As I was reviewing my financial aid statements today (which are better than in years past) I realized that I’ve accumulated quite a bit of debt in the form of college loans. I always knew I had quite a bit, but I guess I never fully realized how much it was. I don’t particularly regret it because unfortunately my financial situation didn’t allow me any other option but loans. All the same, though, it sucks to see that I’m already in debt to the tune of $10,000 with two more years to go. At least it seems like I’ll have to take little to no loan help this year because I’ve finally been able to move into a much cheaper apartment which saves me about $2,000/semester.
I’ve begun looking through my stuff for things I might be able to eBay off to put towards paying some of the loans off. We’ll see how that goes — eBay is scary, and I hate the fact they charge you to list items* and then again when you sell them. Amazon might be the way to go, I don’t know.
[Edit] * Apparently eBay lets you have 3 free listings a month. I’m trying it with one item to see how it pans out.
How did you cope with your college debt?
I hate college debt. ha, seriously I do.
I know it’s a good investment, but I’m hoping that investment pays off in the end. There’s no way I’d be able to go to school without it, but I’m really thankful for the extra grants and scholarships I received this year.
I’ve been selling a lot of my books on half.com, actually. It’s been slow, but it’s free listing and reimbursement for shipping. I’ve earned around $15 or $16 so far, and I might sell some of my old computer games on there. Selling on ebay seems pretty risky to me unless you have a high-want item. :/
@Rachel: Yeah, it just sucks. You know it’s a good investment but to see the numbers on paper about the debt just makes your stomach sink. I work, I apply for every grant I can get, but there’s just always that gap that you’re forced to fill with loans. Oh, I’ve sold a few of my books via Amazon but never tried Half. Maybe I’ll try that, too.
To the commenters at large… please read posts before you post an idiotic comment. I have LOANS, and have zero credit card debt. I’m even growing my own vegetables now to reduce my grocery bills. Please do not comment if you are incapable of very good reading comprehension or if you are a snarky asshole. Gracias.
You could try renting your textbooks out to younger students, who don’t want to pay the full prize of the textbook. If the school you go to keeps textbooks for a few years and doesn’t upgrade, you could make back the original price yo paid and possibly make money from it after a year. Note any damages before, and treat it like they did in high school, where they have to pay for any damages that occur while they are renting your textbooks.
If that doesn’t work, since you are growing your own vegetables, you could grow more than you need and sell some to your neighbors. I’m sure other college students, who are in the same shoes as you, would appreciate the reduced cost. It might not seem like anything at first, but who knows, it could make a dent in paying off your loans.
Or, if you have a hobby of some kind (making handmade goods) you could try etsy.com I’m not sure if they charge you to list/sell items, but if you have something that you could make to sell there, it would be worth a look.
Personally, I tutor for Calculus and Biology, nearby high school students, fellow students at my school, and I make a little money from it to put towards my own loans. If you can spare some time…
And my answer would be: It’s probably a good thing you’re on a different boat, I’m honestly, 100% sure that your experience as roommates with a theatre major have proved that. But if you want me to say that your major is more difficult than hers is, I’m not going to, because I honestly don’t know. I’m not gifted in either, and haven’t chosen either as my future life and career. All I meant to say before is there are certain elements of her major that you may not have understood, and elements to yours she didn’t. From my understanding of the situation, in that post and in your response, you had to live in a situation you were’t comfortable with for a LONG time, believe me, I understand that. You said yourself you were at college to learn, so.. learn. Please, just block me from commenting or something next time, instead of revoking everyone’s ability to give you the feedback you asked for -it’s not fair to me, or them.
[Edited 7/24/09 by Heather – I did not (and will not) turn off comments/block someone from commenting for disagreeing… I recently turned off commenting for all posts that are older than 14 days to help prevent spam – which was completely unrelated to this exchange. I describe in more detail in my response below…
I didn’t revoke YOUR ability – that is not what I’ve done except in very rare circumstances where the commenter has spammed my blog or otherwise been a relentless ass. I recently turned on WordPress’ “turn off comments after 14 days” option because I was receiving comments for entries that were years old… And might I mention this was completely unrelated to your comment.
Yet again I will argue with you about the theatre people. I personally know theatre people other than the girl I was roommates with. Unless you are heavily involved in a theatre production (my roommate was not), there is not the amount of outside work that is done that would match what someone in engineering does. I totally respect people who are involved in those productions because I know they somehow are able to fit in the time to practice constantly night and day for those types of things. My roommate? Helped during class time to set up backdrops, outfits, etc. She was taking the minimum 12 hours which involved that one theatre class, a sociology class, a typing class (how the hell they let her graduate high school without being able to type is beyond me), and one other which has since slipped my mind since I’ve had to deal with her. So was, in her circumstance, it harder for her than me? No. You can continue to argue, whatever, but truly when I was spending hours working on papers, homework, etc. and she definitely wasn’t then… I’m not sure how you can say that it was the same or harder than me. Theatre is what you make it – and I was in the pit band for a production once so I know. You can be the kid who does nothing but fetch water and towels or you can be the kid who is front and center working your ass off. Some majors don’t provide for that. I know I may have made it seem like I was weighing all theatre people in one single group in my previous comments but in the heat of the moment we don’t always make room for things other than generalities, at least I don’t – and I should.
Yeah, I’ve been selling what I can on ebay, half.com, amazon, etc. Selling pretty much anything I can give a price. A lot of my neighbors have already been growing their own vegetables and that’s what actually gave me the idea to try my own. I think there’s a policy against door-to-door selling in my apartment complex but maybe I can figure something out. However, at this point, other than a few oddball things there’s not a lot else that I can do. I’m working a lot more than I probably even should be during the school year on top of a full load of classes. I’ve sorted through my loans to identify those that are higher interest and with the check that I get back from refunds (hooray!) I’m going to systematically pay them off. I should have everything but the government loans paid off, which will be good considering the interest rate is considerably lower compared to the private loan I have. We’ll see… I’m doing what I can, and that’s all I can do besides whine to my friends in camaraderie about it.
If anyone wants for some reason to comment on an entry that is older (and therefore has commenting turned off) then maybe e-mail me to have the conversation. As a spam blocking measure I had to turn on the 14 day commenting rule because the spam comments were getting too much to delete on a daily basis.
The education is really important , so its good investment. But just the fact that you should paying it off years after graduating … yeah definitely sucks ! And Nowadays the education is so damn expensive. I ask myself is it worth spending so much money for my uni ?
xx
@Relation Who?: Yeah, exactly – you know it’s a good investment but it’s hard because for a lot of people you have to go pretty deep in debt just to go to college.