STUDENT LOANS & THE $4,000 LATTE

In 2005 the Washington Post published an article on how having a daily latte may add thousands to what you repay in student loans. The article is located at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/17/AR2005061701226.html .

The 2003-2004 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study provides that the average combined debt for undergraduate and graduate education for MBAs and PhD's is about $42, 000, for law school graduates it is about $81,000, and for medical school graduates it is about $125,000.

About $19,000 of these debt figures can be attributed to undergraduate loans according to student lender Nellie Mae's 2002 National Student Loan Survey .

Consider this, $100,000 in loans results in payments of about $1,250 per month (every $10,000 in loans equals about $125 per month in payments), and a person earning $50,000 per year takes home about $3,000 per month.

Significant debt can have a serious impact on your future. "An additional $5000 of debt reduces the probability of owning a home by about 1%," according to Nellie Mae.

The time to start thinking about your student debt is before you accumulate it, not after.

Other related articles on this website include Advice-Making a Budget and Debt-Quick Facts.

Good luck in law school!

Michael Santana

michael.santana@lawboost.com

If you have any questions or comments about this article, or want to write your own article about the pre-law or law school process, feel free to contact me.