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student loan debt - ryoder - 10-11-2012
There is no way to walk away from student loan debt. Even if lots of people have trouble paying it off they still owe that money until and probably after death. So I wouldn't assume a bailout is coming. I would certainly hold a politician responsible for signin onto a student loan bailout.
On the other hand, credit card debt is much easier to walk away from and people do it left and right. Credit card companies lose millions of dollars each year in chargeoffs. They factor those losses into their finance charges, late fees, and penalty fees to price for the risk.
I honor all of my debts and would never ask my fellow Americans to pay off my debt and I hope others feel this way as well.
student loan debt - mrs.b - 11-24-2012
My husband and I were in similar situations with his student loans, and with the current job market, we are both very hesitant to leave jobs we've had forever to "step up" and put ourselves at risk of layoff when/if the job market implodes again and layoffs happen by seniority. Instead, we follow the same method chiquitacobbe described (spreadsheet of all forms of debt, their balances, and interest rates, pay minimum payments to all except the loan that has the highest interest rate until it is gone, then roll all funds budgeted to next-highest interest rate loan). We also bit the bullet and took out part-time weekend jobs, which admittedly is not a lot of fun, but a) we got employee discounts, and b) every dime of those paychecks goes to highest interest rate loan to bring it down faster since we already made enough plus a bit to live on with our full-time jobs.
Employee discounts are fantastic with the holiday, because he works at an electronics store for gifts, and I'm working a few hours at a grocery store to bring down our necessity expenses. We've paid off credit cards entirely in two months, and are working on paying off car loan, then will begin digging into his ~$48k student loan debt for an Associates (world's most expense and pointless AA EVER...wish we had found Degreeforum.net when he was in school, but took advantage of the tips for mine at least). Working two jobs is admittedly not fun, but we are denting our debt quickly in a questionable economic environment. Once we finish paying off my car (his already is), we should have enough free cash freed up in the credit card and car payments to make healthy dents in the student loans without the second jobs, so we'll re-evaluate how much we're working in approximately 1-2 months.
I have not found a reasonable way to consolidate that does not eliminate the protections afforded with student loans. Keep in mind, with student loans if you lose your job or just run low a few months, you can take a forbearance or deferment to keep the loan current (saves your credit rating). If you consolidate with a home loan, make the payment or pay the cost of potentially seeing a foreclosure judge. It is a personal rule my husband and I follow, but our homes and vehicles are not used as piggy banks regardless of interest rates, because if the worst happens, we do not want to increase the costs of maintaining them, and potentially putting our family on the streets.