Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

U. South Carolina students toil under loan woes
By Brad Maxwell
The Daily Gamecock (U. South Carolina)
12/04/2007

(U-WIRE) COLUMBIA, S.C. — Forty-four percent of 2006 USC graduates used student loans to finance their education. Of that 44 percent, each graduate racked up more than $19,000 in loan debt.

Drew Brooks, a 2007 print journalism graduate, said that for students not on a full-ride, student loans are the best way to pay for education.

"To be active in the university community, you can't expect to work 40 hours a week and go to class.

The only way to get an education seems to be through student loans," Brooks said.

Brooks, who now works for a daily newspaper outside Charlotte, began paying off his loans soon after he graduated because he chose to consolidate - taking a single loan out to pay off his student loans, then paying that loan off. Some people choose to do this because it can secure a lower interest rate.

"You lose the grace period, but it saves money," Brooks said. "I went from having to pay around $600 a month to $140... basically an expensive cell phone bill."

He said he will probably return to USC for graduate school in the fall, but if he weren't, it would take him 20 years to pay off his debt. Going back to school will allow him to put his payments on hold.

Brandon Sousa, a 2007 political science graduate, chose not to consolidate his payments and will begin paying on Jan. 1. Currently in San Francisco working with AmeriCorps, Sousa's is deferring payment on his loans until he is finished there.

"All of my loans together will probably take three or four years to pay off...it's not much money, but there's a long period after college where I'm not going to have a large steady income," Sousa said.

Using university scholarships, Sousa said two Stafford Loans helped him pay the difference, roughly $2,200 each semester.

"Each semester I needed a few thousand dollars. Every year since I started, school tuition went up. When I started, tuition was a lot lower than it was," Sousa said.

He also said one semester he received a quick private loan from a bank.

"The interest rates are much higher for small loans. I'm going to pay that one off first," Sousa said.

Brooks said one of the best ways to make payments both manageable and affordable is to consider all options when choosing a lender.

"I can definitely see where if I were to do it all over again I would read the Web sites more closely or talk to someone who has done it before," Brooks said.

He said he was the first in his family to graduate from college, so loans were unfamiliar territory.

"I didn't put much thought into it," Brooks said.

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