I was surfing around on Fat Wallet and came across this post in the forum:
“My gf has 80,000 in school loans (masters degree in Italian) and 12,000 in credit card debt. I just found this out today. We have been going out for around 8 months and all seemed great till now. My credit is pretty good, and I am wondering what the long term ramifications of this debt would be. Would this affect my rating if we are married? If we get divorced would the debt follow the individual? I know this sounds petty, but I am a bit blown away by this news and am really not prepared for it. I am almost done paying off my own student loan and was looking forward to putting debt behind me. ”
So, of course I have an opinion. Here’s the post that I left at FW:
“OUCH!!
I agree with some of the other posters. It doesn’t seem like a financially rational decision to rack up $80K in student loans to obtain a degree that most likely won’t get her a good paying job. If you marry her, you will be paying off her debt. Either through, you actually paying it with your income, or through the lost opportunities of what you could do with her income. That’s going to take a long time to pay off and will definitely impact your financial lifestyle.
The $12K in credit card debt is just as ugly. Most likely, she’s paying nearly as much interest on that balance as she is on her low interest student loans. Why the CC debt? Does she put a lot of emphasis on material items? Latest clothes, latest purse, latest etc etc? Based on her financial position, she doesn’t appear to be very financially mature.
My guess is that you know all this, which is why you posted the question on FW. Man, I’d have to really love someone to take on that burden. And why the heck did she wait so long to tell you about it?”
And here’s another post from the forum that I pretty much agree with:
“Unless you are lucky enough to have parents who help you out with school costs, going to a school that charges $80k for a masters in Italian is just irresponsible in my opinion. It shows that she didn’t care about the future or didn’t have the intellect to think things out. There are plenty of other ways and cheaper schools that would have allowed her to explore her interests without assuming that much debt. It sounds to me like she was counting on marrying some rich dude and just went to school to pass the time. Bad move.
Unless there is some other reason for this debt, she should have been working on paying it off already or at least not rack up $12k more in CC. My parents didn’t pay a dime for my tuition (BS and MS) thanks to grants, aid (thank you taxpayers), and scholarships, so I got through technical degrees at a prestigious public school with 0 debt, and am now nearing $100k savings. I chose not to go to expensive private schools or enter a field that would leave me struggling for cash. Now, if I ever feel like getting a masters in Italian for pleasure, I can afford to do so, but you can bet I’ll bargain hunt for a reasonably priced school.
It’s hard for anyone here to judge her without knowing her, so take everything with a grain of salt, but she’d have to be Jessica Simpson hot for someone to want to put up with that kind of decision making. (sad but true)
But if this degree somehow gets her a niche high-paying position at an Italian museum or something, then we will all be eating our words.”
What do you think? What would you do if you were this guy?