Debt: $120,000+



Source: Student loans

Estimated Years Until Debt-free: Unknown

I graduated from grad school in 2008, the year of the global financial crisis. Known for punctuality, Sallie Mae, congratulated me on my graduation and recent engagement with a letter informing me that my monthly payment of nearly $900 would be due just in time for the holidays.

I grieved over the thought of making these payments. Then I acknowledged the immensity of my debt, wiped my tears and sent our wedding guests the equivalent of a breakup text: wedding cancelled. No explanation, no sign of change, no happily ever after. Just cancelled.

Wanting desperately to relieve myself of debt as quickly as possible, I scheduled automatic loan payments. I diligently paid my monthly student loan payments for six consecutive years without ever placing my student loans on deferment or forbearance.

I operated under the pretense that if I did what I was “supposed to do” – go to college, obtain a career, pay my debts – the universe would reward me for my valiant efforts by extending a concession. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF) was the answered prayer I thought would help lift the burden of student loan debt. Or at least lessen the load.

I’ve spent most of my career working for non-profit organizations earning an annual income that is incontestably low, considering that my total student loan debt is equal to the cost of a modest starter home in certain parts of the United States.

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The problem with loan debt is that, unlike a starter home, it doesn’t offer equity or shelter. Instead, it is often the exploitative product of families and students’ desperation and the government’s willingness to protect for-profit industries at the expense of the millions of students who are beholden to exorbitant interest rates, hidden fees and inescapable private loans.

Working in the “helping profession” does not automatically make me eligible for help, but deceptive marketing and my own despair made me buy into that idea. I believed that PSLF was a reward for taking the advice of guidance counselors, teachers and family, who navigated me towards this career.

With the help of a PSLF representative who reviewed my loan information, confirmed my eligibility and helped consolidate the majority of my loans into one monthly payment that resulted into a substantial reduction, I was officially enrolled in the program.

Making my initial payment under the loan forgiveness program was gratifying. Never had I been so excited to pay a bill. After six years of two monthly automatic payments of $496 and $392 respectively, with no end in sight, making one payment of half that amount for only four more years until all was forgiven was a blessing …until it wasn’t.

After my initial payment under the PSLF program I received an email informing me that my payment had been increased by over $200, despite having a meagre income. The “good news” was that the payment increase was less glaring than what it would have been if my recent two-income household hadn’t been reduced to one after my husband’s recent layoff.

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What started in 2008 as a United States financial crisis had morphed into a 2014 personal financial crisis that offered fewer life preservers than before. I had become my family’s primary breadwinner. I had a child I had to clothe and feed, an almost inoperable car I couldn’t afford to replace and the unwavering audacity to want a quality of life.

Knowing that for over six years I had paid a cumulative amount of over $50,000 in student loan interest and that a program designed to help public servants was instead confining me to indefinite servitude, resuscitated the tears I had wiped away in 2008.

This time I didn’t attempt to wipe them away; I called the PSLF program, placed my loan on forbearance for the first time since my grace period ended in 2008 and resigned to the fact that perhaps my teenage college dreams would have served me better had they been deferred.