For as long as I can remember, I have heard people referring to student loans as “good debt”. I even believed it myself for a while, until I came to the end of my educational journey and stepped out into the real world. While I do not regret the years that I spent earning my J.D., I am certainly not a believer in this whole “student loans are good debt” concept any more.
For the concept of “student loans are good debt” to work properly for an individual, a few things must happen. First of all, you must actually complete the degree program that you borrowed the money to attend. Secondly, you must get a job that pays well. How well your job will need to pay to enable you to cover your student loan payment in addition to your living expenses depends upon how much you borrowed in the first place and can vary greatly from one student to another. Oh, and I cannot forget to mention that if the degree that you borrowed student loans for is something like a J.D. (law degree) or an M.D. (medical doctor degree), you must study for, take, and pass very tough licensing exams before you can apply for those jobs that will pay you what you need to be making to make your student loan payments. If even one of these things does not happen, then the student loan becomes a heavy burden that can weigh on the soul and the pocketbook of the borrower for a very long time.
I would certainly not go so far as to suggest avoiding student loans altogether. Education is a good thing, and so is following your career dreams. The key to keeping your student loan debt at a level that will be manageable after you graduate is to try to borrow as little as you possibly can. You may not need to borrow all of the funds that the lender is willing to give you if you look for a school that is a good value for the money, work part-time during school or do work-study, and keep your lifestyle in check by living in modest housing and developing a frugal way of life. I wish that I had known these things when I went to law school, and I will certainly be teaching my son how to be responsible with his student loan borrowing when he gets older.
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