student loans for college

i hate talking about it. i'm not going to lie. that's why i didn'teven want to do this. because i hate talking about it. i did not really think aboutthe finances, you know. looking back now, seeingstate school was so much less. that never crossed my mind. i knew that collegewas expensive

and i just thought everybodytook out student loans and that's just how you did it. you know, unless youhad millionaire parents or something. i think my mom believed, likeme, that it was just a process. if you do the right things,if you go to college and you get the good grades,then it should all just kind of work out. so i don't thinkshe really worried

about the finances as much. she did make it clearfrom the beginning that she wouldn't beable to pay for it. and that it would be all on me. i, myself, didn't go to college. so i didn't have a wholelot of experience with it. and jessie was thefirst one out my kids that was going to college. so i didn't ever reallyplan on it, i guess.

i went to la salleuniversity and i majored in criminal justice. i chose la sallebecause, in my mind, it was what collegeshould look like. and this is another reasonwhy i feel like 18-year-olds shouldn't be allowed tomake these huge decisions on their own totally. because i just thought itlooked like a nice school. it was a small campus setting.

i had the ability to be a bigfish in a little pond there, which i liked. i just viewed itas, well, i'm going to take out these loans anyway. and at that time, iwas working at wendy's. so if you were telling me$18,000 vs. $35,000 a year, it all seemed like amillion dollars to me. growing up, it was justmy mom and my two sisters and i. i didn't know my dad.

i met him when iwas 18, actually. so it was just us fourgirls sticking together. i had my aunts and unclesand my grandma in my life. they were heavilyinvolved in everything. so it was like it takesa village, you know. well, when they wereyoung i pretty much was in the restaurant business. because i didn't want toput them in daycare and i didn't want to not be therewith them during the day time.

my sister raised herfamily in our hometown for the first partof jessie's life. and we did everything together. we spent regular eveningstogether, birthdays, vacations. my mom really didn't let usin on how much things cost or bills. and i think thatwas a part of her not trying to putthat burden of being a single parent and anykind of struggles on us.

we shopped at kmart. she always went to yard sales. so i knew that saving andbeing frugal was important. but beyond that, not so much. well, the reason idecided first of all to not co-sign or take outany loans for her first year was because i wasn'tin a comfortable spot with her behaviors at that time. when she was in senior year,she started coming home

with different friends. and i was not loving theserelationships at all. i just didn't trust her. so that's why shehad to call my sister and asked her for the loan. which did make mefeel pretty bad. but i said if you make itthrough the first year, i have no problem. she was about to go downone path or the other.

and i figured that first yearwas going to make or break her. jessie called me and asked meif i would co-sign a student loan for her. and i loved her very dearly. if you don't help someone thatyou love, who do you help? i did understand thatthere was risk in that. because i knew thatthat was going to be tied to my financial history. there was an understandingthat it was her responsibility

to pay it back. it was always thatit was going to be a loan that was in my name. but jessie was solelyresponsible for paying. i said, if you wantto go to school, then you're going to pay for it. i believe my first student loanpayment was about $140 or so. which i thought,oh, this isn't bad. and that's because i putthem all on the lowest

payments possible and put themon deferments and forbearances. so they weren't allquite in repayment. so by the following year, itwas already up to, like, $600. when i was signingfor my student loans, i had absolutely no cluewhat that would mean for me in my current life now. i never even botheredadding up how much it was. i thought, youknow, surely i would be able to pay for these loans.

they wouldn't set meup for failure, right? the community that mymom lives in now is definitely moreof an urban area. it's not really thesafest, cleanest. we're on our way toamerican education services, where i ironically used towork as a loan collector there. it just reallyopened my eyes as far as what i was going toprobably be dealing with myself in the very near future.

so it scared me a little bit. at that time, i was just reallylooking for any kind of income knowing that i was going tosoon have to start paying back my student loans. i think their starting wageat aes was about $12.50 or so. i had only ever reallymade minimum wage. i had only made maybe,at the most, $8 an hour. i talked to a lot ofmoms that were, you know, they're telling me i'mnot going to pay this.

i have kids to feed. and if i have to choose betweenfeeding my kids and the loans, you're not going to getany payments from me. i discovered throughconsolidating and researching a lot about the studentloans that there's this public serviceloan forgiveness. so that's forgovernment employees. and my mom happens to workfor the federal government. after 10 years, if youmake on time payments,

then you're eligiblefor forgiveness. whatever is leftover at that time. i can retire in a year from now. but knowing that there'sthis forgiveness plan makes me question every daythat, what am i going to do? time to make some sales. after aes, i went to workfor sundance vacations, which is my current employer. they pay commission only.

so i help the folks thatcome in there try and find a vacation package thatwould work for them. when i first startedthere, i still had the intentions of goingforward with law enforcement. i know myself a lotbetter now to know i don't think i want to risk my life. right now i live innortheast philadelphia. and i just renta little bedroom. it's $400 a month.

and it's the most affordablething i can do right now. i barely havesavings in general. the money i make is the moneyi use for bills and for living. and i want to start saving. they have an optionfor a 401(k) at my job. but i just can't see themtaking out anything more. especially since i don'tget a steady paycheck. and i don't know what toexpect to make every time. i had always thought this farout of college, in 6 years,

i would have pictured my lifea lot more progressed by now. i would have pictured me witha family, maybe buying a house. you know, definitely atleast living on my own and being independentin that way. how does the debt make you feel? it makes me feel very sad. and i feel likei'm going to cry, so we're going to have to stop. there was a time when shecalled me on the phone.

and at that point,she wasn't making it. and she was just crying. and i was crying. and i'm outside my office. and i'm hysterical,just like this, because this is what itdoes to me all the time. when we really starttalking about it. my head races amillion different ways of how can we do-- howcan we get rid of this?

like how? i feel a ton of pressurethat the loans are not just in my name. if they were justin my name, i don't think i would be caring quiteas much that they were always on time. so i would neverdo that to them. i just couldn't do that. i would pay those onesthat have their names on it

before i pay my own. this is my vision board. this is kind of the mainthing that i have on here. you can see it'sright in the center. because to me it'sthe most important. if you can see, they sayall the balances are zero. so i just really believethat one day i will have all these loans paid off. when i was backpackingin central america,

i actually took a tour-- itwas called a "booze cruise," catchy title-- and it was justone of the most fun experiences that we had down there. and when i went topanama, they didn't really have anything like that there. so we have the idea of tryingto start a tour company down there. and hopefully it's that idea. and if it's not that,then something else.

other than my friendshipsand my experience at la salle you know, my degree isnot helping me in any way. so for that reason,i don't regret it. but i do regret how iwent about paying for it. do i think that jessie's collegeeducation has been worth it? $90,000 in debt is a large debt. and she's notworking in the field that her college degreeprepared her for. it's a very high price to pay.

i feel like i'm beingresponsible with the loans. i've never beendelinquent or defaulted. at this point, i feel likethey're never going down. so until i have$90,000, that's when i feel like i'm goingto be able to pay it. because the little paymentsaren't doing anything. so whether i put it onforbearance for a month or two, it's not really affecting,in my mind, that much. i don't feel like i'm a victimbecause i did do everything

by choice. nobody forced me to do anything. but i do feel like i wasled into the situation kind of blinded. i don't think that ihave a terrible life. i'm not complaining. i'm very blessed. and i know there's a lot ofpeople out there with way worse situations.

it's not that everybodyshould care because i'm not able to progress in life. it's that it's affectinga whole generation. if i could do itall over again, i would have definitelywent to community college first and tried topay my way through. or maybe even travel first. there's a limitedtime in life where you're able to just takeoff with no strings attached

and not too manyresponsibilities. if you do that and comeback and you know yourself better than maybe before youinvest $90,000 into something you'll actually useyour degree at the end. i think what i would tellother parents at this point, they really haveto do the research. and looking back at it now, iwish that i educated myself. because nobody's going to putmore of their heart and soul in it then you when it'ssomething that you're

trying to do for your child.