Celebrating a Tragedy: Student Debt and the Millennial Path
How are you supposed to feel when your house isn’t on fire, but the rest of the neighborhood is?
Yesterday evening, Rachael and I paid off our last student loans, and though this is a day we have been dreaming about, to be honest, it feels lousy.
Our collective education includes two Bachelors, three Masters, an Advanced Certificate, and a PhD, and the early parts of that training did not come cheaply. Combined, we paid off $258,677. Of that, $213,107 was principal and $45,570 was interest accrued over the 20-years since we first set foot on separate college campuses.
This is not a fluffy, self-help, financial-inspo piece. The strict budgets we’ve observed and other factors that brought us here are a model for no one.
We had a few things against us. Both of us were first generation college-goers, who emerged from our early training right as the American economy tanked in the Financial Crisis. There were no jobs, so we kept going to school. However, far more has been for us. Beyond privileges of race, appearance, and intellect, we also had a lot of dumb luck — we found in each other a partner willing to share everything, we secured jobs that compensated well with good benefits, and, to date, we have had no costly major medical issues. There is no cleverness, no virtue in ourselves that made this possible.
Let me say it again: this is NOT “you can do it, if you x, y, z” advice to the tens of millions of our peers groaning under the weight of their student debt. I’m writing to express our absolute and un-waivering solidarity with you and to SHOUT to anyone within earshot how meaningful action toward student debt forgiveness and higher education reform are ESSENTIAL for the future of our country.
So, what has financial life looked like for us?
First, we should acknowledge that we received some financial support associated with our professions. For loan relief the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts gave us $3,000 and the Northern Baptist Educational Society gave us $1,500. Together, this covered the cost of about 1/10th of the interest on our loans.
Everything else came from devoting an average of 60% of our take home pay to our student loans every month for the last 10 years. We have been able to do this because of a multitude of privileges: take home pay ample enough that a fraction could cover our expenses; insurance, housing costs, and pensions defrayed by our employers; and a location that allows us access to high quality and nutritious foods. Those who know us, know we have splurged on certain comforts — nice used furniture, nice used instruments (we love music!), a nice garden, and a nice car for which we have a nice monthly payment. Though, it is also true that on the cusp of 40, we own no house, we have no appreciable savings, and we have never traveled together for a vacation except to visit family.
Rachael and I have not suffered, but I mourn deeply for what we have not been able TO BE because of how our educational debt has forced us to configure our lives. There is much money we have not given to the causes that make our world a more just, equitable, and sustainable place. There are entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, and artisans who have not had our support or patronage. Perhaps most damning of all, there are many truths we have left unspoken, ideas unexplored, and dreams unpursued for the sake of maintaining a steady check.
We are but two people. There are 45 Million of us. We owe a combined $1.6 Trillion. There is a whole generation not living into the fullness of who we are because of how we must configure our finances, and, consequently, our lives.
The coming effects on society-at-large will be disastrous. How uninspired we will become when medical professionals and artists, clergy and academics, scientists and other specialists must become financial automata, seeking out as much money as they can to pay down as much as they can? How cheapened will our politics and common life be by values unanimated, ideas unexplored, and truths unexpressed?
For the sake of our common future, we MUST find a way to transform the costs of higher education and to lighten the burdens of those who have pursued it. Forgiveness is not merely a virtue, it is a necessity, and it is worth the best of our collective creativity and collective sacrifice to figure it out.
Our “house” is not on fire anymore, but the whole neighborhood is burning down. It is time for ALL of us to work together to extinguish this problem once and for all.
