<prompt> Human: I remember reading on here that there is some general rule for student loans. Is it that you arent supposed to take out more than your first years salary?  <response>: My general rule is Dont go into debt. But thats more of the Dave Ramsey hard line approach. To be conservative I would say the MAXIMUM I would want someone to put themselves in debt would allow for a payoff in 2 years at 25 of their net income.Running that math a little bit would be:Gross income 0.75 taxes 0.25 paymentpayoff 2 years paymentpayoff max debt original loan 1 2 interest rate reworking would give:2 Gross income 0.75 taxes 0.25 original loan 1 2 interest rate Assuming an interst rate of 5 then your answer would be:1.1 loan 0.375gross incomewhich yields:34 of your gross incomeWhat does that mean??That means that spending 25 of your net income the rule of thumb for a mortgage payment by DR on student loans would take a little less than 2 years to pay off a loan that was 13rd of your gross income.Again, Im anti-debt, and that math was very rough assumed full interest excluding amortization but if you took a loan at the full amount of your starting gross income, youre looking at closer to 5 years to pay it off spending 25 of your take home pay. 