astasia wrote:Oldrac the Chitinous wrote:We've got the same kind of student loans here. I think the major difference is that US schools just cost a lot more to begin with, to the tune of $20-40K US a year. As opposed to what appears to be about $10-18K AU in Australia.
'cause we love us some capitalism.
In any case, I commend your courage. It takes a lot of it to jump the rails like you're about to do.
Well...that's not really true. You don't get to not pay back your loans until you get a high enough paying job. You get 6 months to a year after you graduate. There is no guarantee you'll have a job.
Luckily, I've gone on interest relief, which our gov't student loans have the option for, if you don't get a job that can support the payments. I had a job out of uni, but a poorly paid one. So I applied and got it, so no paying back and no interest for me. You have to reapply every 6 months. I don't think many people actually realize the option. In hindsight, I wish I would've just tried to work it into my budget, because I do want to go back to school, but I don't want to go with a bundle of debt. The problem here is that I've come to a point where I don't know if what I had set out to do is something I want to do, and thus I just want to go back to school and begin to strive towards my longer-term goal of teaching uni. If I would've known this, I would've probably busted my ass to pay it all off, and I would already be back in school. Hindsight and all that. So, I'm now squirrelling away money so that when I come off of interest relief next time, I'll have a sufficient buffer so that I'll have no problem paying off quickly, hopefully.
Also, Astasia, she does already have a degree (a BA, I believe she said), she just has decided not to go for teacher's college. So she has a completed uni education, she's just opting out of continued education to be allowed to teach.