How much debt after college? (PCO for me)

[Dominic]

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I'm having a difficult time grasping debt/payoff ability after reading much on this board. I am going to pose the scenario I predict for myself, and then see if you guys can help me make it look a little sunnier 🙂.

Here's my deal... I am going to be attending the PCO and I currently have very little debt as well as very little income and no real savings having just come out of undergrad. Essentially, consider me to be at ground zero... no real net worth overall since undergrad was paid for by the FL lotto players 🙂

PCO is going to cost me $25,000/yr approx for 4 years
Cost of living is probably $15,000/yr including rent/food/travel and I have no car payment either.
Looking at just those figures over 4 years, I'm predicting $160,000 in debt in 2009. Is this an unreasonable number? How can I, during college, reduce this debt? Will I make any money during externships or do most people do a little side work during OD School?

Thanks for your help in advance. 😀

 

[jefguth]

Don't forget that you'll have interest accruing over those 4 years... that alone might bump you up to ~180K 🙁

Sorry i don't have any advice to offer, I'm pretty scared looking at the numbers myself!

 

[Dominic]

Well interest will only accrue on some loans... but yeah it might bump it up a little on top of that. At 2.5% 160,000 over 30yrs = $632.19/mo
http://www.finaid.com/calculators/loanpayments.phtml

and of course I'd pay more than that, but it's not too bad I guess.

Is this normal and realistic?

 

[Dominic]

Could anyone shed any light on this for me?

 

[SomeGuy]

Well, unless OD school is year round, you should assume some income from summer jobs, even if they aren't that great.

Secondly, how did you budget for $15000/yr in living expenses? How much per month is on rent? Food? Clothes? Travel (hopefully you mean to and from home, not vacationing)? Are you planning on living like a student as cheaply as possible or living a "high life" ?

 

[kgrabar]

Well, unless OD school is year round, you should assume some income from summer jobs, even if they aren't that great.

Secondly, how did you budget for $15000/yr in living expenses? How much per month is on rent? Food? Clothes? Travel (hopefully you mean to and from home, not vacationing)? Are you planning on living like a student as cheaply as possible or living a "high life" ?

ICO estimated a living expense budget per month around $1,400 which is about 17K a year. This includes $600-700 rent, health coverage, clothes, food, transportation, misc. If you have cheaper rent than the Chicago average and live frugally, you can get that down to 15K a year. I have reviewed all my expenses on my itemized ATM/Debit card statement over the past 6-7 months, I am certain I can live off 15-17K a year during school without feeling deprived. No travel and big shopping sprees allowed, but the ocassional new pair of shoes won't break the bank.

 

[Tom_Stickel]

Dominic,

I went to IU, so I don't know how things are at PCO, but here's what I did. I had several part time jobs associated with the school.

First, I worked 5-8 hours per week 'supervising' the computer lab at the school, which usually meant walking over to people in distress and saying: "did you save that first? No? Sorry, then, you're hosed". I also played a lot of Yahoo online games...

We also had a note transcription service where people would write down lecture notes verbatim and then copies would be distributed to everybody, meaning that theoretically you wouldn't ever really need to go to class. Anyway, I got paid around $20 per class of notes, which I would diligently transcribe while 'supervising' the cluster. So I would get paid to do other work.

Also, during second and third year, I was a TA for labs. So I had all the part time work I could handle without resorting to getting a job as a waiter or a clerk in a video store.

I didn't make an incredible amount of money this way, but I did probably put away around $8-$10K during school. Every dollar you earn then will be $1.50 you don't have to pay back later. And I still had plenty of time for intramural sports, parties, visiting my out of state girlfriend at least every other weekend, etc.

Just my two cents,

Tom Stickel
Indiana U. 2001

 

[Dominic]

Thats really good to hear Tom - thanks. I was hoping that I might have time for little jobs like that 🙂.

Rent will run me $630 + util/food etc. I'll get by on $15-17k a year pretty easily since I have no car payment and wont drive much.