I read an article in this month's Money Sense offering some sound advice to potential students with regard to student debt versus income.
"You should be in a position to earn at least $10,000 a year more than your total student debt after you graduate. Here's an example. If you graduate with student loans of $30,000 you should be able to earn at least $30,000 a year plus $10,000, for a total of $40,000 annually, if you want to pay off your student loan in 10 years......It is important to borrow as little as possible to fund your education....people who aren't prepared to pay off their student debt within 10 years are headed for financial trouble."
I finished my flight training a while ago. My loans totaled $40,000. I got about $8,000 in grants bringing my debt to $32,000. Using the advice above I would have needed to earn $42,000 my first year in. Reverse those first two numbers and that was my salary, $24,000. I felt fortunate. I understand that today flight training will cost about $60,000 from start to finish. This would mean a first year salary of $70,000. The rest of the article was fairly conservative so given that context it is safe to say that this rule of thumb is too.
I thought I'd pass it on.
Advice from "Money Sense" magazine
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Re: Advice from "Money Sense" magazine
Stop depressing me!
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Re: Advice from "Money Sense" magazine
It should be pointed out that the article you mentioned refers to incurring debt for your education. This doesn't mean that you must incur debt to get an education. Even for flight training. The article is advising to take on as little debt as possible to get your education, so be creative, like you did. Do some work while training, get some grants if you are able to, plan ahead and have some savings dedicated to training.
I'm certainly not saying the pay for new and new-hire pilots is where it should be, not at all. Just simply that there are ways to reduce and minimize a student, any student's, education loans.
I'm certainly not saying the pay for new and new-hire pilots is where it should be, not at all. Just simply that there are ways to reduce and minimize a student, any student's, education loans.