Nursing School
I’d like to preface this post by saying a lot of the material in my blog is very uplifting and light! This one is a little more informative and straight forward. I don’t want this post to be taken negatively! I want it to be a learning experience for students right now! I want you to know that I don’t regret my education ONE BIT, but I just wish I had made smarter and more informed decisions about money in college! I hope you guys like this read, and thank you so much for continuing to love on Yourheartismine! It means so much to me! – Kelsey
Lets just start by me telling you this: I have about $25,000 of Student Loan debt to pay off as of this month (I started with 30 something…), and an ADN nursing to degree to show for it all. That’s a 2 year college degree. Doesn’t make sense, does it? NOPE! I was also 17 when I went off to college, and that didn’t help the situation! I was very young! Every month that I pay back my student loans, I get so frustrated about the amount that I owe. I ALSO get frustrated about the amount of interest that I am paying to the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT from my EDUCATION loans. Not car loans, not home loans, EDUCATION loans! Education is something quite essential today to make a living and have a decent job. I get so upset thinking about all of this, and I wanted to write a blog post to all current and future nursing students to prevent you guys for making the mistakes that I did! Because no one teaches you these things. No one tells you to take loans out with caution. No one tells you to work hard, save, and do what you can to NOT take out loans. In becoming a nurse, we’re not rolling in the Benjamins so to speak! We’re rolling in poop and urine, trying to saves lives, and make a paycheck to take care of our families, car payments, rent, food, etc! Nurses make a decent living, it’s just super hard when you throw student loans and interest into the mix! PLEASE listen up!
According to Mark Kantrowitz of WSJ, not only is average student loan debt rising, but more students are taking out loans to finance secondary education. Almost 71% of bachelor’s degree recipients will graduate with a student loan, compared with less than half two decades ago and about 64% 10 years ago. Holy moly! We have a problem, Houston! My generation of students are loan happy! And you know what, the government isn’t going to educate us about it because THEY are benefitting! This makes me so upset! We are taking out loans like “that’s just what you do!” You max out the amount you can get, you pay for school, room, and books, and then what do you do with the rest? Well, duh, you pay it back towards the loan so you won’t be paying in the future, right? WRONG! You pocket the rest and go do what young, silly, college students do and go have fun! You eat out, buy booze, go shopping, and the list goes on. Because you have ALL of this money in your account that you didn’t have! And all you had to do was “click” to get it.
What I Wish I knew about Student Loans before I went through Nursing School!
This is the problem today with loans. Our generation is one where things are just given to us. We don’t have to work hard the way our parents did, and we get bailed out for our wrong doings! Not all fall under this category, but many do! I’m not okay with this! It’s creating a people who don’t know how to work for what they want. It’s creating a lazy culture. It’s setting up our nation’s future for failure! And ultimately, it’s creating a student nation of ridiculous debt that none of our bachelor degree professions can afford! Education is SO expensive when you online payday loans Michigan think about it! For those of us taking out loans for it, I really need you to think wisely about what you’re doing! I made the mistake of just clicking the max amount of loan, when I probably really only needed half! I now OWE that money and I am paying interest on it! At the time, it was so easy, convenient, and seemed wonderful! “Free” money in my pocket! That’s what it felt like! What I should have been doing was working a part time job on my days that I wasn’t going through my prerequisites, and putting that money aside to pay for nursing school. Instead I was frolicking through Tallahassee, FL on Tennessee Street spending money on all things college related (GO NOLES!). I wasn’t disciplined, I wasn’t informed, and I had no idea of the total amount of debt that I was accumulating from college loans. That’s scary!