That said, the numbers are terrifying, but you chip away at them. I work 18+ hours a week at my student work-study job, in addition to summers waitressing/bussing/tutoring, Also, GU has decent scholarships and financial aid in the form of Federal loans (better than Sallie Mae, which I only have 1 from, in my parents’ names.)

Basically, 200k seems incredibly absurd for undergrad, but she just has to live the minimal life while she can. I’m certainly not going to ask for handouts to help pay my debt but if she feels it necessary, then she can. I won’t be donating but I won’t stop others from doing it.

Have you watched this? http://www.financemoz.com/kelli-space-interview-part-1-peter-schiff-radio-113010.html

She does blame others for her situation.

I think finance remains a huge mystery to people for many reasons. Some people find it too difficult, the media definitely promotes living a glamorous lifestyle in the moment and constantly manipulates us into thinking that we need to spend and keep up with the joneses. Also, human beings instincts are not great for finance, it is tough for us to watch the wild gyrations of the market and ignore it to look 40 years down the road. In relation to my last point, for many reasons we suffer from myopia for example; the experiment where the subjects will choose one candy today vs. two tomorrow, but if you present it saying that you can have one candy in 100 days or two in 101 days the subject will choose to wait one more day. However on day number 100 they choose to have the candy today. We have become an instant gratification society.

Kelli you are not passing the blame and that is admirable and you are working hard, I hope your story goes out to those who need to hear it.

@kyleinaz Agreed on all counts. I guess, basically, I’m saying that I messed up. I don’t place blame, I’m just trying to fix it. On my own, I already look back and see the other choices I could/should have made.
Now I’m just hoping the amount of money borrowed for college plateaus and stops growing so exponentially. It is evident that at this rate students are still borrowing like crazy when, in your words, “you can still find some good bargains for colleges” — I want them to know that’s true!! I want to force them to look 4 years into their future and see that paying these loans back will not be easy, no matter what they think/are told.
Maybe you’ve made great decisions until this point — congrats, if so, on such great foresight — but I look back on being 18 and remember how clueless I was in so many ways. I think many can agree.
It’s not easy to admit being stupid at 18 when you graduated in the top-ish of your class and went to COLLEGE which is supposed to signify intelligence.
We all know now that it’s not necessarily the case.

@Natalie @ Mango – thanks for sharing Mango Money! I tweeted about it yesterday – what a great site!! So informative, and it looks awesome.

@Elle @ Odd Cents – Hi Elle! Thanks for sharing. I only needed a cosigner for 2 of my 11 private loans. The rest I was able to take out as much as I wanted, alone. Of course I only took out as much as needed (tuition + fees + housing/meal plan + books) but still a scary thought that a student is able to borrow virtually as much as they’d like after they had a cosigner 1 time… at least was the case with me.

Thanks again!

@kelli my point with the mortgage was not so much the selection process, but more the fact that you can shop around for a bargain and go to a neighborhood in your price range, meaning you have control over how much you have to borrow. I completely understand that you probably did not see the economic collapse coming, very few people did. We graduated at about the same time, I remember reading articles about how fast incomes, etc were growing. Also I am not saying you aren’t working hard or are not using your own money. You are working 60 hours a week and apparently throwing a lot of money at the student loan debt. I agree that there are definitely aspects of the system that are broken, but if you do dig around and research you can still find some good bargains for colleges.

For some possible ways to prevent this from happening would be for high schools to do a lot better job on going over financial aid, i.e. breaking down a loan amortization schedule vs. the expected salaries for certain professions, or extra assistance to the first college generation students.

however, the onus of the responsibility should fall on the individual to do right by themselves and get educated. for example, upon reading the same articles others on this blog have read I noticed that college tuition is increasing by enormous amounts. I did some basic present value calculations and concluded it would be wise to set up a 529 plan in my name for my future children, I am not engaged nor expecting to have children for at least 3 years, which means the money I put in has quite a while to compound and grow. Most of my coworkers and friends have scoffed at the notion, but I am saving now to have to save less later.