I have about 1.75 bachelor’s degrees right now and the whole time I’ve been dodging student loans. I have chosen to go to less expensive schools, take less classes so I can work more (I’m one of the older people in the classes), borrow against my car, borrow from my family, even use credit cards, all to keep from falling in this hole. I got admitted to a master’s program. It’s a great program nationally and it’s in a STEM field, should all work out. I even think I might have found something that will get me a job I like doing instead of one I dread showing up to.
But I can’t keep my full time job and take the classes. Hell I can’t keep much of any full time job and it’s not because I’m not willing to work. It’s 14 hours a week in class, some during the day, some at night. Then all the lab work, part of being a top national program I guess is that you can tell students that if they can't handle the work you’ll take one of the hundreds of other students who wanted the spot. There is no full time job schedule that fits with this. I can stick multiple part time jobs together but that’s not going to cover tuition, pay the rent, and keep ramen on the table. I’m likely going to need at least the full Stafford loan and more depending on what sort of work I can manage.
If you’re not a millennial you might not see what the big deal is here. After all, student loans are there to help right? Why, you probably used a loan to help go through school and then paid it off after you graduated. If you are a millennial, you know why I’m fucking terrified. Almost every single one of us knows people, either friends or older Gen-X siblings, who dug themselves a student loan hole that they are just never going to get out of. That’s why I have worked so hard to avoid them. When it comes to other kinds of debt, no matter how bad things get, if you have people, you can only fall so far. If you have friends or family to live with you can always tell yourself that, no matter how bad it gets, you can get a clean start with bankruptcy. Not with student loans. With student loans once you’re in that hole there’s no fresh start.
So why all the school? Did I waste my first degree on some worthless liberal arts nonsense? No, just something that made me miserable. Business was not a good degree for my moral compass. More than that I just can’t seem to find something I don’t hate doing. I hope I finally have, I hope am able to handle the course work and I hope the program is all it’s cracked up to be. If not I’m about to jump into a very deep dark hole for nothing. Wish me luck. To everyone else staring down the barrel of a student loan, my heart goes out to you. To any politician who happens to read this, help us.