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4A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2008
GENERATION DEBT
as these private lenders are willing to lend them.
SCOTT SHEPHERD
Scott Shepherd, Independence senior, will be about $50,000 in debt when he graduates in May after borrowing $46,000 to finance his four years in the School of Engineering.
The interest on his unsubsidized loans, which average out to about 9 percent, have accrued about $3,300 more to his debt since he started borrowing.
Shepherd said he expected to make $50,000 to $70,000 per year as a mechanical engineer, but he planned to live on only $17,000 per year until he paid his debt.
"I think the best thing to do is live that same lifestyle I lived in college and work to pay down these loans as fast as I can," Shepherd said. "The longer I wait to pay it all off, the more that interest is going to add up."
Shepherd borrowed $7,000 in government loans to pay his freshman tuition while working part-time at a car-audio shop to pay his living expenses.
He quit his job midway through his sophomore year when his grades started slipping and took out a $10,600 loan from the SLM Corporation, more commonly know as Sallie Mae, the number-one private student lender in the United States. The interest on the
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private loan was unsubsidized at 10.5 percent, while his government loan was subsidized at 6.8 percent.
Although he could have borrowed up to $23,000 - now $31,000 - from the government, Shepherd borrowed the rest of the money he needed for college from Sallie Mae because the private lender offered an easier and faster process for getting his loans.
"There was just way too much paperwork involved in getting a loan from the government," he said. "A Sallie Mae loan was literally just a few clicks away."
Shepherd continued borrowing from Sallie Mae over the next three-and-a-half-years to finance his tuition, rent, food and other bills, until he had borrowed $39,000 in private loans.
He now owes the government $7,000 and Sallie Mae about $42,300, which will continue to increase at least $360 more every month until he pays down a chunk of his debt.
He said looking at his Sallie Mae online account made him feel paranoid.
"It's just a big number to look at and I feel like I don't have much control over it," he said.
AMANDA JANSSEN
Amanda Janssen, Wichita junior, figures she will be about $27,000 in debt by the time she graduates in 2010 after borrowing $19,000 in
$46,138
Scott Shepherd Graduates in May
Borrowed:
$46.138
Added interest: $3,304
Total debt upon graduation:
$49,442
Added interest over 10 years:
$22,386
Total to repay over 10 years: 68527
Future career: Mechanical Engineer
Projected salary: $50,000 to
$25000
Monthly income: $4166 to $5833
Monthly payment: $571 over 10 years
Payments eat up 10 to 14 percent of monthly income
federally insured loans and $8,000 from her dad to finance her journalism degree.
No interest will have accrued on her loans until after she graduates because she plans on taking out only federally insured loans that are subsidized while she's in school.
The interest on her government loans won't come into play until after she graduates in 2010, when new legislation passed in 2007 will drop her 6.8 percent interest rate to 4.5 percent. The interest will start adding about $100 to her debt every month.
"I have no idea how long it will take me to pay it all back," Janssen said. "It's a very scary thought." Janssen said she planned on working in public relations. According to PayScale.com, the starting median salary for a public relations executive was about $34,000. She could pay off all her debt in 10 years making $204 monthly payments, which would be about 7 percent of her projected monthly income.
Average student debt upon graduation
Amanda Janssen Junior
Janssen's dad paid her tuition for both her freshman year and the first-semester of her junior year. She's financed the rest of her tuition using $8,000 she borrowed in federal loans, $2,500 she received in grants and $8,000 she borrowed from her dad to finance a study abroad trip to Italy this semester.
2006
Borrowed:
$16,000
Instead of using loans to pay her living expenses, Janssen worked full-time at Britches Clothing, where she made $9.25 per hour. "Having a job while I'm in school is the only way I can afford my living expenses," she said.
Plans to borrow:
$11,000
Added interest upon
Total debt upon graduation:
$27,000
Added interest over 10 years:
$5,518
$5,518
Total to be repaid over 10 years: $32,518
Future career: Public Relations Practitioner
Projected starting salary: $34,000
Monthly income: $2,833
Monthly payments: $204 over 10 years
Payments eat up 7 percent of monthly income
$27,000
She hopes for more grants over the next two years so she can borrow less.
Janssen plans on working full-time this summer at a restaurant in Wichita where she'll live at home and save money so she won't have to borrow more than $11,000 to pay her last two years' tuition.
"I'm trying to avoid borrowing as much as possible so I don't owe as much when I graduate," she said. "It's scary to think about but compared to most others, I guess it's not as bad as it could be."
ADAM WOOD
Adam Wood, Lawrence junior, said he had already borrowed about $21,000 in federally insured loans, and figured he would probably have to borrow about $20,000 more to finance his last two years at the University.
Wood borrowed $4,300 to
He said he would probably be more than $40,000 in debt when he graduated in 2010.
"I try not to worry about my financial situation as much as possible because no matter how much I worry, it's still going to be there," Wood said. "The only thing I can really do is work as much as possible while I'm in school."
finance one semester of his freshman year, but health problems forced him to take his second semester off after being in the hospital for about a month.
He worked full-time the rest of that semester and the following summer at Qdoba Mexican Grill, to save up money for his sophomore year.
Wood borrowed $6,600 to finance tuition his sophomore year and worked about 30 hours per week answering phones at Affinitas to afford his living expenses.
He borrowed another $8,500 his junior year after he quit working so he could volunteer his time to Kansas Students for Ron Paul, which he said ate up about 40 hours of his week.
He needed to use his loan money to finance living expenses this semester after he decided to organize a student coalition, Students of Liberty, and ran for student body president.
WORLD
He soon found himself broke and needed to take out another $1,500 loan to pay his rent and eating expenses.
"There were a lot of times I looked in the refrigerator and I had literally nothing to eat," he said.
The stress and lack of sleep from balancing work, work and Student
Death toll passes 22,000 after cyclone
LOCals make their way past a fallen tree following a devastating cyclone, Sunday in Yangon, Myanmar. Myanmar announced Tuesday it is delaying a crucial constitutional referendum in areas badly hit by the cyclone that killed more than 10,000 people and may have left as many as a million homeless. Officials feared the death toll could soar.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Myanmar calls for international assistance with clean up, relief
ASSOCIATED PRESS
YANGON, Myanmar — The cyclone death toll soared above 22,000 on Tuesday and more than 41,000 others were missing as foreign countries mobilized to rush in aid after the country's deadliest storm on record, state radio reported.
Up to 1 million people may be homeless after Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian nation, also known as Burma, early Saturday. Some villages have been almost totally eradicated and vast rice-growing areas are wiped out, the World Food Program said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Images from state television showed large trees and electricity poles sprawled across roads and rooftless houses ringed by large sheets of water in the Irrawaddy River delta region, which is regarded as Myanmar's rice bowl.
Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns wielding knives and axes joined Yangon residents Tuesday in clearing roads of ancient, fallen trees that were once the city's pride. And soldiers were out on the streets in large numbers for the first time since the cyclone hit, helping to clear trees as massive as 15 feet in diameter.
President Bush called on Myanmar's military junta to allow the U.S. to help. The White House said the U.S. will send more than
"We're prepared to move U.S. Navy assets to help find those who have lost their lives, to help find the missing, to help stabilize the situation. But in order to do so, the military junta must allow our disaster assessment teams into the country," he said.
$3 million to help cyclone victims, up from an initial emergency contribution of $250,000.
Bush spoke at a ceremony
where he signed legislation awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Myanmar's military regime has signaled it will welcome aid supplies for victims of a devastating cyclone, the U.N. said Tuesday, clearing the way for a major relief operation from international organizations.
But U.N. workers were still
awaiting their visas to enter the country, said Elisabeth Byrds of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
"The government has shown a certain openness so far," Byrs said. "We hope that we will get the visas as soon as possible, in the coming hours. I think the authorities have understood the seriousness of the situation and that they will act accordingly."
The appeal for outside assistance was unusual for Myanmar's ruling generals, who have long been suspicious of international organizations and closely controlled their activities. Several agencies, including the International Red Cross
Allowing any major influx of foreigners could carry risks for the military, injetting
and Doctors With o u t Borders, have limited their presence as a consequence.
"I think the authorities have understood the seriousness of the situation and that they will act accordingly."
ELISABETH BYRS U.N. Office of Humanitarian Affairs
unwanted outside influence and giving the aid givers rather than the junta credit for a recovery.
The decision drew swift criticism from dissidents and human
However, keeping out international aid would focus blame squarely on the military should it fail to restore people's livelihoods.
the Irrawaddy delta, which took the brunt of the weekend storm. It indicated that the balloting would proceed in other areas as scheduled.
Some aid agencies reported their assessment teams had reached some areas of the largely isolated region but said getting in supplies and large numbers of aid workers would be difficult.
The cyclone came a week ahead of a key referendum on a constitution that Myanmar's military leaders hoped would go smoothly in its favor, despite opposition from the country's feisty pro-democracy movement. However, the disaster could stir the already tense political situation.
State radio also said that Saturday's vote would be delayed until May 24 in 40 of 45 townships in the Yangon area and seven in
rights groups who question the credibility of the vote and urged the junta to focus on disaster victims.
Myanmar's generals have hailed the referendum as an important
step forward in their "roadmap to democracy." It offers the first chance for voters to cast ballots since 1990, and the probability is high they will approve the constitution — a legal framework the country has lacked for two decades.
But critics, including the United Nations, the United States and human rights groups, question whether it will lead to democracy.
Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. Its government has been widely criticized for suppression of pro-democracy parties such as the one led by Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has been under house arrest for almost 12 of the past 18 years.
At least 31 people were killed and thousands more were detained when the military cracked down on peaceful protests in September led by Buddhist monks and democracy advocates.