No point mincing words here: Student loan debt is crushing the mental health professions. Perhaps it’s crushing you, too. According to a 2014 American Psychological Association study, the average recent graduate of an accredited PsyD program finishes their studies with $200,000 in student loan debt. Social workers similarly decry their debt loads, with at least one going so far as to declare the entire social work profession “untenable.”
In this episode of the podcast, we talk about student loan debt, and how it’s impacting those coming into the mental health professions. We review how $200,000 in debt can easily wind up being more than $700,000 by the time it’s finally paid off.
Over the next two episodes, we’ll tackle the issue further. In our next episode, we’ll talk with two graduate students who, combined, owe more than half a million dollars on their student loans. And in episode 5, we’ll take a look at what’s happening with the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which just this week saw renewed questions about it’s fate as President Trump’s proposed budget floated the idea of killing off the program for any loans taken after July 1, 2019.
You can download our entire first season now on iTunes, and read about previous episodes here and here.