Hi everyone,
My husband and I are beginning to start the process for immigrating under Express Entry as skilled workers, but I'm worried our student loans will make immigration forever impossible.
As background, we are both Respiratory Therapists in the US. Our current annual household income is now, as of the last year, roughly $170k (also in one of the most expensive areas in the country, so it's not as exciting as it looks). We are also both from working class paycheck to paycheck families that couldn't afford to help in our educations, so we had to take loans both for school and survival. My current loan balance for 6 years of education is about $70,000, his is about $40,000 for 4 years.
Now, what I'm absolutely terrified about is the Proof of Funds requirement. We have a total of roughly $50,000 in retirement funds that would become liquid and available to us were we granted residence, plus another roughly $10k that's saved. A nice amount, but still 60k is < 110k, which is our student loan balance.
We would have no other debts. No credit cards, no car loans, nothing. Just student loans. We would have enough liquid cash to pay said loans for years as well.
We have also already applied to the Alberta regulatory authority for respiratory therapists and will be licensed and certified RT's within the month. We could, theoretically, walk off the plane on day 1 straight into a job interview and be ready to work.
Will any of that even matter though? Or will they simply look at our schooling and immediately reject us?
My husband and I are beginning to start the process for immigrating under Express Entry as skilled workers, but I'm worried our student loans will make immigration forever impossible.
As background, we are both Respiratory Therapists in the US. Our current annual household income is now, as of the last year, roughly $170k (also in one of the most expensive areas in the country, so it's not as exciting as it looks). We are also both from working class paycheck to paycheck families that couldn't afford to help in our educations, so we had to take loans both for school and survival. My current loan balance for 6 years of education is about $70,000, his is about $40,000 for 4 years.
Now, what I'm absolutely terrified about is the Proof of Funds requirement. We have a total of roughly $50,000 in retirement funds that would become liquid and available to us were we granted residence, plus another roughly $10k that's saved. A nice amount, but still 60k is < 110k, which is our student loan balance.
We would have no other debts. No credit cards, no car loans, nothing. Just student loans. We would have enough liquid cash to pay said loans for years as well.
We have also already applied to the Alberta regulatory authority for respiratory therapists and will be licensed and certified RT's within the month. We could, theoretically, walk off the plane on day 1 straight into a job interview and be ready to work.
Will any of that even matter though? Or will they simply look at our schooling and immediately reject us?