Student Loans

Nursing school was expensive. This 11 month program here at Drexel cost more than 5 times more than the similar 16 month program at the University of Utah was going to cost me. That shocked me at the time (and still does), but we felt that this school really was the best decision for us and for me since it would get me out into the workforce so much faster than many other places (and with a second bachelor's degree) so I went ahead and did it anyway.

I'll be honest-- it sucked. It was probably the most insane thing I have done it my life. Those were 11 months of being so busy that I just didn't know if I could do it for one more day. 11 months of intense stress. 11 months of grouchiness and marital strain. And at the end of those 11 months, I stepped out into a recession saddled with a hefty student loan debt. I learned the hard way that nursing, especially for new nurses, is actually not "recession proof" at all. And I landed a job in a nursing home, which is nice, but I don't use a lot of the skills that I should be keeping sharp.

Regrets? Nope. It all turned out okay. Those 11 months sucked and they were incredibly expensive, but now I am 24 years old, I have 2 bachelors degrees, and I have a job, which is more than many people can say in this economy. It's maybe not the ideal job for keeping my skills sharp, but it's a good place to start my nursing career, and I still have lots of opportunities waiting for me in the future. And some great things about it all: I get paid more than most of the nurses who started out in hospitals here, and my work offered me a signing bonus, 3 months of paid training, and they reimburse my student loan payments.

It has been complicated working out the loan reimbursement thing, and I keep learning things the hard way, but hopefully when I come out the other end on this job, we will have made a very large dent in those debts. Combine the reimbursement from my work with frugal living on our part and paying a lot more than the minimum payment each month, and this loan may just disappear before we know it. In the mean time, it still stinks to be in debt. But we know we are blessed.