Korean Job Discussion Forums

[canopykid]

Hey everyone,

Does anyone know if teaching in Korea is a good/fast way to pay off student loans? I plan on repaying with the income-based plan (taking out a certain percentage of each paycheck.

I will be a graduate in June and plan on living a modest life in Korea (clubs/bars on weekend/ cooking a good bit at home).

Any experience or advice would be appreciated.

[aishiii]

What a great idea!!!!!!!!

This could really catch on!

[Sadebugo1]

[runthegauntlet]

I shake my head in despair when I hear of people graduating with 70k in loans. That just sucks.

Pay it off quickly? Maybe if you worked in Korea and lived like a monk for 6 years straight you could pay off the principal.... The interest.... ?

[agentX]

Doesn't matter if you're here or stateside; you ain't paying off 70K in loans quickly. This is gonna take a long time.

Let's say you're new at this; Your first contract will be between 1.9 million won and 2.1 million. Factor in pension, medical, and cafeteria (optional) your take home pay will be 200,000 won less that. So for the sake of argument, lets assume a take-home pay of 1.9 million won a month. Your monthly bills (utilities, phone, internet) will round out to around 100K a month. So, you'll have 1.8 million or so to work with.

The key part here is the exchange rate. It fluctuates a LOT. Let's assume for the sake of argument an average exchange rate for 1 contract year of 1181.53 KRW to USD (because that's whats in my phone and I don't wanna check XE right now) . I'm assuming USD here, but you could change it up for maple leaf, euro, etc. So, 1.8 million won at this exchange rate is 1523.44 a month. NET, not GROSS. NET. 12 months of salary per month is $18281.28. Factor in the bonus check, pension refund, and other goodies, and you're looking at around $20,000. So if you channel every single penny you earn here minus stuff, you should be able to pay it off in 3 and a half years. But that ain't gonna happen.

Ask any long-timer about where the money goes. You'll be lucky to send off a thousand dollars a month. Parties, girls (or guys), beer, beer, more beer, bus or subway fees, travel, bullcrap, paperwork fees, and other stuff will eat into your salary. I didn't factor in wiring fees because they vary from bank to bank and are too small to really play a factor.

So sit tight, squirt! You're gonna be here (or China) a long, long, long time.

[canopykid]

That helps a lot. I didn't really know how much utilities and everything would cost. This gives me an idea of when i can pay off? <70 since I will hopefully get raises throughout the years.

Thanks again

[agentX]

Public school has a pay schedule with yearly raises. Private school/hagwon varies from place to place. Uni's I don't have much info on, therefore you'll have to do your homework and be prepared to change jobs as well.

[runthegauntlet]

[thegadfly]

Meh -- $74k debt took me 2 years 5 months to pay off in Korea (mine was mostly uninsured hospital stays) (yes, I counted). I worked an unholy number of overtime hours, and found a much better gig for my second/third year than I had in my first....

Unfortunately, the exchange was a LOT better back when I did that, though pay was lower, so that might have evened out.

My original plan was to pay down $1,500 a month (about 1.7 million won, right now). I budgetted myself 500,000 won a month for expenses (cheap, but not monastic...easily doable if you can eat Korean food, and are not a smoker/heavy drinker...and even if you are, you can still get by).

All my overtime in any month also went to paying down the debt, as well as any "found" money. Overtime at my first school was 20k an hour, and I worked a lot of overtime. Overtime at my second school was a lot better, and I worked a lot of overtime.

I still went out, saw movies, hit the bars, had girlfriends, and generally enjoyed life and my time here. I did not travel around Asia, though -- kept it local, but I was in Seoul and found enough to do there.

I don't think it could be done in a year...I did it in less than three, and I am sure other folks have/could have done it in much less than that.

How fast could a person pay that much debt down on a teacher's salary in the US?

[runthegauntlet]

[canopykid]

Thanks the Gadfly...

This really gives me even more motivation to pursue this job track.

Do most public schools give overtime if you want it, or does it depend on other factors?


OP: About $7000/yr for tuition and $6000/yr housing = $52K + Summer School + Books + $5000 in accrued interest.

No help from parents minus some scholarships = Sallie Mae is a fat cow

[air76]

While it CAN be done in under 3 years, I think that's a pretty exceptional case. For one thing you'd have to find a job that offered a lot of overtime, and not all first time teachers are going to fall into a job like that.

I think that you could do it in 4 years though fairly easily...fairly easily meaning no (or very limited) overseas travel, and living on a tight budget for the duration of your stay.

This year my girlfriend and I are planning on saving almost $25,000 each, but we've been at this for a while (5 years) and have a decent university job and we're going to be working a LOT of overtime this year (we'll teach around 25 hours a week, which is very high for uni when you have planning and grading and all that)...plus we'll teach at camps during the breaks at other universities (this is where you can really add up the savings as you receive your regular salary and then all of the camp money goes into savings)

That being said....we live on a very tight budget, around 1.3 million a month for the two of us. Anyone who says that you can "easily" live on 500,000 a month is lying. It CAN be done, but at a price...you can't live on 500,000 a month without a lot of sacrifice. Especially if you want to go to clubs or western restaurants, your money will get eaten up fast. Plus, I think that you can only live on that tight budget for a while before you start to go insane. We have very definite plans on what we want to do with our money and will leave Korea at the end of the next academic year, but to keep up that kind of discipline for several years on end will be tough, especially when you're paying off debt, which does have a "pay-off" at the end, but isn't the same kind of motivator as knowing you'll be spending all that savings on something exciting.

Good luck, though. The bottom line is that yes, if you play your cards right, work hard, do as much OT as you can, and live on a reasonable budget and don't travel you can make an ENORMOUS dent in that 70 grand in 3 years time.

If you really want to work your brains out and make good cash look into Chungdahm Learning...there are a lot of threads on here about them. It sounds like hell, but you can make a lot more money if that's your only goal.

[lifeinkorea]

See what a $70,000 education can get you these days kids? You can be an English teacher in Korea.

[canopykid]

lifeinkorea...

You may not believe me, but I have a few offers here in America which pay better and all, but I have decided to teach in Korea so I don't have to sit in a cubicle 70 hours a week doing mindless tasks. That career path is not for me. However, I do not recommend going to a more expensive college if you know you want to teach English in KOrea and you only need a 4year degree, but when I entered college I had no idea I would want to teach. Its tough, i know $70K is too much and I feel like crap, but I'm not going to let my debt control my life and what I want to do.

[VanIslander]

it takes about as long to pay off as it takes to accumulate: 4 years