The Crushing feeling of reality

If you are a recent college graduate like me, have you taken a look at your student loans? Or have you pretended to be blissfully unaware of the debt that is now looming over you? I've been somewhat proactive about looking at my future debt, but haven't done much else with it. I regret not paying on the interest when I'd get those tiny $100 bills offering me the option to pay the interest that had accrued during the previous year of school. Now my interest is well over $1,000 and I wondered what it would be like otherwise? My debt is looming over me, guaranteeing to be close to $90,000 after I get my masters, and at this point, what am I supposed to do about it? It's funny because when I was in undergraduate, I paid at least $5,000 out-of-pocket each year for tuition in addition to the stafford loans. This upcoming year, tuition is cheaper than it was at my undergraduate, so loans cover the entire sum of the tuition. That doesn't make me feel much better. I'm sitting here, going to be basically taking a pay cut in half of what I made on my taxes last year, and supposed to get by as an adult, with more expenses than ever before. I have to pay for rent, internet, gas, electricity, and anything extra I might need, like textbooks or groceries. Now I admit, I am very lucky. I don't pay my own phone bill, car insurance, medical insurance, or really any of that stuff, but life is still very tight for me. This semester I am getting a refund from my student loans because I wasn't sure how much tuition was going to be for me due to some very large discrepancies on the school's website. With this refund, I'd love to put a cushion between me and homelessness, but I am plagued with the very real issue of wanting to get a head start on my loans. I'd love to push that debt down $10,000, and start paying on the parent plus loan that has the highest interest,although I think with some changes that were made to the student loan policies, one of the Stafford loans has the highest interest rate. In any case, I'm just conflicted. Use the money to pay off student loans, or use the money to live. I think I'm going to try to be smart and start paying on those loans. I think in the long run it will help me out, and if I'm really lucky, I can get an assistantship in the upcoming semester and I'll have to pay very little for school, and take all the extra loan money that I've already accepted, and just use that to pay off the highest interest loan and make out even better than I would have been before!

Here's to hoping my debt doesn't consume me!!

Tell me about your college debt story? Are you in repayment yet? Has that been difficult to handle? Did you make it out of college without debt? I'd love to hear from you!!!

Thanks for reading.

~Amanda