For many, the reality of student debt doesn’t hit home until you make your first payment. Though you may have read your paperwork and done the math on how much monthly debt repayment will cost, in practice, paying the piper can come as a shock. The impact is, unsurprisingly, more acute for new grads at the bottom of the pay scale.

Standard loan repayment lasts about 10 years, but the burden of these monthly dues eases considerably the longer you’re out of school, since wages tend to rise with professional progress. While starting salaries vary by major, total student-loan debt doesn’t vary that much at all, leaving creative-writing majors with about as much debt as someone who majored in something more lucrative, such as finance. In 2012, average student-loan debt amounted to about $26,500, according to the Department of Education’s National Postsecondary Student Aid Study.

Earnings rise fairly rapidly within the first five years after college, increasing by about 65 percent across all majors, according to a new study by the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institute. That’s good news, but for those who start on the lower-end of the pay scale, the relief that comes from increased pay isn’t fast enough.