Ignoring Your Student Loans? Considering Taking One You Don't Need?
Feb 27 '02
The Bottom Line Student loans can be a dangerous thing if you aren't good with money. Trust me. I know.
I was a non-traditional college student. I graduated college when I was 29 years old, and the mother of two children. Thus, my advice is geared towards adult students who are attending school while raising a family.
Like credit cards, student loans can do more harm than good if used incorrectly.
Last week, I got an email from my company’s human resources secretary. My wages are being garnished to pay back my student loans. It has to be one of the most embarrassing situations in my life. How did I get in this mess? It all started rather innocently.
I started college when my son was 8 months old. My husband was working a minimum-wage job, and I was desperate for a way out of poverty. My husband was a Muslim, and not very keen on the idea of my working, but did not mind my going to college. In Egypt, education is a sign of class, and I guess he thought I could use some.
At first, I relied on grants and scholarships to finance college. I didn’t even consider taking out a student loan. Then, I signed up for a computer course. Because I didn’t have a computer at home, I had to do my programming assignments in the campus lab. This meant I was away from home too much, and my husband wasn’t pleased. He wanted me to quit school, I was desperate to stay in college. Thus, my first student loan financed a home computer.
Subsequent student loans were justified to help finance my husband’s new business, and to help pay our bills. After we split, student loans financed Christmas, paid for a newer computer, and paid back bills. It became all too easy to ignore my bills and then catch up at student loan time. It was an influx of cash that came twice a year that seemed to have no consequences at all. I considered it “income averaging”.
My justification was that I was so poor, that the student loans were borrowing against my future to give the kids and myself some kind of a life. I would simply not lead a lavish lifestyle after I graduated and started working.
Unfortunately, when I started working, the cash went to my head. Right out of school, I was making more than my father had after 30 years of serving in the military. My coworkers drove new SUV’s, took nice vacations, had large houses, and swimming pools. I was living in an apartment, drove a car that I paid $1 for, and had lousy credit.
I can remember saying to my new husband as we madly spent my paychecks that dammit I made $xx thousand dollars a year, and I should be able to have a decent life!
My decent life just never seemed to include paying my bills.
I have been out of school for five years now. I still don’t own a home, I don’t have a pool, and my credit rating sucks. I spend money that I shouldn’t and my student loans are a tremendous debt hanging over my head. I am certainly not what the United States government had in mind when they dreamed up the Guaranteed Student Loan program.
Student loans are dangerous to people like me. If you are a money addict, and you know who you are, avoid student loans like the plague. If you MUST get a loan, only take out enough money to pay your tuition. College students are supposed to be broke.
“Income averaging” doesn’t work if you don’t have discipline and self control. If you don’t pay your bills now, don’t take the money that the government is dangling before you. Trust me on this one, those loans will only jump up to bite you some day.
The truly sad thing is, I looked at our family budget to see how badly the wage garnishment would hurt us, and discovered that I can still afford to pay our monthly bills even after the government takes that money. I could have paid my loans a bit at a time over the past five years, and still had a decent lifestyle.
Student loans are a great thing for people who need them to pay for school. However, if you can’t handle money, a student loan can be as dangerous as crack cocaine. Listen to somebody who knows.
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