Let’s pretend four college graduates land engineering jobs and starting salaries of $60K a year, but each leave college with varying amounts of student loan debt. In this episode we do the math and analyze quality of life for each of these students right after graduation and decades later, and the results are staggering.

In this episode:

• Introducing our students and their choices regarding college and how to pay for it [2:00]

• Imagine the same four people end up in same place after school, with an engineering degree at $60,000 salary with different amounts of debt [4:30]

• Student loan payments and how that affects quality of life and opportunity [9:00]

• $1000 month for 20 years is like paying rent. How can you save money? [13:00]

• $1700 a month for 20 years means you’re more likely to have credit card debt to have a good quality of life [15:00]

• Lifestyle difference is drastic after school for these four graduates [17:30]

• What matters is how you apply yourself, not what school you attended [19:00]

• Opportunities for wealth creation and entrepreneurship dwindle as you get deeper into debt [22:00]

• The system is unfair in that they will loan you more than you can afford [23:30]

• If you have debt, your interest rates will be higher, which means a car or house will cost you more [25:00]

• What saving after college looks like at varying degrees of debt [26:30]

• How compounding interest works for or against you over time [28:00]

• Living at home with parents is a huge value proposition that often goes unrecognized. [35:00]

• 20 years later and where are these grads? [38:00]

• You would likely spend hundreds of hours researching buying a home or car, why not do that with college? [41:00]

• Having a job while in college reinforces the value of an education [44:00]

• The emotional burden of debt [50:00]

• Choosing low debt today leads to a happier tomorrow [54:00]

• You owe it to yourself to figure out the hacks and keep your student loan debt to a minimum [57:00]

  Resources:

Average engineering salary, Denver CO, 2019. Glassdoor