My Total Student Loan Debt Hits the Quarter Mark, More Work Ahead

As of this coming Monday, I’ll have a remaining student loan balance of approximately $25 thousand. This is a good accomplish and it continues the march toward the next milestone of having just $21 thousand outstanding. Once I hit that milestone later this fall season, I’ll have repaid $100 thousand in student loan principal. Frightening.

There’s no great “rah rah” moment for me to report in this update. No great wisdom to impart to you all during this update. I know that some of you like reading about the little financial details that I track both on a historical and regular basis, so I’ll give you some of those to placate you until next month’s student loan update.

For example, the $25 thousand balance that I’m left with represents about the cost of my student loans through the end of my Sophomore year of college. In other words, I’m currently paying off expenses that I incurred during the 2000 – 2001 academic year. That’s more than a decade ago.

Sucks.

Here’s another little financial detail for you: after Monday’s payment gets processed I’ll be accruing $3.10 in interest costs – daily. That’s right. Everyday of the week, imagine taking three crisp one dollar bills and setting them on fire… then throwing a dime at them in a futile attempt to stop the flame. That’s my daily bleed from paying these student loans. Just to show you how much of a financial strain losing $3.10 each day is, that amount translates to $1,131.50 each year.

If I didn’t make any more payments on this loan (which would be stupid), I’d still be pissing away over $1,100 each year.

And that’s your student loan update for this month. Can you tell that this repayment stuff is getting tiring?

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. Since I started repaying my student loans in July 2006, I’ve repaid a total of $95 thousand in principal to various lenders including the federal Perkins loan program, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, and CitiBank. I currently owe $25 thousand in principal to the United States Department of Education’s federal Direct Loans program. This loan is serviced by the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority. To date, I’ve repaid over $35 thousand in interest to these lenders. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.