"I am in law school. By the time I graduate, I will have approximately $140k of undergraduate and law school loans at about 5% interest.

"While my soul hurts from such ridiculously high loans, I am still comfortable enough with my debts that I always max out my Roth IRA and I carry an investment portfolio worth about 10k instead of paying down my loans.

"I am assuming that I will meet my minimum payments in the future and that the good ol stock market will return higher than 5% so that my investing will be more profitable than repaying my loans for the time being.



"My big decision was whether to go to graduate school in my (small) home town for free, or to attend law school in a big city at a total cost of over $40,000 (in loans) per year. Already $20,000 in undergrad debt, a full ride to grad school seemed like a much more reasonable choice. However, as a lawyer in a big city, I could be making $55,000 MORE per year than I would be making working back at home with a graduate degree.



"In the end, I decided to go with law school and take the initial $100,000 slap in the face in hopes of prospering in a few years. If law doesn’t work out, I will simply stand outside of various buildings in the financial district solving rubik’s cubes all day until someone hires me as a stock broker."

This comment by Hope appeared in a long thread on I Will Teach You To Be Rich.