The $555,000 Student-Loan Burden

[Knight Rider]

When Michelle Bisutti, a 41-year-old family practitioner in Columbus, Ohio, finished medical school in 2003, her student-loan debt amounted to roughly $250,000. Since then, it has ballooned to $555,000.

It is the result of her deferring loan payments while she completed her residency, default charges and relentlessly compounding interest rates. Among the charges: a single $53,870 fee for when her loan was turned over to a collection agency.

"Maybe half of it was my fault because I didn't look at the fine print," Dr. Bisutti says. "But this is just outrageous now."

 

[billdong]

US the land of the free and the zillion dollars dept that it carries.

 

[jagger]

She is not the only one. See the alumnus of other years in as bad situation

 

[Beenthere123]

Yet many former students are trying. There is an estimated $730 billion in outstanding federal and private student-loan debt, says Mark Kantrowitz of FinAid.org, a Web site that tracks financial-aid issues -- and only 40% of that debt is actively being repaid. The rest is in default, or in deferment, which means that payments and interest are halted, or in "forbearance," which means payments are halted while interest accrues.

That is scaryBT123

 

[neverenoughsex]

Price of education is worth it but who teaches them how to manage their money. Sad cases

 

[Smooth]

but who teaches them how to manage their money.

Good point Universities should take the blame.