Held down by student debt? You sucker!
Are you saddled with student loans? I am, in the worst way. So when I came across this article at Kuro5hin.org (which is in turn taken from Ted Rall’s article at Yahoo), it really grabbed my attention.
Actually, the whole reason I am where I am in life right now is because of my student debt. I went to a modest state school, where I was enrolled in a somewhat prestigious journalism program. I thought I was doing the right thing financially--I even took a year off after high school to save as much money as possible and always held a job of some sort to pay as much of my expenses as I could while in school; and I had a few scholarships to help pay part of my tuition--but I ended up leaving school with about $45,000 of combined debt (student loans, mostly, but some credit debt as well).
Naturally, as a journalism major, I knew that I would not be pulling down a six-figure salary right away, but I was more than a little bit shocked to discover that most entry-level journalism jobs start with an unpaid intership, which some employers expect to last for at least six months! I don’t know about the rest of my j-school classmates, but when I left school I was in no position to move to places like New York or Chicago and work for several months with no pay. That, in a nutshell, is the reason I decided not to be a journalist: I couldn’t afford it!
Fortunately, I had a back-up plan. I was also an International Studies major, so when the chance to work in Japan came along, I took it. It turned out to be a job that I really despised (teaching English in public schools), but it paid well and I had a net worth that was in the -$50K range, so I couldn’t easily quit. I eventually managed to move into a job that suits me much better (technical writing), but I would still rather be doing something less restrictive than working in a Japanese corporation (where my skills go largely unrecognized and my prospects for advancement are non-existent).
So, here I am, nearly five years later, still in debt (though not nearly as much--there are only four negative figures in my net worth these days, not five) and unable to do much of anything interesting career-wise for the foreseeable future. My debt forces me to do work that pays well, whether I like it or not. At this point, I couldn’t switch to a lower-paying journalism job even if I wanted to.
The real clincher, the point that really drives home what a sucker I am, though, is the fact that one of my good friends from high school decided not to go to college (which I thought was ridiculous, because he was a brilliant guy with plenty of academic potential). Instead, he used his credit card to buy a couple of computers…
When I went back to the States a few months ago, I paid this friend a visit. He now has a high-paying job working in a computer-related field, a gorgeous new house, two cars, a wife, two kids, and eight networked computers in his home office. Color me jealous!
And I thought going to college would pay off in the long run. Well, I guess it’s paying off for someone (my creditors), but I have yet to see the financial rewards. I’ll let you know if my outlook improves in about three years or so, after I make my final loan payment.
