25 years old and deep in debt

[MadImmortalMan]

There is too much to say about how much of a fail Kate is that I can't post it right now. Good night. 

[Caliga]

  Moving to Washington to intern?  Pretentious losers.

[CountDeMoney]

There is too much to say about how much of a fail Kate is that I can't post it right now. Good night. 

Then tell us in the morning.

[Ed Anger]

She obviously wasn't good enough to be offered a full job. I bet she thought her gams was good enough to get her a full time position. Lazy bitch.

[garbon]

The internships are paid too. That's great.
Lots of us weren't lucky enough to do internships.

The article points out her internship is unpaid.

This is actually what both my sisters were facing in New York and why they fled the city after graduation to build experience and cash reserves, elsewhere.

[Phillip V]

High Debt and Falling Demand Trap New Veterinarians

'The problem is a boom in supply (that is, vets) and a decline in demand (namely, veterinary services). Class sizes have been rising at nearly every school, in some cases by as much as 20 percent in recent years. And the cost of vet school has far outpaced the rate of inflation. It has risen to a median of $63,000 a year for out-of-state tuition, fees and living expenses, according to the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges, up 35 percent in the last decade.

This would seem less alarming if vets made more money. But starting salaries have sunk by about 13 percent during the same 10-year period, in inflation-adjusted terms, to $45,575 a year'

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/business/high-debt-and-falling-demand-trap-new-veterinarians.html

HAYLEY SCHAFER chose her dream job at the age of 5. Three years later, her grandmother told her that if she wrote it down, the dream would come true. So she found a piece of blue construction paper and scrawled on it with a pencil: "Veterianian." "No one told me how to spell it," she remembers. "They just said, 'Sound it out.' "

At the age of 30, she still has the sign, which is framed on her desk at the Caring Hearts Animal Clinic in Gilbert, Ariz., where she works as a vet. She also has $312,000 in student loans, courtesy of Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine, on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. Or rather, $312,000 was what she owed the last time she could bring herself to log into the Sallie Mae account that tracks the ever-growing balance.

"It makes me sick, watching it increase," she says. "There's also the stress of how am I going to save for retirement when I have this bear to pay off."

[Malthus]

The problem is that nearly every profession thought to be relatively high-paying goes through boom/bust cycles. Certainly lawyering does. We are in a bust cycle now. 

[Ed Anger]

The problem is that nearly every profession thought to be relatively high-paying goes through boom/bust cycles. Certainly lawyering does. We are in a bust cycle now.

Thank god.

[merithyn]

No, the problem is she went to St Kitts for Vet school. WTF? Vet schools are a dime a dozen and she goes there? Shame on her for not thinking ahead.

[Zanza]

Who lends people like her $300.000? Can you get that as a lump sum? Because I have a Nigerian acquaintance that would be interested in studying veterinarian medicine on St. Kitts as well.

[Caliga]

She was probably too stupid to get into a real vet school in the US.  IIRC Caribbean medical-type schools are traditionally for rich, yet dim students.  I guess if you go to one of them, but are not rich, you truly are a moron.

[merithyn]

Who lends people like her $300.000? Can you get that as a lump sum? Because I have a Nigerian acquaintance that would be interested in studying veterinarian medicine on St. Kitts as well.

The loan is government subsidized. Banks loan it because there's no way to default. Don't pay and you end up with your wages garnished and your license to practice revoked.

[Zanza]

From the article:

Today, her debt exceeds her salary by a factor of five — much higher than the recommended twice-starting-salary ratio. She signed up for income-based repayment, a government program available to federal student loan recipients. (A newer program with slightly more generous terms, called Pay As You Earn, or PAYE, is available to more recent graduates.) Both income-based repayment and PAYE allow graduates to lead relatively normal lives by paying back a modest percentage of their income based on a formula. After a fixed amount of time, from 10 to 25 years, the balance of the debt is discharged.

That's the good news. The bad news is that the interest on the debt keeps growing and taxes must be paid on the amount discharged, as if it is a gift. Dr. Schafer sends $400 a month to Sallie Mae, a sum that will rise. But what kind of tax bill awaits her? Asked to run the numbers, GL Advisor, a financial services company that specializes in student loans, calculated that Dr. Schafer's debt is likely to exceed $650,000 when her tax bill lands 25 years after the start of the loan, which means she will owe the Internal Revenue Service roughly $200,000. That will happen while she is still deep in her career, perhaps around the time she wants to send some children to college.

That's really a nice racket your government runs with the higher education institutions.

[Ed Anger]

She can always go to the pole.

[CountDeMoney]

Plenty of need for veterinarians in the medical research arena;  but taking care of the facilities where researchers decapitate a dozen rabbits every day to see how fast they blink afterwards isn't why most go to vet school.