When the Student Loans Attack

Like many Americans my age I have student loans. And they are totally out of control. There is this pervasive idea that the only way to get ahead in life is to be highly educated. There is no value placed on trade jobs or farming. Get a degree and you’ll succeed. Yet scores of college grads are leaving those ivory halls without job prospects. Still more are figuring out that they have no interest in doing whatever it was they were studying.

Life constantly changes and the idea that EVERY 18 year old can choose an interest and make a career out of it is just insane. For one human beings were not designed to complete one task in a day. Historically we completed many tasks, usually having to deal with our survival. We would hunt, gather, cook, clean, make clothing and tools, take care of children. A multitude of tasks that used different areas of our brains and allowed us to be up and moving most of the day. This is what humans should be doing. Instead we stick children in classrooms 8 hours a day until they are 22 years old and then expect them to go out and get a career and make something of themselves. Now I’m not saying it doesn’t work for some people. We need those doctors, lawyers and teachers. But to say that every high school student’s goal should be college is setting a lot of them up for failure. Not only that but what exactly has an 18 year old experienced? NOTHING. Absolutely nothing that would tell them what they want to do for the rest of their lives. They are experienced school, which just sets them up to experience more school.

I was a pretty good student in high school. I took honors and AP classes. Almost all of my elective classes were educational (I took at total of 7 social studies classes). My senior year I took AP English, AP world history, AP psychology. I graduated with 12 college credits. I was on the dance team, class council, MESA, National Honor Society. You would think that if anyone should go to college it would have been me.

I have to tell you going to college is my BIGGEST regret. As I said earlier life changes and at the mere age of 20 I got married. I finished college a few months later at 21. I had to take 2 summer classes and take a 6 credit clep but I graduated a year early. You’re probably thinking wow look at you, you graduated a year early, congrats! Weeeeeeeell my husband is in the military and want to guess what his first duty station was? JAPAN. There weren’t exactly a lot of jobs requiring a psychology degree. So for 3 years my degree just sat there. I did work but my first job was actually less than minimum wage. I won’t bore you with how that worked. My second job actually did require a degree but it didn’t matter what kind. I administered tests. Clep, DSST and Pearson tests to be specific. Those very tests that allowed me to graduate early I was administering to service members and their families.

(inside a samurai house as part of our cultural tour upon arriving in Japan)

And then life changed again. We moved to Georgia and started a small farm. Moving from overseas costs a lot of money. I know they say they pay for everything but they don’t. That cell phone you had in Japan, well it doesn’t work in America so you have to buy a whole new one. That car you were driving? Same deal. It gets expensive. We bought a house so that we could farm (it’s also cheaper to buy than rent where we are). Farming is my new dream, it’s something I’m passionate about vs. just interested in. It’s what I should have started with in the first place if I had known about it. Now those loan payments just keep coming. Attacking our bank account, our mental health and our marriage with no end in sight. Please don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t go to college just because it’s ‘the next step.’ Don’t go into debt doing what everyone else does. And don’t blindly encourage your children or your students to participate in a system that IS NOT working. I am being crushed by student loan debt, my parents are being crushed by it and there is no way out. (Actually there is but it’ll take you 30 years)

(What I love)

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