Teacher with $303,000 in student debt...

[freeloader]

Perhaps the idea of eliminating the interest and requiring payment of the principle is gaining some traction. I think the whole thing is just going to be a band-aid unless there is some serious reform to the entire process of paying for college.  And that teacher in the story, the one who owes 300K and is enrolling her nephew in college, well I hope she learned something from her experience and doesn't get her nephew in such debt too.

Probably not. She was quoted as saying she was forced to take out the loans. She has also been paying $400/mo on her private loans while the government-backed loans have been in Covid forbearance.  Really, $400?  And she says she may have to get another job. Really, you are near as makes no difference 1/3 of a million in debt and you now may have to get another job?  

I am sympathetic up to a point. Perhaps when she says “another job” she means leaving teaching, but I read that to mean a second job. Most of my teachers had second jobs, particularly those who were unmarried or who were the main/sole earner in their household. 

I don’t appreciate her statement that she wants to pay off only the principle not the interest. Yeah, that would be nice. I’d like to do that on my house loan. Would save my family around $100,000 over the term of the loan and we’d get it paid off a lot sooner. That’s not really how (the vast majority of) loans work. 

Finally, I am just astounded at that amount of debt to become a teacher. She has an English degree so there is a good chance that math/personal finance are not her strong suits. But honestly people, that is just ridiculous.