

Ask HN: Loans as a Limit to Innovation - weems

The ~$40,000 in Student Loans that I currently owe is a limit to the amount I can innovate. Professionally in the form of language learning as well as in general. I was wondering if  anyone has any experience or ideas about investing in mutual funds or other trading items to shorten loan payback time. (Currently I am looking at 10 Years!) [Tuition.io](http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tuition.io) has been invaluable in this effort to answer the questions of how much I actually owe, how much is reasonable as a montly payment, etc.
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brudgers
The beauty of student loans (from a bank's perspective) is that they are hard
for the loanee to discharge and (these days) carry rates well above market
with very little risk.

Maybe you can get lucky and out invest financial institutions. But it will be
almost certainly be both lucky and unlikely.

The typical way debtors win is via inflation which allows old expensive
dollars to be paid down with inflated dollars. Since US monetary policy has
kept inflation low (actually just wage inflation) for decades, don't bet on
this happening either.

During adulthood ten years turns out not to be that long after all.

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jacquesm
The best way to get rid of that loan is to cut down your expenses while
holding down a well paying IT job. You should be able to get rid of it in a
year or less, investing in mutual funds is not going to make a huge difference
until you've amassed more than enough capital in order to pay back the loan,
so until then you're much better off simply paying off the loan (less risk
too!).

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weems
I have the job, its the resources. Right now at ~450/mo, I am still at 10
years payback time, according to [http://tuition.io/](http://tuition.io/).

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seekingcharlie
Surely you can afford more than $450/mo ??

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weems
If I paid everything I made every month it would be $1584 /mo. 40 months. 3
years 4mo.

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seekingcharlie
Why? Is that actually what you get paid each month or are there are issues
(family, medical etc)? If not, you can definitely get a better job than that,
especially in IT!

