This Woman Knows How To Stack Up Debt!

Our Med school offers a short MBA course to MD students. Something like that doubtless would have helped her and others like her. At least she'd have understood more about the credit responsibilities and how best to deal with her original debt.

So many students have never had to be fiscally responsible in their lives before and really don't understand what their responsibilities are. I think it's also more and more difficult for students to be able to work their way through university. I was fortunate in that, and finished all the way through without owing a dime. Of course it took me longer to get through the undergrad but I didn't owe anything at the end.
 
Topspin said:
she's up to 500,000 with fees and interest. sad but true
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I think it's actually more than $550K, but ... In the article I read yesterday, it said that she deferred payment on her loans while she was in residency, which generally takes about three more years in family practice. Apparently she neither realized nor appreciated that interest still accumulates during that period, and it's compound. Students just rack up the debt without really being conscious that eventually it has to be paid back.
 
Hey, at least if she makes it through, she'll have a doctor's salary. She just needs to hold off buying a home and a new car for 5 years, and then she should be good to go.

Still, that's freaky...
 
Yup med school should be state sponsored much cheaper with more access. This wouldn't/ shouldn't happen. But your right with the cabal high salary she'll be fine.
 
Threedee said:
Hey, at least if she makes it through, she'll have a doctor's salary. She just needs to hold off buying a home and a new car for 5 years, and then she should be good to go.

Still, that's freaky...
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She's been out of med school for several years (graduated in 2003). She's finished her residency, usually in her field about three years after graduation, and is in family practice. She deferred payment on her loans while she was doing her residency, which actually doesn't pay badly and she should have started to repay the loans then. The interest accumulates in a compound fashion (interest on outstanding balance, which includes previous interest and penalties). That interest will continue to accumulate on whatever balance she has (currently $550K) until she has repaid the entire amount.

Family practice is probably the lowest rate of remuneration of all the specialties, so she isn't looking at an easy huge income to start digging away at that balance.
 
Thorn said:
She's been out of med school for several years (graduated in 2003). She's finished her residency, usually in her field about three years after graduation, and is in family practice. She deferred payment on her loans while she was doing her residency, which actually doesn't pay badly and she should have started to repay the loans then. The interest accumulates in a compound fashion (interest on outstanding balance, which includes previous interest and penalties). That interest will continue to accumulate on whatever balance she has (currently $550K) until she has repaid the entire amount.

Family practice is probably the lowest rate of remuneration of all the specialties, so she isn't looking at an easy huge income to start digging away at that balance.
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That's just stupid. Not only should she have started making those payments at the start of here Residency, but if she was still greatly in debt, she should have gone to work at a hospital instead of trying for her dream job of private practice until she had her loans under control.
 
Thorn said:
Our Med school offers a short MBA course to MD students. Something like that doubtless would have helped her and others like her. At least she'd have understood more about the credit responsibilities and how best to deal with her original debt.

So many students have never had to be fiscally responsible in their lives before and really don't understand what their responsibilities are. I think it's also more and more difficult for students to be able to work their way through university. I was fortunate in that, and finished all the way through without owing a dime. Of course it took me longer to get through the undergrad but I didn't owe anything at the end.
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Wish I could say that. I'm still paying mine off. I worked all through college but still had to pay rent, auto, insurance, utilities ,etc. If it wasn't for student loans I wouldn't have gotten an education.
 
Thorn said:
I think it's actually more than $550K, but ... In the article I read yesterday, it said that she deferred payment on her loans while she was in residency, which generally takes about three more years in family practice. Apparently she neither realized nor appreciated that interest still accumulates during that period, and it's compound. Students just rack up the debt without really being conscious that eventually it has to be paid back.
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I did. It's unfortunately why I dropped out of Med School. After 1 year I had wrung up $40,000 in debt, taxed my parents beyond their means, blew my life savings of $20,000 and was looking at another $150,000 to 200,000 to complete my education using the HEAL loan programs which could not, as Thorn pointed out be defered during your education or internship/residency. That combined with the cost of establishing a private practice after graduation, it would have easily been $350,000 and $500,000 in debt. I would have been paying about $45,000/year in ineterest alone. I knew that wasn't tenable and it forced me to drop out.

I then wracked up another $20 grand earning my Masters but $60,000 in debt with a professional degree is managable. $500,000 is not.
 
Thorn said:
She's been out of med school for several years (graduated in 2003). She's finished her residency, usually in her field about three years after graduation, and is in family practice. She deferred payment on her loans while she was doing her residency, which actually doesn't pay badly and she should have started to repay the loans then. The interest accumulates in a compound fashion (interest on outstanding balance, which includes previous interest and penalties). That interest will continue to accumulate on whatever balance she has (currently $550K) until she has repaid the entire amount.

Family practice is probably the lowest rate of remuneration of all the specialties, so she isn't looking at an easy huge income to start digging away at that balance.
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Yea she'll be 20 to 30 years paying that off. She'll be making a low six figure income and living a lower standard of living then I am cause half of what she makes will be going to her student loans. Not to mention the major mountain of stress she'll be eating worrying about coming up with the money to make those payments.

I think I would have made a great doctor. I certainly had the talent....but I wasn't willing to pay that price and take on that kind of debt.
 
TuTu Monroe said:
The government has a staggering amount of delinquent student loans on the books. I doubt if they will ever be repaid and will have to be written off.
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Not hardly. They have some pretty good remedies for that. They can garnish your wages if your delinquent and they can apply any tax returns you have towards that debt and you also must consider that the people who used those loans for education the vast majority of them will earn 3 to 4 times what they would have with out the education through out their careers, meaning they will pay 3 to 4 times as much or more in taxes. So all in all, the federal student loan program is one of the best and smartest social programs ever devised.
 
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