Today, I logged into my Mint.com account. The number updates after a few seconds, as all my accounts come online. The transactions keep coming and the debt keeps accruing. There’s a big, bold number staring at me: $37,718.68 in debt.
Nowadays, when I look at the cup of Vanilla Chobani Greek Yogurt or tall coffee at Starbucks, I know it will end up costing me 6.8% more. Everything in my life will cost at least 6.8% more. Nothing is face value. Hello, student loan debt.
I am one of the privileged, fortunate souls where my undergraduate education was paid for by family. My parents and grandparents saved and saved – they compromised and cut-out from their own budgets to help me go to college. We never went on lavish vacations or purchased expensive things. We were a humble, middle-class family.
But now I’m in graduate school. Nobody expected I’d actually make it this far in my schooling – not even me. This is my second year in a doctoral program. The debt and interest is accruing, adding up, and spiraling out of control. People tell me it’s okay – that this is an investment – “you’re getting a Ph.D.!” In two years, I’ve amassed nearly $40,000 in debt.
I’m writing this to say it isn’t okay. Just because I’m spending the time to better myself doesn’t mean I should leave with six figures in loans. My partner recently asked how much I owe, what I might have by the time I graduate, and what my plan is to repay it.
I didn’t have an answer.
It prompted some sad questions: Would the amount of debt I have prevent somebody or scare them away from a serious relationship or marriage? Could debt be so burdensome, if shared, that people just avoid it at all costs?
The original question and the ensuing self-doubt prompted this post. This will be the first of many – a diary of sorts as I change this descending trajectory towards the pits of student loan hell.
Students and new entrants to the workforce are in debt. That’s a fact, always has been. While tuition at a State University in the 1970s was about $5000 -the average cost of a new car- a gallon at the pump only 40 cents, a loaf of bread 0.25 and a night in a decent hotel a mere $30, it WAS a lot of money in those days. Everything is relative!
I was 22 in 1977, fresh out of college I decided with a girlfriend of mine to spend a year working in London. How much fun we had… we lived in an old B&B with one bathroom per floor, shared a tiny room with a drafty window we had to cover at night with newspaper in order to keep some of the dampness out. Heat was metered. We had to pay 10 pence every half an hour to get little warmth. More often than not we saved our money and put an extra blanket or sweater on, kind of “recycle a can for 5 cents”. Hey, a penny is a penny! Our daily diet consisted of toast and jelly, tomato soup and baked beans – cheap food that we could afford. Going out for pizza once in a blue moon was a TREAT. We didn’t travel much. When we did, it was by bus, the “underground” ruined a lot of shoes… No way could we afford the luxury of a car, gas, insurance, parking.
We worked 6 days/week in an office during the week, a store on Saturdays. Our goal: pay the rent, utilities, food, transportation, what little money was left went to movies, museums. Guess what? We were among the privileged and met numbers of young people in much worse financial situations than us, dead poor in fact. I recall using our meager income buying bags of rice, pasta and cans of soup for them. Yes, we could have asked our families for help but “independence” makes you do strange things, we wanted it, too much pride or maybe just foolishness that comes with youth. We arrived on British soil with just enough funds to find a job and left a year later totally broke! The government was supposed to reimburse taxes, though it didn’t. The reason, unknown to us until the end, we had to work for exactly 12 months. Unfortunately we missed the cut by 14 days, the 2 weeks we returned home at Christmas. Live and learn!
That year was one of the best in my life; we were young, we had fun, we managed. My point, we can’t have it all at once, make your choice and live with it. Suffer now, enjoy later, better days WILL come.
Dear Fabienne,
Thank you so much for your dear reply and honest feedback about living in debt.
I think this is an important message about the investment of time and money today – for a better tomorrow.
As I have opened up about my story, I’ve realized just how many people can relate and/or lived much worse. The subsistence life is scary, and independence does make you do strange things.
My biggest worries arise from the student loan debt that was – honestly – optionally chosen. I say choice, because I could have lived in cheaper apartments or stayed on couches, always packed lunches with staples like peanut butter and rice, and not purchased a car (with another loan). But I was motivated and misguided by some different mentalities.
Now I aim to reverse this course for a better future, tomorrow.
I hope you follow along. I’d love your continued feedback.
All the best,
-Sam
This exchange reminds me of a saying: “There is no path to happiness, happiness is the path”.
Personally, I don’t believe in putting in “the suffering” now to live my happiness in the future. I do believe in changing your perspective because when it comes down to it, student loan debt and the opportunity to pursue higher education are privileges that many don’t have. I don’t say that to agree with the culture of debt and ridiculous costs of higher education, but that perspective might change how you feel day-to-day about your debt. This is coming from someone who has undergrad & grad school worth of debt.
If you are enjoying yourself now and you think it’s only going to get better, good for you. If you are privileged enough to make choices that better your outcomes, then make those choices with full thought and intention. I’m still young too, but I believe that your values and what you want out of life change more regularly than anyone who sets themselves in auto-pilot cares to admit. Checking in with yourself regularly and asking whether what you are doing is what you want out of your one single life is perfectly healthy. It’s important to have a plan, but you don’t want to get to the top of that wall you have been climbing and realize you have been climbing the wrong wall.
I’m glad you have found your website! Looking forward to following along.
The onset of adulthood isn’t a walk in the park; expenses and debts accumulate while savings plunge to a big fat zero. Let’s not kid ourselves; you will be paying back those loans and credit card balances for the next 10 years or so, before you move on to yet another kind of crisis, mortgage, line of credit, education for your own kids and retirement plan. Sad but true enough!
This is the system. This is the rules of the game and, unless we were born with a silver spoon in our mouth, like it or not we are engulfed in its swirling motion. We can spend a lifetime trying to avoid the snow ball effect it just won’t work for one simple reason, we are human beings. Without being materialistic snobs, as individuals, we do have needs, we do have obligations and we have ambitions. Things to do places to go and befoe we know it we are riding on that merry-go-round. Living on dollars we do not have is a means to an end in order to reach the otherwise inaccessible dream. Alright we are weak, so be it…
The fact remains that as a young man you cannot subject yourself to such torments. Other responsibilities are in store with promising opportunities and hardship of a different caliber, just look around, the future is not written in store. – Live it up while you can!
I’m confused by your response to Fabienne. The student loan debt was all for living expenses? How are you paying your tuition? I’m ONLY using loans for tuition, and I’ve accumulated nearly twice as much debt as you in two years of graduate school. 🙁
Hi B!
Thanks for your comment. Yes, most of the loans have gone to rent and other budgetary items outside of school. Thus far, I’ve had assistantships pay significant portions of tuition and fees. Unfortunately, my budget hasn’t been practical until now. Look forward to a new post on this very issue soon!
-Sam
This answer to your question is that things like debt is just like character, beauty, health, age, and all the other variables that people take into consideration when they want to marry someone. Some men might seem more attractive if you knew that they had $100 million in investments and a wonderful job and they were handsome. The simple answer is that it all depends.
Hi, found you via twitter (@sararline). I made the choice to go back to school for my RN. I was accepted into a program that costs $75,000 (just tuition!) but have decided to enroll in a program that is $7,000. Since I already have $30,000 in SL debt I felt this was the right choice. The expensive program would give me a BS degree in 2.5 years, I would need to either a) work 40+ hours a week in addition to school and clinicals or b) take out a $25,000 personal loan to pay the cost SL doesn’t cover. Neither option appeals to me. The 7k program I can complete at home, in as little as 6 months (although I can take 7 years–it’s all online and self-paced); because it’s online I can study around my work schedule and take off time as needed. SL aren’t available for the program which just means when I graduate There won’t be any more debt to add to the pile. It would take another year once finished with the initial program to get my BS and probably $9,000.
While I wouldn’t be scared away from someone with ~$40k in debt my boyfriend has mentioned that my debt scares him. He has zero debt, SL or otherwise. When I mentioned my initial plan for my RN he was supportive but clearly nervous about the cost. He has family that are working on paying off $190k in SL debt. Once I ran the numbers for SL payment and how much I’d pay in interest it made me sick. I started to look into other options and compared salaries in my area for first year BSN vs ASN. To me it is a no brainer. I’m not willing to sacrifice the next 10-20 years of my life paying off a “purchase” that I can save $65,000 on! Why shouldn’t that translate to my education?
Money is the #1 cause of a dissolution of a marriage in America. Knowing what I know now, I would have had second thoughts about marrying my husband back in 2009. He paid semesterly on his law school tuition, and we met a month before graduation.
However, what they don’t tell you in law school is that it’s hard to find a job/make money in an over-saturated attorney market such as the city in which we live. He passed the bar and hung out his lawyerly shingle, but I supported us financially that first year of marriage with my low-paid government salary. I’ve always been the sole health insurance provider in our family, even covering my 2 stepsons as well as our child we have together.
After 5 rollercoaster years of owning his own law practice, my husband closed up shop and started working for ‘da man in an non-legal field type of career. We have not yet combined our finances, as he wanted to protect me in case clients came ‘a-suing for malpractice or if his greedy ex-wife came sniffing around for extra handouts.
He hit rock bottom this month, actually. He owed $25K in debts related to his previous business and I had to loan him the money out of my life savings. I made him draft a contract to pay me back direct deposit each week; part of the contract was that we have to do Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University together. I’ve read Dave’s books and I’ve been listening to his show for years. This feels retroactive for me because my finances have been in order for the past year+, but now I’m having to go back in my planning to help my husband. The worst part about my big bailout for him is that he kept all of this a secret from me!! He finally broke down and told me last week (after borrowing several thousand from my parents and not paying them back either).
This kind of betrayal can feel huge! Especially since we live the minimalist lifestyle. We don’t owe on credit cards or student loans or car notes. The cars are paid off and I pay extra on the mortgage principal each month. We aren’t into shopping, as we can find most items at the thrift store. We’ve even taken to donating a huge chunk of our possessions to the Salvation Army and have weekly purges (thanks, Marie Kondo!).
After a session of Financial Peace University, we sat and chatted about the elephant in the room. He agreed this entire problem stemmed from the failed law practice. Owning one’s own business is not always a terribly bright venture. I’m not trying to dissuade anyone from going to law school, but they don’t teach you business financial savvy classes on how to manage your own firm. It’s ideal if you get hired by a larger firm, by a courthouse, or if your family is already in the attorney business.
I would say keeping an open line of communication is the best way for a couple to deal with finances. You live and you learn. At a ripe age of 32, I feel like I’ve learned so much lately since we are now at rock bottom, and by no fault of my own.
So no, I would steer clear of marrying someone who already had a huge debt!!