I just had a follower of the blog email me the other day and they have over $300K in pharmacy student loans. That’s a heavy burden and can feel incredibly overwhelming. I feel bad for those folks with an incredible amount of student loans.
I was there and there is hope. I racked up 145K in pharmacy student loans and with the help of my wonderful wife, we can now say that we have paid them all off! You can read more about our journey and some words of wisdom here. Yes, it took some sacrifice, but like many worthwhile things in life, it was totally worth it. It is a really great feeling to not have the black cloud of student loans hanging over our head.
My opinion of student loans and how to handle them was altered initially by listening to a radio show call the Dave Ramsey show. He has a pretty extreme way to think about debt, but has a lot of worthwhile ideas on financial freedom and how to manage finances. I was motivated to create a plan and maximize our savings to ensure that we could send much more than the minimum payment each month.
Recently, “Tim and Tim” have come out with the Your Financial Pharmacist Podcast. This is an excellent free resource that I would strongly encourage pharmacy students to take advantage of. Really, any student with loans can benefit, but they specifically focus on pharmacy student loans and debt management. It is truly amazing how simple things like refinancing your loans can save you THOUSANDS of dollars. While I’m out of student loan debt at this point, we recently just met with a few different insurance brokers on car and home insurance. Simply by asking the question of how much would you charge for similar coverage, we are going to save nearly $1,000 dollars per year by going with a different company! If we would have done that 5 years ago, we would have an additional 5 GRAND!
I want to fully disclose that I make a commission for any sales of their student loan course, but I do believe Tim and Tim are experts in their field and have no reservations recommending them. If you are a newer graduate or pharmacy student, I understand that finances are tough, but simple things that you may be overlooking can literally cost you thousands of dollars. By going through this affiliate link, Pharmacy Student Loan Course, you can learn more and check out if the course is a correct fit for you.
Eric Christianson, PharmD, BCPS, BCGP
What disturbs me more that anything when it comes to pharmacy schools, their core education is the same as it was when I graduated 20+ years ago, the % of students passing the nation exam is pathetic and yet they charge over $100,000/year.