Student Loans: The Good, The Bad, & The Repayment

This post is brought to you in partnership with U.S. News & World Report. When they reached out to share their student loans resources, I knew I had to share.

There's so sugar coating the fact that debt sucks. What sucks even more is that carrying a lot of debt has a good chance of impacting our life decisions, like when we get married and start a family. You get the picture.

A common type of debt people carry around for years and years is student loan debt. I'm no exception. I have a LOT of student loan debt. I'll be the first to say that it sucks. But I'll also be the first to say stop complaining about it. Seriously, I wrote a blog post all about it. 

According to The Institute of College Access & Success, "The average college graduate has more than $30,000 in debt and it can take decades to repay." While we may feel like we're in this struggle alone, we're not.

So we have all this debt, but now what? How do we dig ourselves out of a mountain of debt so we can experience financial freedom and enjoy our lives? 

Obviously, the simple answer is to pay off all of the debt. But that's easier said than done. It's enormously overwhelming to even think about how to chip away at tens of thousands of dollars of debt. It can seem like a mystery with all of the information floating around online and with everything we hear in the news. 

To quiet the noise and actually provide useful information to help those with student loans that didn't quite know where to start, U.S. News & World Report put together the ultimate student loan guide. Their guide provides in-depth explanations of federal loan consolidation and private loan refinancing, including the pros and cons each.

Consolidation and refinancing are great options to consider when paying back student loans. I highly recommend checking out their guide if you've ever considered either option as a way to help you get a handle on your finances

At the end of the guide, U.S. News & World Report offers helpful advice for paying back student loans, in addition to refinancing and consolidation, so make sure you read all the way to the end.

Check out the full guide here.

While watching my money fly out the window every month to pay off my loans is obviously less satisfying than vacationing in Europe, I have to say it's worth it to have a college degree (two in my case!).

So while moaning and groaning may make us feel better temporarily, what's really going to help is to arm ourselves with the knowledge to get our debt under control and paid off. Europe will always be there, but your debt doesn't have to be.