BillH
New Member
Well, for those that are thinking about getting a loan to go to ATP, just let me give you some food for thought on the matter.
I attended ATP back when the price was 44,000$. My loan worked out to be 52,000$ for the examiner fee's and a little bit extra for cost of living expenses. My loan is also a variable interest rate and when I first got it, it was around 11% interest. Now I guess I can thank the bad economy for reducing my interest rate down to 5%.
I don't have to pay off my loan yet, but I am to reduce the interest it is collecting.
I make between 25 to 27$ an hour and can usually work as many hours as I want in a week to the point that I am killing myself. So I am making much more than a regional airline F.O. starting out. My rent is about 500$ a month, and some extra for food and gas. I live right next to the airport and drive a little 4 cylinder Toyota pickup truck that sips the gas.
This damn loan was costing me 8$ a day in interest.
Every paycheck, the majority of it goes to Sallie Mae. Last paycheck, over 1000$ went to it. I started ATP in June 2007, graduated day before thanksgiving. So in this short period of time, over 3,000$ accrued in interest. I am happy to say now that I have knocked out the interest and took another 2,000$ off the capital that I owe, so I am now down to 50,000$ owed.
So I am able to pay this off just fine, just not able to buy myself any toys.
So for you new guys who want to go to ATP, your loan will be closer to 70,000$, and if you go to a Regional who will pay you half of what I make instructing, AND have to live somewhere where your cost of living is way more than 500$ a month, how the hell are you going to be able to afford this loan? Not to mention that hiring has slowed way down and well guess what? Everyone wants to be a CFI again!
Just something to ponder...
I attended ATP back when the price was 44,000$. My loan worked out to be 52,000$ for the examiner fee's and a little bit extra for cost of living expenses. My loan is also a variable interest rate and when I first got it, it was around 11% interest. Now I guess I can thank the bad economy for reducing my interest rate down to 5%.
I don't have to pay off my loan yet, but I am to reduce the interest it is collecting.
I make between 25 to 27$ an hour and can usually work as many hours as I want in a week to the point that I am killing myself. So I am making much more than a regional airline F.O. starting out. My rent is about 500$ a month, and some extra for food and gas. I live right next to the airport and drive a little 4 cylinder Toyota pickup truck that sips the gas.
This damn loan was costing me 8$ a day in interest.
Every paycheck, the majority of it goes to Sallie Mae. Last paycheck, over 1000$ went to it. I started ATP in June 2007, graduated day before thanksgiving. So in this short period of time, over 3,000$ accrued in interest. I am happy to say now that I have knocked out the interest and took another 2,000$ off the capital that I owe, so I am now down to 50,000$ owed.
So I am able to pay this off just fine, just not able to buy myself any toys.
So for you new guys who want to go to ATP, your loan will be closer to 70,000$, and if you go to a Regional who will pay you half of what I make instructing, AND have to live somewhere where your cost of living is way more than 500$ a month, how the hell are you going to be able to afford this loan? Not to mention that hiring has slowed way down and well guess what? Everyone wants to be a CFI again!
Just something to ponder...