I am currently back in school. I am 37 and go part time. I have 2 years to go for my BA and have deferred student loan payments until I get out of college. My wife and I will have about 100k in student loans by the time I am 40. I am worried bigtime on how we are going to pay this back plus we have 2 kids (under 5) we need to start saving $$ for college for. Does anyone have any insight or ways to handle a large amount of debt such as this? Is it easier to consolidate all loans under one company? Should we not worry about the kids college and just worry about paying ours down first? Does it make sense to do a home equity to pay down these loans quicker? Any companies out there better than others when offering refinance rates on college loans?

I would not move the SL onto your home equity.

I agree with Heg. Also, I personally would worry about my own loans and retirement before saving for your kids college.

$100k debt load is going to result in a payment of about $700 per month on a standard 25 year repayment...basically a mortgage payment. You probably want to look into consolidating it with the DOE if you have not already done so. That at least will give you the option of income contingent repayment if you need it.

I have 64k in SL debts that I will be paying, with no degree to show for it. Stupid yes but live and we learn.

I think you should worry about paying off your debts before saving for your children. They can always go to a really good instate school or a CC first and then transfer, thus costing you less money (it's what I should have done anyway)

You don't want your kids to be saddled with your debt and theirs later in life. They are still very young so concentrate on mum and dad.

What degree is it? What job will this bring and expected salary?

If you are going for something like a teacher, social worker, etc that will probably start out at 40ish then maybe you should rethink this. You could be extending your life in the workforce and lessening retirement. If you have a mortgage already then imagine paying 2. If you have no idea the type of job or salary to expect you should not be taking out loans. It will take 25-30 years to pay these off even with a good salary.

Don't do what I did as a "non-traditional" student. I was late 20's thinking a degree in business would have jobs knocking at my door due to my experience and grades. Not true. You have to go looking for that job proactively. Everything you do now while in school should be geared toward getting a job. Internships, volunteer work, networking socials should be part of the school life. That should be the second job as a student.

Don't save anything for kids school. Your retirement comes first.

saladdin

Or you or your wife "could" depending on what degree field you are in get a job in an area that qualifies your for cancellation per the Terms on your MPN.

For the Perkins Loans that I collect on you can do cancellation (a percentage of the loan each year is cancelled, until its been paid in full. Some students NEVER pay anything towards these loans by doing this)..some are if you are a Full time Special Education teacher with 100% special ed class, Nurse or Medical Tech, Full time Head Start educator, and some others

Those are just a few for our Perkins Loans (I don't kow if all the Fed Loans are the same or not) but if you have training in one of the fields that may offer cancellation, sometimes that 12 1/2 - 15% cancellation can be worth it. I would check with your lender to see what professions may offer cancellation

I definitely WOULD NOT put it on your Home Equity loan

Good luck

Snoopy,
What about social work (for GF)?

saladdin

The closest I could find for our Perkins Loan is Child or Family Service Agency it state:

A full-time employee of an eligible public or private non-profit child or family service agency who is providing or supervising the provision of services to high-risk children who are from low-income communities and the families of such children

I hope this helps!

Until I started working in this position I didn't even realize that you could ever get your loans cancelled for some things.

Thanks Snoopy.

saladdin

No problem, I hope that helped!

Wow, wow! I thought I was reading my own post, I have the exact same situation and sentiments about going to college as LOA4me.

OP, everyone here is on the right track, get a plan to pay off your own loans and in the mean time figure out ways to make extra to save for the kids, they are young and you have some time.

Best of luck.

My daughter has SL debt of 40k and her payment is $125 a month. But that was back when the interest rate was about 3%. Darn interest increases!!

Your daughter must have elected the ICR payment plan as the standard payment for that amount and interest rate is $190/month for 25 years. Even at 3% interest, her interest would have started out at $100/month

I read here 2x that you should not do home equity for these SL's. I wonder why that would be? I have no real knowledge on the subject, but I would see a couple advantages to that situation. 1) the home equity loan would possibly be at a lower int rate 2) the debt would be dischargeable if you ever had to file bk (hoping that never happens), but a SL is not. The int is still a tax deduction, I know the pitfall would be you were putting your house up for collateral, but regardless you have to pay the SL's also. Just wanted the opinions tossed around.