Speaker 1: I think the way our student loans are given is super predatory on people who are young and don't understand or people who think that their education is going to translate into a higher paying job and they don't really think about the consequences.

Speaker 2: When I was deciding which college to go to, the process was very heavily dependent on where I would get the most money from, but I also really wanted to go to a school that would challenge me and a school that I felt like I could thrive in.

Speaker 3: For undergrad, I took about $18,000 in total. As for grad school, oh gosh, I initially had a full ride the first year and then the second year came, I talked to financial aid and they were like, surprise, you only had a full ride for your first semester. And so I ended up taking about $100,000 extra in student loans

Speaker 1: that should have never been taken out. I went to law school and I studied abroad, so I have a little bit of loans from that, but school was actually less expensive. A huge portion of my loans are from one year of grad school I did when I moved back to the States. I originally had about $70,000, $75,000 in loans from that one year of grad school. It's now up to almost $150,000. When I was debating taking out loans,

Speaker 2: it wasn't really a question. The federal government allows first year undergrad students who are dependent to take out about $5,500 worth of loans. Although I knew it was a huge financial commitment to take on, especially at such an early stage in my academic career, I decided to take that out just because I thought it was worth coming out here for.

Speaker 3: As soon as we opened up my student loans, I was delinquent and I think my first payment due was like $1,500, which I don't think I even made in a month. There's not a lot of information that's given out. I know there was entrance and exiting counseling sessions, but it doesn't really tell you what to do. I was jumping from job to job just trying to keep a roof over my head, and I got super lucky one day because I was pounding the pavement looking for jobs. The job turned out to be processing student loans, and since then I figured out how to keep my loans in repayment, but I'm actually currently paying zero because I don't even make enough to

Speaker 1: be paying monthly rates. Straight out of school, the economy was horrible and I was struggling and realized it just wasn't even what I wanted to do. Now I do something completely different where I don't earn a ton of money on income-based repayment, so I make really small payments. They call it negative amortization, where I'm now accruing interest on the interest. In my mind, I was thinking, well, I'm going to be a lawyer. I'm going to make tons of money. I know it's going to take me some time, but I'm going to pay off these loans.

Speaker 2: Taking out loans is very normal nowadays, and it's kind of expected for most students when they go off to college. I started paying a hundred dollars per month, and I'm hoping to pay off my loans within five years after I graduate. I thought taking out loans was worth it in the end just because I was able to attend my dream school, and I'm currently attending my

Speaker 3: dream school. One of my co-workers was just very eager to get her hands on my loans, and it turns out that we could have avoided my interest rates going up. So now, within the span of about four or five years, it went from like $117k, and now it's $145k, I believe, the last time I checked. So it is nerve-wracking, but I'm hoping that within 10 years, I'll figure out how to

Speaker 1: get it all forgiven. I really didn't understand the magnitude of what taking out that money would mean, particularly the terms of the loan, because a huge amount of it is something called grad plus. So some of the loans are federal subsidized, which means the interest is lower, and I believe, I'm not even sure, that it's simple interest, so I just pay the interest off the principal. Whereas grad plus, they let you take out so much money, and they charge you a higher interest rate, and the interest compounds, compounds, compounds, and I'm paying interest on the interest, and I'm not even paying all of the interest in each payment. Everyone should get educated on loans before

Speaker 2: taking them out. I know I wasn't very educated on loans, and I still am a little confused on what exactly they mean. The only loan education I think that I received was after I already took some out. I think definitely people should be educated before that.

Speaker 3: There are some Forbes articles now that thankfully detail it well, but even when I was working as a student loan processor, we had to scour the website, and there's like little hidden tips and tricks. Even now that I'm pretty comfortable with how my student loans are looking, I still feel that I constantly have to scour the news for any new legislation that might pop up. Even though I had

Speaker 1: internships and a lot of experience in my field of law, it was really hard to find jobs. It was really frustrating. I had no idea what I was doing, and it was really hard to get paid what I was worth. Ultimately, I realized that isn't what I wanted to do, but my expectation was I'm going to finish school, and I'm going to get a job, and I'm going to make money, and I'm going to be able to pay my loans and live a good life, and that was not my experience at all.

Speaker 2: Colleges and the government itself have the responsibility to somehow decrease the cost, because if college just keeps getting more and more expensive, I already know people who don't think it's worth paying. I mean, not going to college is perfectly fine, but then we'll see also a decrease in people attending higher education just because they can't afford it anymore.

Speaker 3: Knowing what my background was like, I have come a long ways, but at the same time, I just really want to be financially stable, because it's affected the quality of my life. It made me realize everything kind of runs on what you have, what you don't have, and it dictates where you fall

Speaker 1: on the ladder of mobility. Having all that debt from all those years of struggle is still a weight on me, even though I feel like now I've finally found my path. Going to school does not guarantee you a job, and I think at a certain point in time, going to school and getting good grades would have guaranteed you some kind of job, and that's just not the case anymore. Ultimately, when it comes to

Speaker 2: going to your dream school and paying loans versus maybe going to another school you wouldn't be as happy at, you have to think of whether or not it's worth it. Honestly, if I knew that I would have to

Speaker 3: have all those loans under my belt, I would have gone and applied to the Ivy League school of my dreams. I would have applied to Harvard. I wish somebody had told me you should never allow the logistics of something to keep you from achieving what really matters to you. The fact that I already borrowed money, I just wish I could have put it to better use. I think for someone, let's say, coming

Speaker 1: out of high school or even college, I would say take some time to work and be in the real world and build those life skills. Let's be honest, I don't think any 17 or 18-year-old coming out of high school really knows what they want to do. Even if they do, hey, life throws you all sorts of wrenches, so chances are you're not going to do what you think you're going to do at 18. Real life skills, that is the valuable experience that is going to serve you in your life in the long run.