Dr. Michelle Bisutti, a 2003 medical school graduate is struggling to pay-off her half a million dollar student loan. When she graduated, she had approximately $250,000 in loans, but because of the compounding interest, penalty fees, and she admits, her failure to “read the fine print”, Bisutti’s debt has doubled in 7 years.
See the full story here: http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/108846/the-555000-student-loan-burden?mod=edu-continuing_education
Stories like this make me nervous to graduate. I mean, if a doctor is in so much debt with her kind of salary, how is a nurse like me going to pay-off college and afford a mortgage, car payment, insurance, etc? I’m already in enough debt and those post graduate interests rates are not going to make things any better. And in today’s society, it’s not like you can choose NOT to go to college. I’m not saying that you can’t be successful if you don’t go to college…but the world doesn’t make it very easy for you.
It’s also stories like this that make me realize just how much I pay to come to college and get an education. Tuition, room and board, book fees, random “college” fees (by the way, what are those?!) Needless to say, when I get a notification in the mail that says I have to pay ANOTHER $300 up front for housing, when I’ve already scrounged up the money to pay the original $200, it get me a little...well, frustrated, to put it nicely.
And, what about the pay inequity in our society? As a woman, I'm already making less than my male co-workers right out of college and the gap widens later on in my career. Take this quote from the AAUW (http://www.aauw.org/advocacy/issue_advocacy//actionpages/payequity.cfm):
"Just one year after college graduation, women earn only 80 percent of what their male counterparts earn. Ten years after graduation, women fall further behind, earning only 69 percent of what men earn. Even after controlling for hours, occupation, parenthood, and other factors known to affect earnings, the research indicates that one-quarter of the pay gap remains unexplained and is likely due to sex discrimination. Over time, the unexplained portion of the pay gap grows."
Bottom-line, read up on your loan information and make sure you know exactly when you have to start paying, how much you need to be paying, and any penalties or fees that could be tacked onto your loans. Oh, and we should probably do something about this pay inequity, huh?
Please help me to finsh graduate school. I was attending Devry University. My D number is D02380023 I was eventually kick out of graduate school, and I have a outstanding balance of 3,200 at the school; because my health got worser and worser.
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