Friday, May 4, 2012

go to hell, carolina, part 2

a little more than two years ago i paid off my first student loan from attending duke.  today i paid off my second (and final) one!  my duke education is paid for!  woo hoo!

i'll again reiterate how TOTALLY WORTH IT i believe it is to take out student loans if you can't afford to attend your dream college without them.  i'm not advocating anything excessive, but a couple thousand dollars a year was very manageable for me to pay back, and i'd wouldn't do it differently if i had to do it again.

the timing of this is good, as in august i'll take out a loan to help finance my year at columbia.  in fact, the timing is on purpose.  i could have continued to pay this loan off over another year or two but chose to just pay off the remainder from some of my savings so i'd have a clean slate before starting grad school in the fall.  this felt important to me - the ending of one chapter of debt before beginning a new one.

the interest rate on the loan i just paid off?  2.1%.  the interest rate on the loan i'll take out this summer?  6.8%.  times have changed.

(anyone know if graduate loan rates will be lowered - like undergraduate ones will - if congress passes this student loan bill?)

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