ccouture Posted November 11, 2015 Share Posted November 11, 2015 I'm going to start PA school next year and am trying to decide between a newer program that is not ranked, but closer to home or a highly respected program that is out of state and significantly more expensive (about 45k). How much does the reputation/history of the program matter in the long run? Is paying more money worth it to go to one of the best programs in the nation? Also, how long did it take you to pay off your student loans after graduating? I have no kids and am not married so I won't have too many extra expenses after graduating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bananapeppers Posted November 11, 2015 Share Posted November 11, 2015 I was at around $130k of student debt ($100k from PA school and $30k from undergrad). I graduated in 2013 and am now at $30k. Will finish paying my loans off next year, so it will take me 3 years to pay my loans off. TBH, employers don't really look at what school you went to. I get paid the same rate as the people who went to schools close to my work area, so it doesn't make much of a difference. What's more important is the training and experience that you have (which you'll get in your first job, depending on what you go into). If I were you, I'd pick the location you'd want to stay in and make sure it's the cheapest program - because that means you'll owe back less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walkoffshot Posted November 11, 2015 Share Posted November 11, 2015 Bananapeppers, Care to share how you tackled those loans in 3 years? I'm in the same boat, 130 k and would like to have them paid off in 5 years. What's your living situation like i.e. Rent, own, living w parents? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bananapeppers Posted November 11, 2015 Share Posted November 11, 2015 Walkoffshot, I'm currently living with my parents but do pay for rent/food. Every month, I contribute $600. I also picked up a part time ED job which pays $75/hr. So my monthly situation looks like this: -$4k after tax FULL TIME JOB ~110 hours -$1-4k after tax PART time (~20-100 hours) -$600-700 month part time tutoring work My expenses look like this: -$600 month for rent -CC ranges between $500-800 a month -Everything else after 401k and ROTH IRA goes into my student loans I use my main job ($55/hr and work about 110 hours a month) to contribute the max to 401k ($18,500 for this year) and the rest I dump into loans. My part time job allows me to help pay for expenses/food/fun. I am also single with no kids, so that sort of helps too. Also, I refinanced with DRB and have a 2.53% interest rate which also helps. I was also able to put into a 5% savings account (YES...5%!!) so I'm building money in that. The key is to pay off loan and at the same time save up so you have some funds if needed. PM me if you want to know more about 5%. You can't find anything that beats that and you can take the money out whenever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator ventana Posted November 11, 2015 Moderator Share Posted November 11, 2015 2002 grad consolidated to 2.5% fixed 20 year rate pay off in 2022 had about 89k when started paid off a lot quick (that which was not fixed 20 yr as such a low rate) now about 10k left Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hawkeye88 Posted November 11, 2015 Share Posted November 11, 2015 I'm not even in PA school yet and the debt absolutely terrifies me. Please keep success stories like these coming...they give me hope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Pepper Posted November 11, 2015 Share Posted November 11, 2015 5%?? I would love to find somewhere to park my emergency fund at 5%. What's the catch? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bananapeppers Posted November 11, 2015 Share Posted November 11, 2015 No catch - you park the money into an interest growing card (the max is $5k) and you can sign up to 4 different cards. I have $10k parked right now at 5%. No fees at all. PM me if you're interested and I can give you the details/instructions. Also the interest is POSTED quarterly. (every 3 months). This is my only emergency fund (all other funds I put into 401k, payments, etc). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ERCat Posted November 12, 2015 Share Posted November 12, 2015 I was in the same boat as you. I was deciding between a well established program that would cost 100K vs a brand new public program that would cost 45K. I went with the new program and am so so so glad I did. Since it was a public program they gave us money back as grants so with that I ended up paying just over 30K for my PA education. And it was the best decision I ever made. The program was actually on provisional accreditation but by the time I graduated it was fully accredited and they didn't miss ONE point for anything (not sure how they score it but they had a perfect score). Not going to lie… I was totally nervous about going into a new program, I kept thinking of the worst case scenario. If you can, talk to the students of the previous class. See what they think. Ask about the quality of the didactic year, the quality of the rotations, how much support they felt they got. If they passed the boards. I was in the second class of the program so I had the first class to ask, but if you would be the first class then...Talk to the faculty members. Ask them where they see the program going and what their goals are. Try to remember the overall feeling you got in the interview. What was your gut telling you? When I had my interview, I noticed that the faculty consisted of extremely compassionate, intelligent people and they were very open about the status of the program and fully explained to us what we could expect, rather than sweep thinhs under the rug. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Pepper Posted November 12, 2015 Share Posted November 12, 2015 I tried to PM you bananapeppers. It says you cannot receive any new messages. Maybe the inbox is full of inquiries on the 5%. I would love to find where I can park my emergency fund at 5%. It's on a card? And you said the interest only posts quarterly? Is that when it compounds as well? For reference: I'm a PA applicant this cycle. My undergrad is paid off, but I have about $45K left on my grad school loans for my MPH. I refinanced that through Sofi two years after graduating on a five year plan. So that means grad school will take 7 years to pay off. I plan on living frugally and paying off PA school loans within 2-5 years from graduation depending on how expensive the school is that I get accepted to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bananapeppers Posted November 12, 2015 Share Posted November 12, 2015 I tried to PM you bananapeppers. It says you cannot receive any new messages. Maybe the inbox is full of inquiries on the 5%. I would love to find where I can park my emergency fund at 5%. It's on a card? And you said the interest only posts quarterly? Is that when it compounds as well? For reference: I'm a PA applicant this cycle. My undergrad is paid off, but I have about $45K left on my grad school loans for my MPH. I refinanced that through Sofi two years after graduating on a five year plan. So that means grad school will take 7 years to pay off. I plan on living frugally and paying off PA school loans within 2-5 years from graduation depending on how expensive the school is that I get accepted to. Sorry, I got a few messages about the 5% interest account. Just to clarify, you can take the money in and out any time you want. It is NOT a CD. And in general, CD rates are so low due to low interest rates. But I cleared up my inbox. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cinntsp Posted November 12, 2015 Share Posted November 12, 2015 Get a job with a good salary(not one of these new grad offers for 80k you'll read about here) and live frugally. Don't sign a contract and then immediately go buy a new car or house. Pick up a few extra shifts here and there. If you can live pretty bare bones and throw 40-50k per year at your loans then you will get out of debt pretty quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JtheWorker Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 I've got about 55k in loans from PA school and plan to have them paid off in 2.5 years without any trouble. I do not know why more people don't do this. Just use the method cinntsp outlined above. Being debt free and saving $ on interest is worth living frugally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DogLovingPA Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 Assuming the end degrees are the same (ie. both award a masters) go with the cheaper program. My student loans are the bane of my existence. JtheWorker - Plenty of people would love to live like cinntsp but it's not always practical (I guarantee my parents do not want me to live with them). And despite best intentions - life gets in the way. I applaud everyone who manages to pay off their student loans early but there are a lot of variables that come into play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator rev ronin Posted November 13, 2015 Administrator Share Posted November 13, 2015 3 years, 2 months. That was only $17K, but I have a family who went without a lot of things during my PA program, and I also paid off lower interest, but non deferrable, loans (e.g., mini-van) first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
camha92 Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 Unfortunately, the average cost of attendance for most programs are 150k if you're out of state. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chica724 Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 Took me 3 years to pay off $110k. 2 things that helped: 1) being frugal 2)having my dad take out a line of credit at 4.3% for 75K and I paid him back every month a fixed amount of about $2200 something like that over 3 years and I paid the remaining amount on my own on top of that. I also took out an interest free loan from my then bf now husband for like 20k :-P. The 4.3% was wayyy better than the 6.8-8.5% that I had! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BelgianPA Posted November 16, 2015 Share Posted November 16, 2015 Currently in PA school. Will graduate in June 2016 with 55k (that's undergrad and PA school combined). The plan with the wife is to be debt free by Christmas 2016... We'll see what happens. Little tip on paying loans off quickly. Line up your loans from smallest to largest, minimum payments on all of them except smallest one where you throw as much cash at it as possible. When it's paid off move down the line it will eventually all snowball into a huge monthly payment you'll make to your largest loan towards the end. Maybe a little counter intuitive but you'll see your progress, get used to allocating a lot of your income to loans, and hopefully get excited to be debt free. It can be a daunting task with loans of various size and interest rates, be smart about consolidation and your life situation (everyone's different), but we'll all get there sooner rather than later (hopefully...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cinntsp Posted November 16, 2015 Share Posted November 16, 2015 Currently in PA school. Will graduate in June 2016 with 55k (that's undergrad and PA school combined). The plan with the wife is to be debt free by Christmas 2016... We'll see what happens. Little tip on paying loans off quickly. Line up your loans from smallest to largest, minimum payments on all of them except smallest one where you throw as much cash at it as possible. When it's paid off move down the line it will eventually all snowball into a huge monthly payment you'll make to your largest loan towards the end. Maybe a little counter intuitive but you'll see your progress, get used to allocating a lot of your income to loans, and hopefully get excited to be debt free. It can be a daunting task with loans of various size and interest rates, be smart about consolidation and your life situation (everyone's different), but we'll all get there sooner rather than later (hopefully...) The snowball method has psychological benefits that help some folks but the avalanche method is the "correct" way to do it if your goal is to pay as little interest as possible. Use a site like http://unbury.us/ to compare strategies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BelgianPA Posted November 16, 2015 Share Posted November 16, 2015 The snowball method has psychological benefits that help some folks but the avalanche method is the "correct" way to do it if your goal is to pay as little interest as possible. Use a site like http://unbury.us/ to compare strategies. Solid website! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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