My journey through Graduate School to earn a Masters of Art in Education. I was on track to become a teacher, but now everything has changed, and I'm on the job hunt with a Bachelor's in Liberal Arts and a Master's in Education with no teaching certificate.

 

Financial Aid Follies

Today I also talked to the folks at financial aid. I have a payment of $5,600 due Monday and I simply don't have that kind of cash. I came home and spent an hour on the phone with OSAC to try to understand what the process on getting out of default is on my loan.

Here's the problem. Like most college students I paid a large chunk of my tuition through loans, about $30,000 worth. I dropped out of school because of a divorce and I had to move twice in one term... It wasn't worth school and work at the time. Because I stopped going to school I had to start paying my loans back, and I was able to make a few loan payments, but even working full time I lived alone and couldn't get a $425 monthly payment going. I was still getting $300 a month from my folks to pay rent and my bills, and this was with a 40 hour work week.

I went into default on my loan in February 1997. I was working full time but unable to pay until March of 2001, when I lost my job and I really wasn't able to pay anything. I was already trying to get on track to become a teacher, so applying for more technical support positions seemed wrong. I also didn't get any certificates or degrees in computer science while I was working (I did earn my degree in Liberal Arts in 1998) and the economy went belly up, so I was unhirable except by the fast food industry and I simply refused to take those kinds of jobs anymore. Two years of unemployment (with no benefits, my previous employer made sure I didn't get any) later and I start graduate school. I still haven't made payments on the loan, and I need a lot of money to get my current tuition paid.

I've been talking to the OSAC and got a lot of information which sounds like gibberish, but since my entire financial future is at stake I'd better make some sense of it. I am in default, and until I can muster a monthly payment between $400 and $450, which should be September 2004, then I can get on a loan rehabilitation program, which I've started and they think that I can squeeze $100 a month out of our budget to send them. The monthly interest on my loan is $105.58, so even at $100 a month I'm not breaking principle. In fact I have $4000 of back interest to pay before I get to make a payment on principle.

I know I've dug a deep hole for myself, and deciding not to rent a room or live with roommates was a financial mistake, but the system is not very helpful in getting out of the loan debt that I'm in. I think I'll have to beg with the inlaws for help. They both lawyers and understand this kind of thing.
posted by Josh English at 6/20/2003 05:23:00 PM