Three Ways to Manage Student Debt While in Occupational Therapy School

By Andrew Waite and Nicole Lamoureux

If you are thinking, “I just got my loans, why do I need to worry about debt now?” you should definitely read on for some advice from occupational therapy practitioners and financial aid experts about how to minimize the burden along the way.

Once school is done and you are ready to start paying off those loans, take advantage of AOTA’s newest member benefit! AOTA recently partnered with SoFi to offer members a rate discount when refinancing student loans and for several other financial products to help you meet your financial goals. AOTA Membership Benefits.

Start saving/working.

This may be advice no one wants to hear, but if it’s possible to work or save money while still in school, students will help themselves in the long run.

“One thing that helped me was I worked all throughout college. It seems obvious, but for me that income alone helped me pay off some of my student loans before I even graduated,” says Thomas Bright of ClearPoint Credit Counseling Solutions.

Don’t borrow more than you need.

When taking out loans, students have the option to borrow more than the cost of their tuition. This is offered as a way to help pay for living expenses at a time when income might be low or nonexistent. But be wary of borrowing too much, experts say.

“We tell our students, ‘don’t take excess,’” says Matthew Metz, director of Financial Aid at D’Youville College in Buffalo, New York. “Any excess will follow you for years.”

“Be mindful of the debt that you are taking out and what you are using it for,” says Edward R. Recker, director of Financial Aid at the University of Findlay in Ohio. “We have a saying in this office and within the financial aid industry as a whole that if you live like a professional when you are a student, you will live like a student when you are a professional. So what we preach is just because you were offered $20,000, you don’t have to take that full amount. Sit down with your financial aid counselor and look at what you actually need.”

Familiarize yourself with repayment options.

Although students don’t necessarily have to map out their repayment plans when still in school, the more they know and the sooner they know it, the better prepared they will be when loans actually begin to come due (which for federal loans is 6 months following graduation).

“Don’t be scared to confront the elephant in the room and really start thinking about and laying the groundwork for how you are going to have a balanced budget in your career,” says Bright.

“You can’t know too much about your options. There are so many repayment programs now that I think it’s good to be aware of those options to help guide you on your path forward.”

Likely, your school’s financial aid office will communicate with you during your academic career. Pay attention to what gets shared, advisors say. For example, the University of Findlay sends students guides to financial success multiple times during their academic career.

“It outlines what students have taken out at that point and, based on their degree path, what that extrapolates out to, and if they continue at this pace, what they will owe at the end of their degree path for various repayment options,” says Recker. “Then we take it further and say, ‘This is probably what you can expect to make.’ We give them a dummy budget and say, ‘Based on expenses, here’s what you can expect to be paid.’ It is meant to be a gauge, so students can tell if they are looking good, or if it might be smart to come into our office and have a conversation about their financial future.”

Students whose schools don’t offer this service should do their own research to map out their expected debt and salary.

AOTA members can read the full article from OT Practice magazine to get tips for managing debt when you graduate and when you start your first job.