A Story of Debt

There are all kinds of debt. Mine is one story among millions.

I got my masters degree at age 54 while working full-time. It was the crowning achievement of my life at that time. I was accepted into one of the best low residency programs in the country, a private university in Southern California. A small scholarship was an added incentive, though it made little impact in the long run.

I took out student loans each semester to cover the cost of tuition plus room and board at a local hotel and transportation (a rental car) while I was completing my residency.

Back home, I was the head of an ELL program at a state college. My mentor was the dean of liberal arts who had all but promised me a teaching post once I received my masters. She was grooming me for such a position. I felt simultaneously confident, overworked and stressed.

I earned my MFA the summer that the Great Recession hit. Overnight, my retirement fund with the college was devastated and within a few months, my ELL program was on the chopping block. All of us were given notice and my plans for teaching at this college or any other state university dashed. I watched in bewilderment as the Florida legislature cut budgets to nearly every institution of higher learning and one by one, caps on hiring were put in place.

Instead of waiting and hoping the catastrophe would mend, I went to work as an online adjunct professor with an established university. I taught two to three courses each term. The pay was livable but there were no benefits and no such thing as tenure. I was vested at the state college and eventually took an early retirement from them. All the while, I half-hoped that a full-time teaching position at my previous college would open. That never occurred. If anything, circumstances worsened. My dean, the associate dean and the librarian jumped ship. I no longer had academic buddies to give me an assist. 

I got a one-year reprieve on the student loans and then it came banging. I was never able to make full payment and the interest kept soaring.

I taught these courses without a break for over eight years. The week after I asked for a medical leave of absence, I was given notice via email by the program director. The University was unable to support my faculty position. Technically, I was still an employee on the roster. In reality, I was unemployed, 64 years of age, facing medical problems and mounting student loan debt. And I lived alone. I took my Social Security retirement and returned to selling on eBay and Etsy. Nowadays they call that the gig economy. Back then it covered the mortgage, sometimes.

At the time, my student loan was somewhere around $70K, mostly interest. That was five years ago. 

I received Income based breaks and then two Covid forbearances. Those timeouts did not stop the exorbitant compounding interest. Today my student loan balance is $94K. That’s eye popping.

I’ll never repay it. Likely, I will continue receiving a forbearance until I die. The payment, which is now about double my mortgage, is laughable, a dark absurdity. The total amount due continues to increase, which increases the monthly payment, making payment viciously obscene. It’s a greedy circle.

I just turned 70. For me, the debt means that I could never climb my way out of unforeseen circumstances.  

Not all debt is the same. Mine was an albatross that kept me from renovating my home, selling my home, moving to a farm and living a happy life around chickens and goats. For young people, such a debt is like a noose around their neck that pulls them back every time they make a step forward. When you multiply that by a lifetime, and then many many lifetimes, we have destroyed the hopes of an entire generation. Debt ruins people.

I’ve adapted. But I have so much and my fullness is not spread equally across the map. The student loan relief that dark Brandon provided will not help me. That’s OK. But imagine if my story of debt applied to a 24 year-old just finishing a degree and looking at grad school? That $20K in student debt relief will help her move forward; it helps the future of this country. It will guarantee hope to generations and hope for this country – new enterprises, fresh families, farms with chickens and goats. What more could we ask for?