If you are a woman between the ages of 20 and 30 with student loan debt, you may have a source of income that you haven’t thought of. Becoming an egg donor for those wishing to start families and unable to do so on their own can help both the aspiring family and you.

Higher education costs have skyrocketed. Students and graduates are facing loans that may take decades to pay off. If you can knock some of those payments out now, you will pay less in interest due to the shortened life of the loan and take some of the stress out of your life.

The Cost of College and the Student Debt Issue

The average college student in the U.S. carries a student debt load of more than $17,000, an amount that could purchase a brand-new car or make the down payment on a small home. Since the Great Recession, student debt has grown by 157%; it’s the fastest growing portion of total household debt in the country.

It can be a long road ahead for someone with debt, but there are options. The average tuition and fees for a four-year public state college were $10,230 for the 2018-2019 school year. That doesn’t include room and board or other expenses. For a four-year private institution, students (and parents) can expect to shell out quite a bit of money. For many, loans cover nearly a quarter of the costs when savings, scholarships, and financial aid are not enough, according to Sallie Mae’s 11th annual “How America Pays for College” report.

Potentially, students are facing loan debt that could take as many as 30 years to pay off completely. Parents are making a choice between funding their child’s college education and funding retirement. The issue becomes harder for older parents.

Students are hitting federal student loan limits earlier in their school careers. If there was ever a time to consider your repayment options, today is the day! With modern technology and decades of research backed methods of egg donation, women have more power than ever to take control over their finances.

According to the Brookings Institution, parents have borrowed almost $90 billion (yes, that’s billion with a “B”) to pay for college. That number does not include consolidated debt, home equity loans, credit cards, or other sources of credit. But there is hope!

Egg donation can help offset a large portion of debt.

A Brief Overview of the Egg Donation Process

First, let us offer some reassurance. Becoming an egg donor, even more than once, does not affect your future fertility or ability to have children of your own. Your body is a repository for thousands of potential eggs, and their quality doesn’t change during the period of donation eligibility. This is why clinics look for women between 20 and 30 for their donor registries.

Once you decide to become an egg donor, you undergo testing to determine if you are a good candidate. If the results match with that of the company you are working with, you are placed on a donor registry for matching with someone who requires donated eggs. You may be helping an older or infertile mother become pregnant or assisting a same-sex couple in beginning a family.

Once you are matched, you will be placed on two weeks of birth control medication, then two weeks of hormone injections two to three times a day. You can administer this yourself at home. You have appointments to have blood drawn to check hormone levels and an ultrasound to monitor the progress of your eggs.

When the eggs reach an optimum size, you undergo an outpatient surgical procedure to retrieve the eggs, after which you can go home for a day or so of rest. And that’s it!

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Egg donors average between $5,000 and $10,000 per round of egg donation, which can be repeated in six months if you desire, and up to 6 times.

How Egg Donation Can Help You with Student Debt

If the average student loan debt is $17,126, just think how much of a dent $5,000 or $10,000 could put in the principal.

• Most student loans have a grace period of six to nine months before you must start payments. Start payments early to reduce interest. Most loans have no minimum payment required and no penalty for early payoff.
• If you are still in school, consider using the money towards tuition, books, and fees rather than take out a loan.
• Since you can donate eggs more than once, this is a source of income, you can turn to throughout your college career depending on how well you match recipients in the registry.

There is a caveat. Egg donation requires a surgical procedure and the ability to make visits to the clinic throughout the treatment period. For those who work, it will be time intensive for the required blood draws, ultrasounds, and egg retrieval. A lot of clinics, including Bright Expectations, help to alleviate that stress by funding the visits to and from the clinic!

Your ability and desire to donate also depends on how well you tolerated the procedure and your comfort level with the donation process, both physically and mentally. You will have to listen to your body, as well as your doctor, to see if doing another round is right for you.

However, for those women who qualify, egg donation is an option for paying tuition and loan debt. Whether you are still in school or just graduated, you have a viable option to help offset costs. As a younger woman, you are in demand because the younger the eggs, the better. Because of that, as well as the desire of other families to grow, egg donation is a helpful and beneficial thing to consider. Certainly, you can use the financial assistance if you are facing a mountain of student loan debt that is deterring you from purchasing a vehicle or starting a family of your own.

Egg donation is a tried and true procedure that has been perfected over the decades. Not every woman is qualified to become an egg donor, but if you do, you can provide someone else the hope for a family while earning enough money to reduce or eliminate your student loans.