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A New Student Loan Update – Many Years Later

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Sometimes the updates on this blog are few and far in between and this update, in particular, is long overdue. The main focus of this entry is how I went back to the student loan well to fund my doctoral education, which ended in May 2018. In fact, the last update that I made to the Student Loans category of this blog was a note about how I was going back to school to get a doctorate and I posted that updated in June 2015.

Graduating from the USC Rossier School of Education last spring

Well, that doctoral program has come and gone and I absolutely loved it. Soon, I intend to post an entry talking about the tremendous experience that I had as part of the University of Southern California’s online doctoral program. It was amazing and really rewrote the entire online learning experience for me. Again, though, that story is for another time. This update is about student loans.

To start, I do not intend to write a series of updates about my student loan repayment experience like I did after I graduated from Monmouth University and Rutgers University some 10+ years ago. Writing about my on-going repayment of the $120,603.31 in student loans that I incurred getting a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree was fun, but I have already provided that type of content to this blog and I do not want to write about the same issue in the same manner again. Also, my personal circumstances during this repayment are much different than they were back in 2006 when I started that repayment program. When I started repaying my first set of loans back in July 2006, I did not even have a full-time job yet. Now, I have two full-time jobs and two thriving small businesses… so yeah, my situation is a little bit different.

What is also different is the amount of student loan debt that I needed to incur to complete the doctoral program. All in, I took on $89,286.86 in new student loans. This number is comprised of $87,360.16 in loan principal, $1,878.84 in capitalized interest, and $47.86 in closing and refinancing fees. For those of you keeping count, when you combine all of the student loan principal, capitalized interest, and closing and refinancing fees that I have had to pay off in my lifetime, that number is $209,890.17.

Pretty amazing, right?

Just for fun, if you want to add in the $28,851.81 that I have already paid in interest during the first set of student loans, then the total amount that I have repaid and am still tasked with repaying is $238,741.98.

In terms of repayment, the first set of student loans took me seven years and one month to repay in full. Those seven years did not necessarily go by quickly in terms of financial time. In other words, repaying those loans was brutal to a young professional just getting his career started – in the nonprofit sector no less. Today, my repayment plan is a little bit different as my first payments began in December 2018 and I expect to have these loans paid in full sometime around the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021. My estimates are still somewhat off because I am unsure if I want to repay the loans earlier and, to be honest, I am contemplating a few different repayment structures that make more financial sense. Unfortunately, my income is at a point where I can no longer write off my student loan interest as a deduction on my taxes, so paying interest on the student loans really has no financial benefit at all.

But there are other ways to make student loan interest work for you. For example, I own a home now and I have a good deal of equity in the home. If I refinance my student loans into my mortgage, then the interest incurred on the increased amount of the mortgage loan would be tax deductible (up to a point, given the recent state and local Tax limits). Also, I could take out a loan from my 401k and repay my loans that way, too. By doing that, 100% of the interest paid on the 401k loan would go back into my 401k and I would earn all of the interest paid. Either one of these options seems like a better choice than just making payments on the student loans.

That is about it for this student loan update. Again, no regular updates on my repayment this time around, but I might post a random update here and there, so be on the lookout!

Start the Weekend Right Link Series – Volume #1, Edition #5

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Here are another set of links to help you start your weekend the right way. Again, just a reminder that if you find that you visit several websites on a daily basis, then I recommend you consider signing up for a free Feedly account. I don’t get anything for promoting Feedly – I just love the service and I think that it’s really a great RSS aggregator (even better than the old Google Reader). And if you’re using another RSS aggregator, then please consider following JerseySmarts.com at http://www.jerseysmarts.com/feed/ or if you’re already on Feedly, then you can follow us by clicking here.

Now, enjoy the links! If you come across any interesting links, then please share them with us in the comments section below.

Start the Weekend Right Link Series – Volume #1, Edition #5
Monmouth Slated For Four Games on ESPN Family of Networks, Home Schedule Set, The Hawks Nest
After Tony Graham retired from the Asbury Park Press, a host of new writers were tasked with updating his blog following Monmouth University sports. One of those writers is Josh Newman. Josh recently posted an update regarding the upcoming basketball season and when you can see the Hawks in action. If you’re an MU basketball fan, then you’ll want to check out this update.

With Practice Opening Friday, Five Things to Watch at Monmouth, The Hawks Nest
Another update on Monmouth basketball from The Hawks Nest. This update focuses on what to look for now that the practice season is upon us. Check it out – Josh Newman did a good job of what to be aware of heading into the new season especially as it relates to which players to keep an eye on and what positions they are playing this year.

Rutgers-New Brunswick Named Among the Ugliest College Campuses in the Country, Long Branch-Eatontown Patch
As an alumnus of Rutgers University, this one is no surprise. Rutgers University ranked #26 on the list of the ugliest campuses in the nation – and that’s the truth. The New Brunswick campus is a wreck of buildings strewn all over the place in and around downtown New Brunswick and points north. There’s barely a “campus” feel to Rutgers, rather it seems more like you’re trying to navigate between college buildings and random buildings. Of course, it still looks better than Rowan University down in Glassboro… they were ranked as the #10 ugliest campus in the nation!

Kula Cafe Thriving on Springwood, Asbury Park Sun
Some good news coming out of the West Side of Asbury Park: it looks like the new Kula Cafe is doing great things for the residents on the West Side and the Midtown neighborhood of Neptune Township. If you haven’t heard of the Kula Cafe and you live in the area, then you should read the story above and check the place out. I had a business lunch there a few months ago and it was fantastic. The service was great and the food was phenomenal. It was a very enjoyable experience and I would go back again.

Symbols, DoghouseDiaries
This was just a fun little game to play. It’s not so much of a game as it is a memory test. Give it a look – I think you’ll really enjoy it!

The Worst Thing You Do Before Bed, Men’s Health
I’m always trying to learn more about getting better sleep. This short article in Men’s Health talks about the worst thing that we do before we go to bed. And it’s no surprise – the worst thing that we do is engage in electronic forms of entertainment that stimulate our brains when we should really be trying to relax and calm down. Check out this quick article – and get some sleep!

How Hyper-Threading Works (and When You Want It In Your PC), Lifehacker
As you may know, I’m writing this entry on my brand new laptop. One of the things that sold me on buying this laptop was the fact that it had every single bell and whistle that is currently offered on the market (except for a touchscreen, which I didn’t want anyway). Well, I’m aware enough to admit that most of the technology behind these machines has passed me by, but videos like the one linked here help me understand what these bells and whistles actually mean. So if you’re like me in that you used to be the king (or queen) of technology and now you find yourself more like a silent, somewhat knowledgeable observer, then you may want to watch this quick video to learn what hyper-threading means.

Don’t Cheer the Rise of the Adjunct, Minding the Campus
A recent study came out suggesting that tenured professors do a poorer job of educating their students and keeping young students in their disciplines than adjunct professors. As an adjunct professor, this is good news for me because it means that my services should be in higher demand! The results of this study really don’t surprise me because anyone who has ever been to college and run smack into a stodgy old professor who received his/her tenure decades ago knows how incredibly horrible they are at teaching. I can tell you story after story of horrible professors that I had to endure when I was going to college – many of whom are still teaching at the campus! For some of these professors I’ve been told in confidence that certain other administrators and faculty members have complained and tried to get the poor performers fired, but tenure is a pretty hard thing to break. Anyway, this study was interesting – if you like this stuff, then I think you’ll enjoy reading this one.

Revitalizing the Church, His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan
Recently, Father I. Michael Bellafiore wrote an article in the Washington Post about revitalizing the church. Father Bellafiore writes about ten ways to revitalize the church and those ten ways do not include the things that we normally hear from local reformers. I read the blurb through His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan’s blog, which is linked above. You can go straight to Father Bellafiore’s article by clicking the link in this blurb.

Update a Vintage Boombox with a Line-In to Play Music from Your Phone, Lifehacker
To end this week’s update, I thought I’d provide a fun link for those of you who are looking for a cool do-it-yourself project. If I had the time and materials, I’d give this a shot. It looks like it could be fun to try to make this contraption!

Get your weekend started right by checking out these links, starting a new, free Feedly account, and/or adding the blogs above (and JerseySmarts.com, too) to your existing Feedly or other RSS aggregator account. Enjoy!

After All Of These Years, This Is What The Finish Line Looks Like

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Thank you all so much for the kind words and praise that you’ve sent me via text messages, Facebook comments, Facebook messages, e-mails, discussions on your blogs, and phone calls over the last few days. Since I posted that my student loans were officially repaid, I’ve been reminded what a great group of people that I’m lucky enough to call my family and friends (both old and new). During the online celebration, some of you asked whether I had official confirmation on my payment being received and processed by the student loan company. On Monday, the answer was “no” because it takes a few days for the payment to show up on MOHELA’s website. However, today I’m proud to share the screenshot of the zero balance due on my loan. Take a look:

And that's the end of my student loans.

And that’s the end of my student loans.

And not only is there nothing due on the loan, but it looks like MOHELA actually owes me 15 cents! Ha ha!

In July 2006 I began repaying $120,603.31 in student loan debt. This debt was comprised of $106,070.00 in loan principal, $12,434.58 in capitalized interest, and $2,098.73 in closing and refinancing fees. I made the final payment on this debt in August 2013. My lenders included the United States Department of Education’s (USED) Perkins loan program, the USED’s subsidized and unsubsidized Direct Loan programs, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority’s NJCLASS program, CitiBank, and the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (the USED sold my loan to MOHELA in April 2012). In total, I paid $149,455.12 to these lenders including $120,603.31 in consolidated principal and $28,851.81 in interest. You can read my entire student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Major Student Loan Announcement: My Student Loans Are Fully Repaid!

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When I was interviewed by USA Today about my student loan debt back in June 2006, I was so unsure of my financial position that I couldn’t even give them the correct total for my loans. That article cites a total of $116 thousand worth of student loans; believe it or not, I was about $5 thousand too low. All I was sure of was that I owed a substantial amount of money and it seemed there was no way to quickly repay the loans.

Before I started an aggressive repayment plan in December 2009 it seemed like today would be impossible to realize. Think about the situation that I was faced with (and remember that many current large dollar student loan borrowers are still in similar situations): How could a guy manage to repay approximately $121 thousand in student loan debt with a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in Public Policy? Further, how could a guy repay such an astronomical figure much quicker than the 25 and 30 year repayment plans his lenders put him on? Worse yet, how could anyone who worked at a nonprofit organization, did not rely on outside financial support, did not live at home, paid all of their own bills (on-time), lived in the most expensive state in the union, and who felt a moral obligation to annually donate at least 10% of his income achieve this goal? To say that the odds were against this day coming as soon as it did is an understatement! This goal was nearly impossible for anyone to achieve.

It's over!

And yet this day still arrived. As of this morning, my student loans are fully repaid. No more principal balance to report. No more interest versus principal calculations to make with each payment. No more wondering how much longer I’m going to make $2,500 per month payments (this was the amount of my average monthly payment in 2013). That’s $2,500 each month that I can now use towards what it should have been used for since July 2006: saving for retirement, investing in the market, investing in my continued professional and academic development, and purchasing a permanent residence.

During my last “major announcement” post back in December 2010 I happily reported that I was done repaying the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA). The NJHESAA’s series of smaller NJCLASS loans were – after consolidation – one of the two major student loans that I was obligated to repay after graduating from a master’s degree program at Rutgers back in 2006. The other major series of smaller loans – also consolidated into a single loan – were from the United States Department of Education (USED) and their Direct Loans program. Ultimately, the USED sold my loan to the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA) – the lender that received my final payment earlier today.

I also had loans from two smaller sources including $1,400 from the USED’s federal Perkins loan program through Monmouth University and $7,000 (plus an additional $1,071.52 in interest) from Citibank’s student loan program.

Just as I reported after paying off my NJHESAA loan, here are the stats as they pertain to repaying my USED/MOHELA loan (these figures include both the amount of the loan and the capitalized interest; also, these are my figures and may be a few pennies or a dollar or two off from what the USED/MOHELA keeps on file).

Freshman Year of College (1999 – 2000): $2,639.27
Sophomore Year of College (2000 – 2001): $3,518.71
Junior Year of College (2001 – 2002): $5,529.88
Summer Session (2002): $0.00
Senior Year of College (2002 – 2003): $5,529.86
Undecided Graduate Semester (Fall 2003): $9,759.06
Part-Time Graduate Semester (Spring 2004): $0.00
Graduate Year One (2004 – 2005): $19,156.45
Summer Session (2005): $6,852.91
Graduate Year Two (2005 – 2006): $6,034.01
Total USED Debt at Consolidation (Plus $205.04 Refinancing Fee): $59,020.15

Total Principal Paid During the Life of the Loan: $57,575.00
Total Interest Paid During the Life of the Loan (Includes Capitalized Interest): $1,445.15 + $14,518.11
Total Fees Paid During the Life of the Loan: $205.04

Total Amount Repaid: $73,743.30

The list above shows the various USED loans that I consolidated into the final $59,020.15 loan that I began repaying in 2006. If you study that list above, there are three lines that will probably bounce out and hit you – my summer session in 2002, my part-time graduate semester in 2004, and my first year in graduate school as a full-time student in 2004 – 2005. The first two of these line items probably stand out because I did not incur any USED loans during those semesters. Why didn’t I take out any loans, you ask? Simple. As an undergraduate, the USED would not advance me any loans if I was a part-time student – that eliminated me from potentially getting a loan during the summer of 2002 (I made up the difference from NJHESAA that summer). And in the spring of 2004 I was still deciding if I wanted to apply to the Rutgers graduate program where I was a non matriculated student. Again, being a part-time student didn’t allow me to take out any loans from the USED.

Of course, I did wind up applying to the Rutgers program on a full-time basis and that first full-time year of graduate school is the other line item that stands out in the list above. This line item stands out because it is so much higher than the rest of the line items at a whopping $19,156.45. What in the world could I need that much money for in a student loan?! Again, the answer is somewhat simple: somewhere along the line I figured out that the USED would advance loan funds to pay for my “living expenses” while I was going to school full-time.

If there is one thing that I can point to that inflated my total student loan debt more than anything else it would be the ability to add my “living expenses” to my student loan requests. Even though I worked part-time at two different jobs during my undergraduate years and full-time during my graduate years (in addition to owning and operating a small business), I still included my living expenses in my student loan requests. Those living expenses including my monthly rent payments, cell phone payments, food money, automobile payments, and Lord knows what else. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you the exact amount of my student loans were allocated to these living expenses, but let me put it in perspective this way…

Pretty much all of the tuition I was charged during graduate school was paid either by me, my family, or scholarships. You read that correctly – I did not need to take out student loans to pay for my tuition at Rutgers. In other words, if you look at the list above and add up the line items titled Graduate Year One (2004 – 2005), Summer Session (2005), and Graduate Year Two (2005 – 2006), then you’ll have the total dollar amount of student loans that I requested for reasons other than tuition. After doing the math, you can see that this amount equals $32,043.37. Just to be clear, of the $120,720 that I took out in student loans, at least $32,043.37 were for expenses other than tuition. I won’t set this number in stone as the definitive total amount of loan funds that I received for non-tuition expenses because I also applied for and received living expenses (primarily rent costs) from the NJHESAA’s NJCLASS program, too.

However, to estimate that approximately a third ($40,420) of my total student loan debt was for living expenses and not tuition would be a pretty good guess. Pretty frightening, I know.

And yet today still arrived. From an above-the-fold cover story in USA Today in June 2006 to fully repaying my NJHESAA loan in December 2010, to a nice mention in an online story on USA Today in May 2011, to the milestone of having repaid $100,000 in principal, to today – it’s been an incredible ride. If you’ve been following my student loan story from the beginning, then I offer my heartfelt thanks for your patronage and willingness to read my repayment story to the end. For those of you who have added comments to these blog entries from time to time, I thank you for being a part of the conversation. If you’re one of the many folks who’ve e-mailed me saying that I inspired you to take a more aggressive stance in your own student loan repayment, then I wish you luck.

Quickly and efficiently repaying a student loan is possible; even if that student loan is $120,603.31 on day one and you wind up paying an additional $28,851.81 in interest over the life of your repayment. The great truth that I learned over these past few years is that if you want to do something, then you will find a way to achieve it. In other words, no one can stop you – except you.

And if you’re trying to repay an enormous student loan, then contact me and share your story. Good luck!

In July 2006 I began repaying $120,603.31 in student loan debt. This debt was comprised of $106,070.00 in loan principal, $12,434.58 in capitalized interest, and $2,098.73 in closing and refinancing fees. I made the final payment on this debt in August 2013. My lenders included the United States Department of Education’s (USED) Perkins loan program, the USED’s subsidized and unsubsidized Direct Loan programs, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority’s NJCLASS program, CitiBank, and the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (the USED sold my loan to MOHELA in April 2012). In total, I paid $149,455.12 to these lenders including $120,603.31 in consolidated principal and $28,851.81 in interest. You can read my entire student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Reminiscing About My First $17 Thousand in Student Loan Debt

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Warning: This has to be one of my longer entries on JerseySmarts.com. In this entry, I take a look back at what I was thinking and doing way back when I had only a meager $17 thousand in total student loan debt. Oh, and I’m talking about only having incurred $17 thousand on my way up the mountain – not where I sit right now as I come back down the mountain. As you might imagine, back when I had incurred only $17 thousand in student loan debt it was a totally different world. Read on and enjoy!

Just about one month after my last student loan update, I am back again with an update that I’m sure you were already expecting. And that update is that my total student loan debt has dropped another thousand bucks to $17 thousand. It’s nice to have these frequent drops in the total amount that I have left outstanding – especially considering that I’m coming down from a peak total of $121 thousand no longer than just six and a half years ago. Pretty amazing.

Just $17 thousand left to go

For this update, though, I wanted to go back a little bit further than six and a half years ago. Before I wrote this update, I went back and looked at where I was in my collegiate career when I first owed about $17 thousand in student loans. Follow along with me here, folks… If I’m working backward from the top of the student loan debt mountain, then I already repaid the loans I took out for “cost of living” expenses from my graduate school years (the dumbest, worst debt that a student can ever take out). And I’ve already repaid any student loans that I used for actual academic expenses in graduate school. Going back a little bit further… I’ve repaid all of the student loans that I took out for rent and living expenses while an undergraduate (another dumb use of borrowed funds) and I’ve repaid all of my academic-based student loans from my senior and junior years of college. And I’ve even repaid my student loans from most of my second semester of my sophomore year.

If you do the math (and I have), then right now I’m in the process of repaying the student loans that I took out to pay for the first semester of my sophomore year in college (and, of course, my freshman year before then). The first semester of my sophomore year of college began in September 2000…

That’s a long time ago!

Let’s see what I remember from way back during the fall semester of college in the year 2000…

Back during the Fall 2000 semester, I lived on campus in a dorm named Laurel Hall. My room was A1 in the A Suite (our joke was that we lived in A1, like the steak sauce – not sure if it was funny then… or now). My roommate, who I called “Roommate,” was a pitcher on the Monmouth baseball team. I remember that he was pretty good, but I don’t recall ever going to see him play in a game (looking back, I wish I had gone to at least one game). Watching the college’s sports teams wasn’t a big thing back when I was a sophomore mainly because the school’s facilities were pretty sad. The football field looked worse than most big-time high school programs (it still only has one set of bleachers) and the basketball “arena” was a glorified high school gym. Things were much, much different than the beautiful, high-end Multipurpose Activity Center that sits on campus now. I wish that arena was there when I was an undergraduate. My friends and I could have had a lot of fun times in that place!

Academically, I was just coming off being on Dean’s List and this would be the last time that I ever made Dean’s List, but not because of academic reasons. As I progressed through college and wore my fraternity letters to my classes (by Fall 2000 I was already an initiated member of my fraternity), I found that some of the older professors stereotyped me and my work. I would turn in A level work (I’m an adjunct professor now – trust me, my work was that good) and some professors just wouldn’t give me a grade higher than a C. Hey, some people are just miserable bastards and many of those miserable bastards were my humanities professors. More on that in a future entry on the blog, I’m sure.

Speaking of the fraternity, in Fall 2000 I was the chapter’s Community Service Chairman and Social Chairman. Those were two big jobs since we performed 2 – 3 community service events each weekend (that’s not even an exaggeration – we won awards for all of the service that we performed). Plus, we’d hold at least one mixer (i.e. a closed party with a sorority) each week and one open party (i.e. a party for non-Greek students) each week. It was intense and a lot of fun.

But the memories aren’t all rosy and happy.

In fact, towards the end of Fall 2000 I distinctly remember a not so pleasant thought that I had while sitting at my on-campus job in the library (I was the IT assistant for the library and getting paid a few bucks through the Federal Work-Study program). Even though I liked “Roommate” and I enjoyed interacting with my fraternity brothers, I distinctly remember thinking that I really should transfer out of Monmouth over the winter break. I’m not sure if I can put a single reason on why I thought that I should transfer, but I remember getting the Rutgers University application, filling it out, getting the required supporting documentation from the Registrar’s Office, and putting the application package together. The only thing that I didn’t do with the application package is actually send it out.

If I had to name a few reasons why I thought it would be a good idea to transfer, I’d suggest that it had to do with the Monmouth social scene, the postgraduate prospects for professional-level networking as a member of my fraternity, the growing bias I was seeing in my academic scores, and the overall cost of attending college. I’ll tackle these quickly and in order:

Monmouth Social Scene. You don’t have to go to Monmouth for more than a few weeks to quickly find out that the social scene gets real ugly, real quick. It’s not that your fellow students aren’t fun to hang out with (they are) and it’s not that the university doesn’t try to host a variety of different events to keep students engaged (to their great credit, they do). The biggest “social” problem at Monmouth is the ultra-zealotry with which the local police officers choose to enforce their personal interpretations of the law. I can tell you stories about police officers entering the home that I rented off-campus at 2:30am when it was just me and one of my roommates awake watching television or playing a video game. No alcohol, never any drugs, no party going on, no noise, and no neighbors – the local police just thought that they had a right to enter our rental home at will. And if you think that’s bad, then imagine what those same overzealous officers acted like when there WAS a party going on… not fun.

For the money I was paying and the way I was being treated with a bias in my classes for wearing fraternity letters, I didn’t think that I should keep myself on a campus where, at the time, you couldn’t really have a lot of fun without being abused (sometimes physically) by the local police.

Postgraduate Fraternity Prospects for Professional-Level Networking. I didn’t just join a fraternity to hang out with the same group of guys, go to parties, and wear the same t-shirt as my fraternity brothers. One of the major reasons why I joined a fraternity is because of the professional-level networking that you should be able to receive as an older undergraduate member and as an alumnus of the organization. Back in Fall 2000, my fraternity didn’t have a lot of that going on – if any. In fact, we didn’t interact much with our larger alumni base other than hearing about one or two of the “older guys” who happened to have jobs in the area. Not really my idea of impressive professional-level networking. As an aside (and, again, a longer discussion for a different entry), since I graduated in Spring 2003 I’ve worked my butt off to make sure that there is a more fluid understanding of our chapter alumni and that our undergraduates and graduating seniors have a greater possibility of getting a job or at least an internship from one of our own.

Anyway, back in Fall 2000 I wasn’t very impressed with the larger organizational structure of the fraternity. More on that to come…

Bias in Academic Courses. I’ve already written about this above, but probably the biggest concern that I had back during the first semester of my sophomore year was the blatant bias that some of my older, stodgy professors (I was an English major – had a bunch of old codgers teaching me) had towards me and my work. After paying all of that money to attend college and having worked my ass off in high school (I graduated with above a 4.0 GPA) and during my freshman year of college, I didn’t want some stupid, asshole professors telling me that I was only an “average” writer because I wore Greek letters on my chest. Screw that. People like that have no place in academia and should be thrown out of colleges and universities around the nation. I guaranty that the money I’ve made off of my writing on this blog FAR surpasses the money that those old buzzards EVER made writing for the masses (i.e. not writing bullshit academic texts). Those miserable sons of bitches are what I keep in mind when I teach my classes – I go out of my way to NOT act like any of them.

Back in Fall 2000, this bias was just about enough to get me to leave Monmouth.

Cost of Attending College. Believe it or not, the total cost of college wasn’t really a big concern for me back in Fall 2000. Every once in a while my Mom would say something about my student loans and how expensive this whole thing was going to be. In truth, though, I don’t think anyone in my family (myself included) realized back then that I was going to be facing a $121 thousand dollar mountain of student loan debt when all was said and done. No one could have imagined that my postgraduate life would be put on hold in so many different ways for nearly seven years while I repaid my student loans. How can you predict something like that happening when you have no experience working with these types of loans?

Still, though, back in Fall 2000 I knew that I was attending an expensive school when compared to Rutgers University, which was just up the road.

I can’t really put my finger on the catalyst that made me stay at Monmouth. From the fraternity standpoint, there were two distinct events that helped change my mind. The first one happened in October or November 2000 when my car broke down right in the middle of Route 36 late on a Sunday night (could have been 10:30pm or so). I knew that most of the chapter was at the weekly chapter meeting at the time, but after my car was pushed off the highway by a local police officer I still called the landline in one of the houses where a bunch of the older guys lived. The guy who answered the phone had to be in his mid-20’s (just like now, back then a lot of the guys who graduated wound up sticking around in the area and living with each other to save money). I don’t think I ever shared more than 10 or 11 words with the guy. Without thinking twice, he jumped in his car, drove to the local Pathmark, picked me up, and took me back to the dorms. It was incredible. That openness and willingness to help someone out when they really needed some help changed some of my postgraduate thoughts about the fraternity.

The second event that helped change my mind was a month or so later during December 2000 when the then-President of the chapter was driving me to one of our events and spoke directly about me becoming the next President of the chapter. He said that he would tell everyone that he was running for re-election, but that he would resign from the election before the vote took place because he wanted someone like me to be the President of the chapter. That meant a lot to me for two reasons. First, it was nice to see that someone at Monmouth could recognize the innate leadership potential that I have in group settings (not being arrogant, just being accurate). Second, it helped to further change my mind on some of my postgraduate thoughts about the fraternity.

Once I was elected the President of the fraternity (the then-President did, indeed, drop out of the race before the vote and I won by forfeit and accepted the position with a voice vote of acclimation) I still thought that I might leave Monmouth. I told myself that I would give it one semester as President and see what happened. If I didn’t like leading the chapter, then I would transfer out of Monmouth and spend the second half of my college career having some fun at a college that didn’t cost an arm and a leg and wasn’t biased against me. If I enjoyed being the President, though, I’d have to seriously consider staying at Monmouth and finishing my academic career there.

Well, the rest is history. After a few months of being President and getting my hands dirty in reshaping some aspects of the fraternity, I never thought about transferring out of Monmouth again. Then, one of my good friends from high school joined the fraternity and I had someone to hang out with and lead the chapter with me. But it’s interesting to think back about what type of life-changing decisions I was considering – and what life-changing decision I ultimately made – way back in Fall 2000!

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 $104 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 $17 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.