| When I was going to college, student loans were very | | | | was so abstract as to feel more surreal than real. |
| attractive to me. I went to a small liberal arts college | | | | After all, the person that would have to deal with |
| which was very exclusive, and expensive, and the | | | | those debts was my future self - and not my future |
| tuition and additional expenses like room, board, and | | | | self from a week in the future, but from three and a |
| books were way out of my league, or my family's | | | | half years into the future! It just didn't seem real. |
| league, even though I had an academic scholarship that | | | | So I signed and signed and signed, never truly feeling |
| paid for half of my tuition. | | | | what the reality of having incurred eighty thousand |
| Aside from my tuition scholarship through the school, I | | | | dollars in student loan debt and trying to pay that off |
| also applied for and received several smaller grants | | | | on a teacher's salary would be. I am still paying it off |
| and scholarships that helped to defray the substantial | | | | and most likely will be for many years to come. |
| cost of my schooling. However, because of the size | | | | Now, am I saying that my decision was wrong? No, of |
| of the price tag, there was still a lot to be paid for and I | | | | course not, it opened doors for me that would have |
| had no way to pay it. | | | | otherwise remained closed. I just wish that I would |
| This is where student loans came in. I realized every | | | | have made a more informed decision regarding my |
| semester as I signed the new paperwork that I was | | | | financial future after college, so that I could have been |
| getting in deeper and deeper, and that I would | | | | more prepared. |
| eventually have to dig myself out, but that realization | | | | |