A Bitch Session: When your student loan payment could afford you a Lamborghini

I should have a PhD to show for all the years I spent in college. I need a PhD salary to pay for all of the years I spent in college.

I didn’t have plans to go to college. School never really interested me and I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I “grew up” so college wasn’t a priority. When I first decided to go to college I was working full-time plus a part-time job living in the suburbs of Minneapolis. I could barely afford to eat let alone pay for classes so I did what every student does who has never been told not to; I took out student loans. “What? You want to give me $10,000 even though my classes only cost $3,000?” Hell yes I will jump on that boat. Hell, I will buy that boat with my newly found $7,000.

Fast forward about 7 years and I move to Alaska where I start working a job that required a degree. A degree I never got because I dilly dallied around during my previous stint in college. I had a lot of credits that amounted to absolutely nothing; but debt, of course.  Although I worked at this job for years without a degree, and managed just fine, they required me to get one so away I went off to college again. You’d think as someone who is moderately intelligent I would know not to do the ol’ student loan thing again, but alas, I am not that smart apparently. My previous loans had been paid off (thanks dad), and here I was paying for classes with money I did not have. But wait, that’s not the only dumb thing I did you see. The University of Alaska, where I was attending, would only accept a fraction of my previously earned (and paid for) credits so I was having to re-take several classes again…and pay for them.. .again. Then one day someone told me about Alaska Pacific University’s “Degree Completion Program”. Basically I’d graduate in a fraction of the time and with all of my previous credits being well, credited.  Sounds good, right? WRONG! Not only were the classes online and absolutely horrible, I paid for it out the wazoo. I think we all know what part of the body the wazoo is, too. At the time it seemed worth it. What’s the difference of a few thousands, ahem, tens of thousands of dollars? Well, I can tell you- approximately 60 years of paying it back.

The reason I’m telling you this sob story is because student loans piss me off. There are two reasons it angers me so.

#1- Unless you are doing surgery on my brain or representing me in a murder trial, why the hell does anyone need a degree? I navigated life for a long time without one and did just fine. I held positions that required them, and dare I say did just as good of a job as someone with a degree. So what’s the diff? I would much prefer to hire someone with experience and good work ethic than someone who sat in a classroom for four years and has no knowledge of what the real working world is like. I can almost guarantee you that with enough training, I can do the same job as a person with a degree. This of course is with the exception of anything numerical (accounting, CFO, treasurer) because no amount of school, training or money will ever, ever, entice me to work with numbers. Ever..never, ever.

#2- Here people are, trying to better their lives with an education and essentially adding more to the economic growth of our country, yet we make it almost impossible to do so without adding significant, long-term debt to their lives. What sense does that make? We have a welfare program that basically enables and pays people not to work. Why wouldn’t they GIVE people money for school to get them into the workforce and become productive members of society?

Why should money or lack thereof, dissuade someone from getting an education? Why should one college cost more than another? Why should you have to pay more to go to a school outside of your state? Wouldn’t you think it would be a great experience for our young whipper snappers to move out of their homes, experience a new city and state, and people? But what 18 year old kid can do that without the help of student loans? Yes, I know they could get a job and yatta yatta, but they gotta eat, and live, and buy overly expensive books they will hardly ever use.  IT JUST DOESN’T MAKE SENSE TO ME!

Was it my choice to take out student loans? Of course. Was it my choice to go to a private college rather than a crummy local college? Of course. Was it my choice to get a degree in Human Services that basically limits me to doing non-profit, low-paying work the rest of my life? Of course. (I don’t really think it limits me but I’m trying to make a point here) But my actual point is that it is so damn expensive and it’s frustrating that we give people so many things; why not make education one of them? Life isn’t fair, I get that. Just remember that if I “disappear”, mark me as deceased ASAP because my student loans get cancelled and I can live a worry-free life in the South Pacific. I mean, six feet under.