Graduates and the student loan — payment or future damnation. Over the next couple of weeks money will be passed from hand-to-hand and padded envelopes will be placed into the eager hands of grateful college graduates. But will you think first about those student loans you currently owe. Instead of instructional manuals from a Suze Orman book like the one entitled The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Broke or Borrowing Inequality: Race, Class, and Student Loans by Derek V. Price, our young people will receive money as they stand on the precipice of their futures and we initiate them into adulthood. But the issue of student loans will need to be dealt with, and dealt with seriously. The new form of currency, which replaces books and exams and academic accomplishment must be accompanied by budget discussions of student loans and debt that must take place before and after graduation, so that the memories don’t fade as money wanes, s in and out of the pockets of our dear graduates.
Five Things to Know as a Graduate Regarding Money:
1. It is much harder to get, than it is when it is being given to you on a special day for a special accomplishment. These types of rewards and payoffs don’t come easily or often — even lottery players have a better chance of catching the number sometime than you do of getting money for another academic achievement. So know it is hard earned. It took four years to get that card with the monetary gift inside, and it could easily take four more years to receive another; at least three more if you attend law school and two more for an MBA. The result would be more debt from more student loans, as you go after another degree and another card with money in it.
2. Your credit will be destroyed if you stop applying payments to your student loans. Forget to make a payment on your student loan and you are sabotaging those dreams of becoming an entrepreneur. Student loans may cause you to forego those dreams of owning a home. You are forgetting the whole proposition of how society judges responsible adults — it is through your credit and one of the first things they begin reporting on in addition to whatever credit cards or car payments you make will be your student loans. Don’t lose this opportunity to have a great payment history via your student loans.
3. Student loans are more than just indicators of how you assume your responsibility leading into adulthood. Student loans, for many employers are indicative of credit histories to showcase performances of character to find some temptation which can happen based on student loans not being paid. Questions regarding student loan payments may never come up but the opportunity could be delayed or permanently eliminated based on a track record of not paying a student loan.
4. Most student loans offer deferment programs, but carefully and diligently research which of those may be best for you. There are other programs in certain disciplines where you may choose financial assistance for medical training, science programs, and teaching degrees with out having to get another dreaded student loan. These fields often offer more liberal and accessible student loan programs to attract recruits to the profession.
5. If you are a minority, i.e. women, black, Hispanic, do not pursue another advanced degree without first finding a school that offers the best financial packages for minority students. It is vital that you do not substantially increase your debt with another student loan to receive a post graduate degree. The idea of securing alternatives (other than student loans) for financing your graduate degree will showcase your maturity and the subject that you know. Science, math, health, education are committed to advance studies.
Post graduate student loans can become a calamity, but since you now know that, don’t allow it to happen to you. Have a road map and a plan of how to retire your debt and pay off you loans in an expeditious manner, and before the money slips through your hands. Celebrate by being mature. Each debt that is paid to pay down on your student loan is actually freedom from the shackles of financial servitude and indebtedness that you may currently find yourself in, thanks to this wonderful college degree that you have now received.
Congratulations, but be responsible and don’t spend your dollars, instead send you payment for what has hopefully been a rewarding, enlightening and ultimately a profitable endeavor. But pay you student loans.
