So I turned to Citibank. I took out about $10,000 for the first year, but it soon became clear that I’d need much more to keep studying at Howard and living in Washington until graduation. After I received my diploma, I immediately owed almost $800 a month in private loans, with 12 years to pay it off. That’s not counting the few hundred dollars I pay each month in federal loans. Fortunately, the government gives me more than twice the time to cough it up.

This may be the part of my story where you question my judgment. Why did I choose a fancy school if I didn’t have the money? How could I not have understood the financial commitment I was making? And if I’m so far in debt now, why am I writing this and not pursuing a more lucrative career as a doctor or lawyer — or, as one relative put it bluntly, “When are you going to work in a building?”

I’m not dismissing my responsibility for this. But along with many other 17- and 18-year-olds, when I went to college, I didn’t know anything about student loans, interest rates or rude private debt companies that hound the living hell out of you. All I knew was what I was told: College was the ticket to social mobility, and good students deserved to go to schools that matched our talent and ambition. Folks like me, who come from working-class backgrounds, are told to chase down a bachelor’s degree by any means necessary. But no one mentions just how expensive and soul-crushing the debt will be.

Still, I get it. I made the decision to take out loans. The voices in my head don’t let me forget that.

At my graduation, on a beautiful day in May 2007, my commencement speaker and our future president, Oprah Winfrey, spoke passionately on the toxicity of fear. “Don’t be afraid,” she told us. “All you have to know is who you are. Because there is no such thing as failure.” I felt invigorated by her remarks. As I told everyone at the time, just being in Oprah’s presence probably raised my credit score.