Student loan debt and why it sucks

When I was a senior in high school, I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to go to a great party school about 45 minutes from home. That was my dream. I wanted to be in his marching band. I couldn’t wait to party in the dorms, meet older guys, and do whatever I wanted without my parents finding out. I’d stay up late, get good grades, and hopefully one day find out what I wanted to do with my life. Then reality kicked in.

My mom wouldn’t let me go because she wanted me to live at home. Honestly, he was probably right. I wasn’t ready for college yet. Little did I know, staying home was the worst decision of my life.

I ended up going to a 4 year old institution about 10 minutes from my parents’ house. He lived at home, attended college full time, and worked part time. It seemed like I was managing well. My grades weren’t the best, but I didn’t try too hard either. He was more interested in this guy he was talking to, and making sure other girls weren’t flirting with him, than studying and getting good grades. I started with a specialization in pre-business. It’s not the Information Technology degree he wanted, but it was the closest thing they had besides programming, something he knew he would hate. In the middle of the semester, I had some good grades with the exception of 1 F. However, I became convinced that I was not doing a good enough job, so I met with the Registrar and withdrew. To this day, I don’t understand why that man didn’t pressure me to stay in class. To this day, I don’t know why I was able to withdraw from school so easily and walk away with a whole semester of debt and books that I had barely used. Why did the Registrar sign so easily? At the time, I had my mind set on retiring. However, if they had pushed me a bit more to stay in class, I would have. And I would have pulled A and B, except for my 1 F.

My parents were furious with me when they found out that I retired a few days later. I was embarrassed to tell him, because I knew it wasn’t the right choice, but it was too late to change my mind. After a few weeks of being upset and my parents weren’t happy with me, my dad and I decided that I would attend the local community college. At that time, this school was basically “grade 13”. You only went there if you were not accepted into a 4-year school or if you wanted a quick degree to get a job as soon as possible. My mother was completely against this idea, she wanted me to go to a 4-year school, not an unconvincing community college. Even though I made a big mistake dropping out of my first school, attending community college changed me for the better. My parents had lost their store the year before and were barely surviving. I used this to my advantage and received a lot of free federal financial aid, aid that I would not have to repay. However, because the loans were not properly explained to me by a real person, I accepted as much as I could. I got a huge refund check in the middle of the semester. I didn’t need the loan money, but it was great to have all this extra money to spend. I was not worried about returning that money. He knew he would have to return it one day. Throughout my three years at community college, I continued to receive as much financial aid as I could and continued to spend those rebate checks like a kid at a candy store. I graduated with an associate degree in network administration, a degree that I am very proud of to this day. Along with that title, he had made the list of deans several times and was a member of Phi Theta Kappa, an honors society. Plus, I had several thousand dollars in student loans that I never needed to have.

At this point, you should have stopped attending college and finding a job. It was still acceptable to have only an associate’s degree. Most companies would hire you with that. But my parents pressured me to get my bachelor’s degree. It sounded great and all, especially since my mom never went to college, and my dad only had an associate’s degree in electricity, something or another. I attended a private Catholic university as an online student. I had amazing grades. I kept taking out the maximum amount of financial aid I could have, and this time I used it to pay off the credit card debt that had increased due to my ex-boyfriend spending all of my money at the time. I graduated from 4 year college with a Bachelor of Business Administration. I never thought I’d go as far as a bachelor’s degree and I was extremely proud of myself, just like my parents were of me. At this point, he owed about $ 50,000 in student loans. This included loans in my own name, as well as parent loans in my father’s name. The impact of the sticker was finally catching up with me. He had student loan debt, and a lot. I had credit card debt, an overvalued car loan, and dreams of buying my own home and moving. I started to hit rock bottom. I was miserable all the time due to the increased debt. I dug a hole so big that I knew it would never come out.

He had just gotten a job at the community college in the Financial Aid Office. I was realizing how important it was to counsel students on student loan debt so they wouldn’t have the same money problems as me. To this day, I work with students and explain my horrible story to them. His parents look at me in disbelief. Students listen to me, sometimes. Some students just don’t care about loans. They will have to return it one day.

Although I regret going to college and getting my bachelor’s degree every day, I don’t know if I’d be where I am today without it. Although my job only requires an associate’s degree, there are very few employees at my level who do not have a bachelor’s degree. Am I making enough money to pay all my home and student loan bills? No. Am I miserable every day of the week? Absolutely.

If I could do it all over again, I would change a lot of things. I would only have used grants, not loans. If I still had a balance due, I would have worked out a repayment plan instead of taking the full amount of my loans. If I needed to get my bachelor’s degree, I would have worked part time so I wouldn’t have to take out loans.

What I’ve learned from all this is that students need a better education about student loans and the repercussions of taking out the maximum amounts when they don’t need them. My loans have affected my happiness, my ability to be self-sufficient, my ability to pay half our mortgage and half our house bills. I can’t have a nice car, I can’t go out shopping for clothes when I lost 50 pounds and everything I have is too big, and most importantly, I can’t really enjoy my life.

My lesson to everyone else: Please, please, take my advantage. Use cash as much as possible and take advantage of free federal financial aid. Believe me, a very poor 25 year old married woman who cannot afford to have the life she wants or feels she deserves.