I grew up “middle class” in the suburbs, went to catholic school from kindergarten to 5th grade, and 6th on was in public school with cow farms around it. I was born in 85, so I started school in 90… a kid that had young parents, usually the youngest in class, but it didn’t matter, kids thought that was cool. And starting in 2nd grade, I wanted to be a teacher, I admired my teachers in catholic school, and wanted to teach kids… and it just stuck with me.
Throughout all of my schooling, it was always drilled into your head “EVERYONE NEEDS TO GO TO COLLEGE” that was constantly drilled into our heads that you won’t get far as an adult without a college education. I remember asking my parents why they never went to college, and the answer was that they started their family first. Most parents of my friends didn’t go to college either, so it seemed like they were maybe pushing college on us because they never got the chance.
But thinking back, I remember always being told to go to college, but not that it was going to be expensive. No one talked about the cost, and it always seemed like; okay they want us to go to college, they say everyone goes, so maybe its free! So I dreamed and dreamed throughout my whole school experience of graduating and becoming a teacher, and getting married and having the yard with the white picket fence, (I’ve always been a hopeless romantic, I blame that on movies and my over-active imagination, maybe a future post.) When they did start talking cost, they made it seem like everything will be covered by financial aid, and what was left, any parent could afford it. That just made me want to be a teacher even more! I took S.A.F.E. (students action for education-was like student teaching in a 2nd grade class for me) in 10th and Elementary Education (working in a preschool setting and planning out lesson plans) in 11th, I was stoked! I’m actually in classrooms, I’m beginning to learn to be a teacher! “It will look great on your college applications,” they told me, still no one told me the cost…
Senior year was a wreck for me, I “ran away” because I was an angry child who felt like she was shafted for trying to be an individual, got knocked up and her sisters were the “favorites,” so who would’ve missed me; forced to have an abortion, my parents got divorced, and my dad moved out and forced to live with someone who I didn’t get along with; but I was still looking forward to going to school… it was a beautiful college, about 2 hours away from my family, small town, I would be going to school and away from my family, it was a win win for me!
Then…. the start of the end…. *sigh*
Financial aid wasn’t completed in time… (it was confusing… my parents didn’t know who to go to for help…) I was wait listed… dreams start fading… I get kicked out of my mothers… nowhere for me to go except with my aunt and uncles kindness…start working more to support myself… apply to community college by myself, the light is shining again, I can be a teacher; confusing forms, parents financial info needed, constant circles of
“you need this paper”
“oh no that’s not the right one”
“even though your parents do not provide for you hoe much they make will penalize you and you make $11,000, that’s too much money, you’ll only get $200 a semester so you need student loans….”
Loans….
Loans…
Loans…
school, work, school, work…last a year until I cannot even afford the weekly rent, or gas, or anything…see dream dim again… take on a second job, start a non-accredited school (fool, didn’t know it was, again do it by myself and get MORE LOANS), they lied to me that I could afford it…then the loans build up again…at 22, get a full time job…. can’t do both, they change the program, quit school again… *sigh*
I had finally had a good job, and I felt like I was racking it in… making money, got my own place, met a person that sucks the life out of me for 4 yrs… At this point I was just getting by, and start getting all the bills in the mail…I can’t afford the payments, I tried talking to them about reducing the monthly amount. That didn’t work, because now I was making “good money” and they think I could afford $300 a month… I start ignoring it, like I’m sure a lot of kids my age do/did, my attitude was “They wouldn’t help me get financial aid, they won’t lower my monthly payments, so screw them.” That was such a bad idea… and I didn’t know how bad until I’m working 60 hours a week between the full time assistant manager gig at the group home and a part time telephone sales just getting by and I get the notice that they are taking my taxes… and they start garnishing me… and they get their $300 a month even though it cripples me. It’s okay though, I get engaged to a wonderful man, we are making things work, he helps me out so much…
Then I fall at work and tear my acl 8 months before my wedding, major surgery is needed…lose my job 2 months before my wedding… and now I’m a 28 year old, with no job, no college degree, and drowning in debt. The student loan people weren’t happy that I stopped working, because now they can’t garnish me, and they do everything possible to make me feel like a piece of cow shit stuck to someone’s shoe… they talk down to you, and yell at you, and are just mean.
They don’t know the hurt it causes me to know I never got to finish school, because our country is more worried about money then helping a “middle class” girl be a teacher, that same girl who they filled with ideas of college since kindergarten but never told how to do it…
Where is the help? Why should anyone in this country feel like they aren’t good enough to go to college…. why does this country make college so unattainable? I didn’t have the luxury of having my parents to fall back on, and have been on my own since 18, (Having a conversation with a manager before I lost my job, she said she felt bad that she has so much while I have so little, and she could never imagine what it was like to not have her parents to help her, and didn’t know how I’ve done so much on my own, from my point of view I didn’t feel like I accomplished much, but in her outside view I was a survivor) and now I finally have someone else to help the burden… we are thinking of ways to be able to try to get me out of default, and make reasonable payments. Trying to figure out if there are grants available to help me get my teachers assistant certificate to work in special ed (I am recognized as a national direct support professional and the 6 yrs experience can’t hurt)…
So as I stand at my crossroads; 28 and a half, new wife, jobless, and with a husband that is almost graduated to be a teacher; I finally feel like I might conquer this, and finally stop drowning in debt, and my dreams are finally shining again… as I take this step out of the lake I was drowning in onto my own solid ground.
Related articles
- Financial Aid Delays Worry Some College Students (fox16.com)
- Education Department Makes Changes to PLUS Loans (abcnews.go.com)
- Why I am Going to Default on my Private Student Loans (ryanwilliamsvirden.com)
- 6 things to know about the new student loan rates (cbsnews.com)
Learning to be a housewife! 
Appreciate your story. You are certainly not alone. Hold your head! There is power in the people