This month I started paying my student loans. Hello, empty wallet. It's rough discovering just how long the "broke college student" identity lasts after college is over. In fact, my wallet hasn't been full since graduation, because it took me the full grace period to find a job in my field that actually gave me a paycheck. Thankfully, I found one just in time to pay loans. I'll be paying on them for the next 10 years if everything goes perfectly. Sigh.
I've realized that higher education has become a gamble and not a guarantee of a better future. I bought a $35,000 investment -- which is relatively cheap because of the scholarships I got and the commuter university I went to. I spent not only money but time: over four years.
In return I've gotten a full-time job that I really like but that can't fund even a standard repayment plan. I pay $378 a month, down from the original $550 rate. I can't save for a car, buy a whole lot of anything that isn't rent groceries or electricity, and to be frank, I haven't even started paying my own car or health insurance yet -- my parents still do. If they weren't around, I'd be completely drowning in debt and have to apply for forbearance, where my credit would plummet and my interest debt would pile up. This is not something to be proud of and it's really sobering to think about, but I can hope that it pays off in the next few years as I gain experience and climb the ladder in my career.
My situation is far from unique. The average class of 2016 graduate has $37,172 in student loan debt. As of 2017, the average payment amount is $351 a month. 11.2% of graduates can't afford their payments and fall into delinquency after three months of nonpayment. Four million students are in full default with their loans. And in 2012, 71% of graduates from four-year colleges had taken out loans to pay for school. With such insane tuition hikes, I bet that number has risen in recent years.
It takes about three to nine months to land a first job after college. And holy moly are those the hardest months of your life. Talk about side jobs, late night bar shifts, being solidly unemployed, and struggling to pay bills and keep a full belly. Yikes.
That said, I don't regret going to school. I know that education for the sake of education is 100% priceless and I'm a better person for being educated. I also know that I'm more likely than my non-educated peers to make extra money over my lifetime (75% more money to be exact) and to be more happily successful. But it'll be a year in a month since I've taken any type of classes and I still make the same or less than my friends who didn't go to college and chose to gain experience right away. Patience is tough. I'm sticking to the hope that hard work will pay off, but hope doesn't make it any easier when I can't afford to go out with my family and friends or buy Christmas presents that are worth a damn.
Our parents really can't relate. I'm not trying to be adolescent or angsty here, but their encounter with higher-ed was so different. Don't let the older generation make you feel bad for struggling or lagging behind their expectations. Here's a simplified infographic which explains better than I could:
Basically, for women like myself, it's financially more than twice as tough to attend college than it used to be. Tuition costs have soared over two and a half times the rate of inflation, and our wages have not. If you want to research deeper into the vast differences, you can start with this Forbes article.
Anecdotally, my sociology professor once told our class that he was surprised we weren't up in arms about our costs. He said that when he was in school (he's probably 70 if I'm guessing truthfully) he could work full time during the summer to pay the entire costs of room and board, tuition, food, gas, and the like for the entire school year. The next summer he would work full time again, stop working during the two semesters, rinse and repeat, and graduate with no debt. We all just gawked in silence, felt ashamed at our silence, and continued on with class.
I agree that we should be making more of a fuss, but I feel assured our government would ignore us like it does on most issues if we protested. Our government and our country in general does not prioritize education and has no intention to. While other countries invest in their future by training their citizens, we pedal backward by making short-term profits off of ours, inhibiting their growth, which becomes the growth of the country itself. In the following decades, when we are falling behind in innovation, business growth from lack of investment, and general happiness, we will know why. Until then we will continue to gamble our future and pay tens of thousands of dollars in a hopeful exchange for success -- or don't and possibly lose out on career opportunities. The struggle is real nationwide.
