they offered me a full time position with a healthy sign on bonus and $20,000/yr loan repayment for 3 years. I decided to work 2 full time jobs for 6 months which allowed me to save up enough money to pay off my loans at 6.8% (around $100,000). Those 6 months were pretty awful but I'm glad I did it. The good news is that when you work as much as I was working, you don't have time to spend money on much of anything else. As soon as my house is finished in about 1.5 months, I'm going to write a check that will wipe out about half of my total remaining student debt. Between the loan repayments from my job and my continuing with my original set amount that I pay monthly I will have my loans paid off in another 2.5 years. I could do it sooner but with the interest rates being low it doesn't make much sense to pay them off any sooner.

My pieces of advice for what they're worth, in addition to the great advice that's already been given by others:

- If you don't have a financial planner, get one.
- If your loans are in deferment, still find a way to make some type of payment every month. I didn't do this and it's a big regret.
- Set a goal for yourself and stick to it. 5 years, 10 years, 15 years it doesn't matter. Just have an end point, it makes it easier to work towards paying them off.
- No matter what, save for your retirement. For me, my student loan interest isn't tax deductible but my 401k contribution is.
- Make a spreadsheet showing how you are progressing. It's easy to feel like you aren't getting anywhere but having something that shows the numbers going down is helpful and good positive reinforcement.

 

[Wednesday]

I started out with six figures of student loan debt.

One tip is to reduce the interest rate any way you can. Part of my debt was federal loans, which I consolidated at a time of very low interest rates. The remainder are private, which have variable rates linked to an index (and even now, with low interest rates, exceed the rate on my consolidated loans). My loan servicer offered an interest rate discount for automatic electronic payments, so I signed up for that. They also offered an additional interest rate reduction after a certain amount of consecutive payments were made on time (I think 36 months), so I eventually qualified for that too. (Refinancing may be an option if you have crazy rates. That market may be opening up a little more now.)

Everything else comes down to making payments and paying off the higher interest rate loans first.

Things might be different now with today's IBR, but when I graduated, you could either have regular installment payments, stepped-up payments (where payments would start out lower for a few years and increase in the future), or have some type of IBR (but I don't think it was forgiven at the end - and even with today's IBR, there may be a big tax bill waiting at the end when debt is forgiven). I chose the regular installment payments because I figured if I could make them at my lower salary starting out, it would feel even easier to do as my salary increased. Making larger payments from the beginning would help me in the long run by reducing principal more quickly and paying less interest in the long run.

My main focus for extra payments is the higher interest variable rate loans. That is the best strategy for saving money on interest, of course, but also, when the loan rates are variable like mine, it's so unpredictable what future payments will be that I'd rather reduce my exposure to that uncertainty.

Some strategies for ensuring I set aside money for extra payments: Set a certain percentage of gross income aside on paper, splitting the amount into monthly amounts that I apply as an extra payment towards principal on the high-rate loan. For any extra money that comes in, such as bonuses and tax refunds, split it between debt repayment, savings, and fun money.

 

[Asscherhalo_lover]

For the love of god make your payments and pay extra. There's not much else to do. My DH and I have been renting cheap and throwing the extra money at our loans. If you have multiple loans I have been paying off the ones with the lowest amount first to get rid of an extra payment. We are not buying a home until our loans are gone. Hopefully 5 more years and they'll be done. Also check with each company many with lower your interest rate if you set up auto payments. Best of luck!

 

[MayFlowers]

So glad this thread is here! I just started Graduate school a couple months ago and have had to take out my first student loans. I was fortunate enough to receive a full scholarship plus some for my undergrad years. I will be getting two Master's Degrees and will end up owing about $20,000 by the time I finish. Even though I am on deferment because I am still in school, I am still paying about $300 a month toward the principal for now. I am currently a teacher and will get a raise after I finish each degree. I plan to use whatever extra income comes in to pay off the loans and basically live off the same amount I made before the raises. I am also fortunate that the federal government is willing to pay $5000 of my debt because I work in a low income school.

For those of you who have much more debt than I do, I seriously admire you. FI and I have both done everything possible to avoid debt. Both mine and FI's cars are paid in full and the only debt (before I had to take out student loans) we have is our house. We are doing as much as we can to pay off our house early. It stresses me knowing that I even have the student loan debt. We have been living rather poorly and on a strict budget. It can be really hard at times, but I will feel much better once that debt is paid off. I can't even imagine the stress I would be feeling if I had over $100k like some of you do.

 

[Amber St. Clare]

I simply want to wish all of you good luck with your debt. It's a terrible burden to carry.

 

[Maria D]

Good god.
Eighty thousand - over one hundred thousand - dollars spent for education - that's... Obscene. How on earth did we get to this point - on what planet is that a burden anyone should ever have to take on in the name of higher education? And where do these soaring costs end?!

I'm in awe, truly, of people like you, Sonny, Julie, SB, luv, VC, the commitment and confidence it takes to take on that sort of monstrous responsibility so young, or for your children, and to have paid it off so quickly... Congratulations!!!!

I was very fortunate in that my parents were willing and able to fund my undergraduate studies. This thread brings it home for people like me - that our higher education system really is f'd up beyond belief!

ETA: sorry, Indy, my post isn't exactly helpful to you. I'm just... Sitting here gaping at my screen, and couldn't not comment...

Word!

 

[Indylady]

Wow--thank you all SO MUCH for the responses. I have a significant amount of student debt, and waver between thinking that it is manageable and between the emotie . I'm especially inspired by those of you that have paid down all or most of your debt--amazing.

 

[Indylady]

Live like a monk. If you qualify for IBR/PAYE, GET ON IT ASAP. This will lower your minimum required payments, so that you can allocate more (if you can afford it) to the ones with higher interest. Whenever I start thinking about fun things I could do with the money, like new clothes, new purse, nice dinner, I make a payment.

I bought myself a new watch since I started my new job a month ago, and that's it, and it was 78% off of MSRP from Ashford.

Julie, thank you!! Another great idea, to put my money towards the loans when I want something new. Truly, I have just about everything I need, and its so easy to get caught up in new purchases.

 

[Indylady]

Live like a monk.

Yup this exactly. I graduated in 2004 with around 115k in loans. I consolidated whatever I could and started repayments. Because I went back to school for my MBA some of my loans defered but I still made monthly payments. I never ate out, never went to the movies, worked 1 full time job and 2 part time jobs. I lived off the wendy's dollar menu to $5 a day for breakfast/ lunch/ dinner. I got a credit card that let me use points to pay back my college students loans, then I OK'ed it with my boss to forgo the company card and use that card for purchases. I also split a small apartment with a friend so rent was around $400 a month with utilities.

I won't say it was easy. I creid often and the stress of the bills I still blame on leading to early gray hairs I found. I basically had ZERO life and the ONLY time I ever got out was when my DH (BF at the time) paid for me. In the end I ended up paying all of it off except for an interest free loan I had for 8k in 3.5 years. My DH and I were getting married and I didn't want him taking on any of my college debt into our lives. My goal was to get it down to under 10k by the time our wedding rolled around, you can imagine this also led to us having a small wedding.

My recommendations is to:
-Consolidate as many as you can into 1 loan
-Start paying off whatever has the higest interest rate first vs. paying small amounts across many loans
-Pay whatever you can extra per month (without incuring more debt as a result). I set up automatic payments from my account on a weekly basis. That way every week I had a check going out to my loan company. the faster it was out of my bank account the drive to spend it was a heck of a loss less.

Goodluck!

You make such a good point to mention having 'zero life'. Going out, eating out, etc. is just so expensive. Its easy to drop $30 bucks on dinner and a drink. Staying in saves money, but its hard to have a social life. Any tips on doing both? A lot of my friends do have student debt too, but they don't care as much about paying it of ASAP, so its really hard to balance that.

 

[Indylady]

I started in 2009 with $82,000 in debt. I currently owe $21,000. That means I could have purchased three cars in the last 4 years lol!

The first thing is pay off the highest interest rates first. Pay the minimums on all the accounts but pay extra toward the highest rate. Also, I steal from my paycheck. Literally, on pay day, I transfer all the excess above what I need for food and bills toward my Sallie Mae balance. If I have $300 left after retirement, bills, and groceries each check in the budget, it ALL goes to Sallie Mae immediately. If it stays in my checking, there's a high likelihood I'd spend it, so I don't let it sit there longer than a day. Also if at the end of each pay period the night before pay day I have a bit left (say, $30-$40 here or there), I transfer it to Sallie Mae as well. I just put everything toward that.

I do keep a "fun" account that I put $50 or $100 into each month, so I'm not totally depriving myself, but I'll feel much more free when all the debt is gone. Good luck!

Wow, congrats Sonnyjane! Sending Sallie Mae your payment at the beginning of the month is a very good idea, as is keeping a fun account.

 

[Indylady]

My son doesn't have the debt, we do. I am so excited that the last 20K will be paid off in a couple of months. He graduated in 2012 and we have been making payments but have started ramping it up. DH took now days off in 2013 and we cashed those in and with our tax return this year (which is done) we will pay off all debt except our home. I am so excited. It was a lot of sacrifice for 2013.

Luv2sparkle, you are so thoughtful to take on the debt for yourself. My parents helped me through undergrad, for which I am very grateful.

 

[Indylady]

I think I worded my post poorly - I'm horrified, but not by the fact that people choose to go to college and incur this sort of debt - it's the fact that anyone *has* to make that choice at all that I object to, viscerally. My family has always valued higher education and instilled that in me, and I applaud anyone who chooses to educate himself beyond the minimum necessity!! But it's outrageous that it should come with such a price tag - wherever you go, however many degrees you pursue I know exactly how much my parents shelled out for my private brand-name education and I was horrified by that number, too, at the time, but it's only after I started working that I fully understood just how much of a sacrifice that must have been for them. I am also genuinely awed by the resolve it must have taken to pay those loans off so substantially and so quickly - that takes incredible responsibility and commitment and I can certainly see how one could benefit positively in terms of learning money- and time-management to handle it!

I agree, the cost of higher education in the United States is absolutely outrageous. But, I'm still grateful that student loans exist, and I do think that it helps people that don't come from a family that can fund their entire education a) get the education that they deserve, esp. for really smart students getting into top programs and b) reach their potential, and change their socio-economic status and that of their family. Sometimes it takes the debt to get someplace better.

Sure, a lot of people take out loans for programs that don't have good job prospects, that they aren't able to pay back, and altogether aren't 'worth it'. Those cases are hard--sometimes people don't know when they're getting into the program because they haven't done the research. Sometimes, they are set on getting into a field that doesn't pay much and they're willing to take that risk anyways. Sometimes, the economy changes, or they're one of the few in their program or field that just couldn't find a spot. It happens, and I don't know what to do about it. Altogether, though, if you plan conservatively and realistically, it can be worth it and necessary.

 

[Indylady]

While I didn't live *quite* like a monk, I certainly lived relatively frugally the entire time I was paying off student loans.

I graduated in 2007 with roughly $115K in debt, just like SB, began repayments in November of 2007, and my husband and I paid the last bit off just before Christmas 2013. (Note: we could've paid them off sooner, but opted to also save a 20% down payment on a house and a 25% down payment on a car as well, so that extended my loan term...but with my interest rates being so low we were willing to do that in order to get the home and car we wanted.)

Aside from the awesome suggestions you've already received, I'd make the additional suggestion to monitor your interest rates and keep abreast of what the Fed is doing with them on the federal level. When I graduated, my private loans had a variable interest rate somewhere near 6.5%, IIRC. I resisted the urge to fix the loan, though, because I didn't think they would go any higher, but knew they could go lower. By the time the economy crashed out and the feds made all their cuts and whatnot, my interest rate had dropped to 2.75% and my minimum payments had been lowered by over $200/month.

Just be diligent. Any bit of money that's not in your emergency fund: put it toward the student loans.

Best of luck to you, and everyone else paying down these debts!

Do you think that its worth it to take private loans? My loans are federal loans, but some of my friends have taken private loans to help pay off their federal loans, or they took private loans out during their programs with their parents as co-signers. The pro is that private loans seem to have a lower interest rate; the con is that the interest rate varies and might end up higher than the interest rate of federal loans. You also can't use IBR or other programs to repay the private loans, but that's not an issue for me because I don't qualify for IBR.

 

[Indylady]

I am also horrified - my knowledge of the realistic cost of higher education in the States is skewed - I went to a private, $30k/year school nearly 10 years ago, but was there on a full scholarship. I didn't really consider what a whopping huge bill that could have been. Alternatively now I'm doing a second bachelor's, in Australia the amount a university can charge per year, based on discipline of study, is capped. Medicine is set at ~$27k/year. However, 2/3 of that is paid by the government, leaving my program at ~$9k/year.

For all of those who had staggering debt and knuckled down to take care of it - kudos! It will feel incredible when you get to the end of those repayments!

Thank you! Hopefully I'll be reporting back when I've done so.

 

[Indylady]

I wanted to add that I created an incredibly thorough and nerdy spreadsheet that breaks down all of my loan payments and total debt and also contains a box telling me how much I've paid each year in total. That's my little "kudos" box to let me know how much progress I've made.

Very good idea. It can all start to look hazy when you see your financial situation across a spread of different formats on different websites. It makes sense to have a personal spread sheet.

 

[ihy138]

I have around 90K in loans from undergrad and grad and found this thread very helpful. My initial plan was just to cry over my Master's degree. Because I work in a public service field, I am hoping that I can take advantage of the College Cost Reduction Act of 2007. If I work for 10 years full time, all remaining debt is taken care of. I need to look into it more, but I think this combined with income-based repayments will be the way that I go. If not, the advice I read here will be so invaluable when I graduate in May. Thank you everybody!

 

[luv2sparkle]

My son doesn't have the debt, we do. I am so excited that the last 20K will be paid off in a couple of months. He graduated in 2012 and we have been making payments but have started ramping it up. DH took now days off in 2013 and we cashed those in and with our tax return this year (which is done) we will pay off all debt except our home. I am so excited. It was a lot of sacrifice for 2013.

Luv2sparkle, you are so thoughtful to take on the debt for yourself. My parents helped me through undergrad, for which I am very grateful.

He really earned it. He was a straight A student all the way through school getting only one B in PE in 7th grade. We determined when we married that if any of our children wanted to go to college and worked hard we would pay for their education. They went to a private schools that focused on academics. He also got a 20k scholarship from my DH's fire department so that helped. Unfortunately, tuition went up 40% his sophomore year. That was a shock. We paid for most of it cash but took out small Sallie Mae's for the first three years. So really a little over 20k wasn't too bad. My son has offered to take on the debt many times but we really want him to be free of it and honor all of his hard work. I wish all of our kids would have taken us up on the offer. We'll have to see what the youngest does, but so far his grade are not that great. He can turn it around if he wants too.

Our son graduated from UCLA and is going to start working on his masters this fall in Vermont. He will pay for that.