My loans include 3 years of college, I plan on finishing within the next couple of years. I have 20 years to pay back the 80K but still comes to 600+ a month. the 11k is 230 a month (bad rate). Its going to be rough. Hope the wife can pull through for me.
$106,000 and it doesn't come with a Sheepskin? Wow! All of the "Gotta get a big fat loan and get to the airlines right now" crowd should take note of Hckey's situation. Hckey, I'm not ridiculing you, just pointing out the reality of your situation. Education is a valuable thing, and it's worth going into debt if that's the only way you can get it. Most people have to get loans to get through college. I did. The benifit that I had is that I stayed in school full-time until I graduated and didn't have to start paying back my loans until I was finished with my degree. You will be faced with a situation where you will be making big loan payments on entry-level pay, and still need to find extra money to get the last 25% of your degree so you can progress in your career field. How long do you have to finish your degree before you have to start repeating classes. I'll bet it's in the 7-10 year range. 5 years from now when you have planned to have your degree finished you may find yourself still paying on your loans and have a few rug rats that are consuming all the extra time and money you planned to use to finish your degree. Before you know it you might be at the point where you need to repeat classes for credit and the whole degree will have slipped away from you. (This very thing happened to my brother who left college with one year to go. Every time he planned to finish, some other life event came up and delayed his plans. The last one was a round of layoffs at his company because he didn't have a degree that would allow him to move to a position that wasn't being eliminated. He's now been out of college for almost 20 years and will never get back to it.)
I would strongly urge you to stay in school full-time until you graduate, if that is at all possible.
Hoping your wife can pull you through is one method. I know you said that toungue in cheek, but as my boss is fond of saying, "Hope is not a course of action." If you rely on your wife to be your sugar mama, it will only make her resent you years from now when you are on the road every night instead of home sweating up the sheets with her. This is how people get the moniker "dead beat" attached to them. A better way is to find a way where you can pull your own share of the load.
Have you looked into a second (or third) job? You'd be surprised how much debt you can eliminate by delivering pizzas or pumping gas into planes or something like that. Step 1 is to get yourself on a budget that will force you to live within your means and not accumulate any more debt (i.e., credit cards, car loans, etc.). Step 2 is to stick to it. Step 3 is to generate extra income and use it ALL to eliminate the highest interest rate debt first.
When I was first out of college I was beyond flat broke. I used to joke that my wife didn't have to work, she just did so we could have the "extra" things in life -- things like food, water, electricity...the perks! All that debt used to keep me awake at night. (Literally) The thing that made me sleep better was when I took steps to generate a tiny amount of extra income and I used it all for debt elimination. Slowly, but surely, we were able to pay off all of our student loans and consumer debt and it gave me a peace of mind that I can't describe. I urge you to do likewise.
