How much loans did you graduate with and how long did it take you to pay it off?

[Rbnz]

Graduated about 9 months ago with 160K. I pay about 3-4K a month towards the loans. Hopefully will have them gone in about 5 years. We live pretty comfortably, but definitely still live like a student. We don't go out to eat often, watch our power and water usage, and rent a small apartment. I think this is his saying... "Live like nobody else now, so we can live like nobody else in the future" -Dave Ramsey-

Its hard living like this after your done with school with a good income, but you have to pay back the government. Or you can vote for Bernie (which I would not recommend) :).

[Guest ERCat]

27,000 in debt when I graduated last year. I've paid about 7000 off so far. My plan is to have it all paid back by 2018. Plus my program was a bargain and gave us a lot of money back in scholarships.

[Colorado]

I'm not done with my program yet, but nearly halfway through so I have a good estimate of what my total debt burden will be upon graduation. There are so many numbers out there from professional organizations, PA programs, commenters on forums, etc. that its hard to know what the "magic number" is going to turn out for you. I dont know if anyone cares, but I'll share some tips based on my experience thus far....The tuition and fees that programs cost are set in stone, you can't get around those. So this leaves you with room to play when it comes to books, parking passes, equipment, and general COL.

- Equipment: I chose to buy used equipment (otoscope etc., not anything that is single use, thats gross)

- Books: used books/e-books for the ones that I wanted to keep for future reference and borrowed library books for most. Borrowing can be like a test drive, if I really liked the book I'll often buy it to keep for future use. (you'll find that certain books work well for you and that those aren't always the ones on the class "book list")

- Parking: Its expensive to park at my school but it is really convenient and worth it on some days. However, I saved hundreds by riding my bike/taking the bus to school. Use that extra bus time to study and not stress about traffic.

-COL: I have one roommate, we pay a modest amount for a nice little house. On average, we are each paying about 300-600 less per month than many of our classmates.In general, pick and choose what to spend money on outside basic necessities. For clinical year, our program provides housing w/utilities at sites that are more than an hour away from our homes. I'm taking advantage of that to save on housing next year. Understandably, not everyone can travel to sites like that or even want to for that matter.

 

All in all, I expect to graduate with about $150K from PA school. Add the interest from 2.5 yrs to the principal, and I'm probably looking at around $165K (yes, I could work part time to offset the interest a bit but I have other things going on in my life outside of school that would make that burden too heavy for me personally). I only have $8k from undergrad, mostly subsidized as I paid off my unsub/high rate ones first.

 

Make a budget, stick to it but leave a little room for some "fun money" within reason-you WILL need stress relief in school. Do what works for YOU, no one can tell you whats best for you.

Of all the programs I applied to, I was only accepted to the most expensive ones (but really top notch programs). So I didnt have the choice of an expensive vs. inexpensive program. If I did have the choice, I would have STRONGLY considered going to a cheaper school. That being said, I LOVE the program I'm in!  There are a lot of ways to make loan repayment easier, IBR, 10yr forgiveness programs, etc.