Natalie Hickey left her small hometown in Ohio six years ago and aimed her beat-up Dodge Intrepid for the West Coast. Four years later,she realized a long-held dream and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in photography from Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara.
She also picked up $140,000 in student debt,some of it at interest rates as high as 18%. Her monthly payments are roughly $1,700,more than her rent and car payment combined.
“I don’t have all this debt because I was buying stuff,”said Hickey,who now lives in Texas. “I was just trying to pay tuition,living on ramen noodles and doing everything as cheaply as I could.”
Hickey got caught in an increasingly common trap in the nation’s $85-billion student loan market. She borrowed heavily,presuming that all her debt was part of the federal student loan program.