Please help me overcome my loan anxiety

[EasterJoy]

Yes, if you eventually achieve an income closer to $40k a year (and I don’t think that is unreasonable as a goal), you will be able to knock out $60K much faster than in 10 years.

When you relocate, if you have a choice, I’d go for an area with convenient access to a community college. If you take a course a term in more career-oriented subject areas, that should help you figure out a long-term career plan.

Best wishes!

I would think what she might want to do is to move somewhere she can find work in her field, get experience, and then think about applying for a job in Portland, if Portland is where she wants to live. The main thing now is to get job experience and build a resume. Time spent underemployed out of her field of study isn’t going to help her. After a few years of experience, yes, a salary around $45 or even $50K is not atypical in her field. (That’s about median, though, so there will be as many below that as there are above it.)

When she looks for jobs, she might look at what sort of continuing education the employer provides. It is time to find ways to advance herself that don’t cost any more money.

 

[eatpraylove11]

Remember,
O most gracious Virgin Mary,
that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection,
implored thy help or sought thy intercession,
was left unaided.
Inspired with this confidence,
I fly unto thee,
O Virgin of virgins my Mother;
to thee do I come,
before thee I stand,
sinful and sorrowful;
O Mother of thy Word Incarnate,
despise not my petitions,
but in thy clemency hear and answer me.
Amen

Hail Mary, full of grace,
The Lord is with Thee;
Blessed art thou among women,
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners,
Now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Our Father,
who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen.

 

[Xantippe]

I would think what she might want to do is to move somewhere she can find work in her field, get experience, and then think about applying for a job in Portland, if Portland is where she wants to live.

**Eh, I don’t know that there is a “field” for people with BAs with sociology and anthropology.

I believe it’s called “temping.”**

The main thing now is to get job experience and build a resume. Time spent underemployed out of her field of study isn’t going to help her. After a few years of experience, yes, a salary around $45 or even $50K is not atypical in her field. (That’s about median, though, so there will be as many below that as there are above it.)

When she looks for jobs, she might look at what sort of continuing education the employer provides. It is time to find ways to advance herself that don’t cost any more money.

That would be ideal.

My advice is based on the assumption that she needs to get out of her current area and into an area with a better white collar employment climate and that she may need to do a number of frog hops from point A to point G before she is going to be able to arrive at a job that will pay rent, food, health insurance, and a little extra for student loans. For instance: live-in childcare (while saving for an apartment of her own and perhaps doing a community college class a term), temp job (while doing a community college class a term and perhaps continuing to do some childcare and/or renting a room in a house with other young adults), full-time white collar job (yay! an actual apartment!), and finally, better paying full-time white collar work that allows her to pay toward her student loans.

It’s a bank shot.

 

[Xantippe]

I was just reading this, from blogger Megan McArdle: Paying Student Loans is Hard. Do it Anyway.

bloombergview.com/articles/2015-06-10/paying-student-loans-is-hard-do-it-anyway-

(I’d add, but not unless you crack around $25k-$30k in income. Below that, don’t sweat it.)

MM graduated from a fancy MBA program, expecting a ritzy job, but then graduated right into the 2001 dot com bust.

 

[Sunbreak]

I don’t know if it is because we have several good private universities in the area, but if there are millions of people in the OP’s situation, I’d guess that about 100,000 of them live in Portland. OK, maybe not that bad, but seriously: there is a reason that the TV show Portlandia referred to Portland as “The City 'Where Young People Go To Retire.” It* isn’t *where they go to retire, but it is where they go to be grossly under-employed. (The other joke is that while the phrase mostly likely to be uttered by the high school drop-out is “do you want fries with that?” the phrase most likely to be uttered by the college liberal arts graduate is “did you want that as a grande or a vente?”)

There are people every year who get better-paying jobs with a sociology degree, but it would appear she is not one of them. The placement office at her alma mater may be able to help her find a job in her major in an area with a far lower price of living than Portland, too. I think she can find a financially-smarter place to live for the next ten years than here.

Yes, it can be a little difficult to find a job in Portland, but not impossible. What you said about living costs are true, though, since rents have escalated quite a bit in the last year or two. She does say in a later post that she is living in a rural area. That certainly limits her ability to find work, especially if she is relying on using a bicycle for transportation. I agree that moving someplace else would be a good move.

 

[Sunbreak]

Ok, another idea is to apply for a job through the Catholic Volunteer network, catholicvolunteernetwork.org/jobs-catholic-volunteer-network
You can search for something that is a longer term job like a year or two and provides room and board, a stipend (though this would probably be a very small amount for personal expenses), possible loan deferment, and participates in AmeriCorp. That way, you will have your room and board covered and you may be able to apply the AmeriCorp award (up to $5,350 for a full service year of 1700 hours) to your student loan. Plus you would get some work experience.

 

[EasterJoy]

That would be ideal.

My advice is based on the assumption that she needs to get out of her current area and into an area with a better white collar employment climate and that she may need to do a number of frog hops from point A to point G before she is going to be able to arrive at a job that will pay rent, food, health insurance, and a little extra for student loans. For instance: live-in childcare (while saving for an apartment of her own and perhaps doing a community college class a term), temp job (while doing a community college class a term and perhaps continuing to do some childcare and/or renting a room in a house with other young adults), full-time white collar job (yay! an actual apartment!), and finally, better paying full-time white collar work that allows her to pay toward her student loans.

It’s a bank shot.

There are jobs for people with sociology and anthropology degrees: social work, corrections, chemical dependency treatment, and a lot of the administrative work of law enforcement and health and human services for instance. It is a field, and the sooner she gets into it, the better. She may need to move to the Dakotas or who-knows-where to get a job in that area, but if she can start building a resume in her field, she will be on the track to get better pay than she’s getting now.

If memory servers correctly, she says she’s working 10 hrs a day and yet she’s grossing under $15K a year. She can do better than that. Even if she gets a job in social work and doesn’t do a lot better than that, she’ll at least be building her resume to get something more typical for her field, which is more in the region of $40-$50K.

At any rate, this isn’t something I’d take to amateurs on the internet. I’d go to the placement office at my alma mater and get some real information. Even if she is stuck in the Portland area–maybe liking it, but not having an option to move even if she didn’t–because she has friends and relatives there that she can live with, the placement office may be able to help her find something.

Community college classes cost money, and she doesn’t have any. She has a degree that can get her a better-paying job than she has. She needs to find a way to get one of them.

 

[Xantippe]

There are jobs for people with sociology and anthropology degrees: social work, corrections, chemical dependency treatment, and a lot of the administrative work of law enforcement and health and human services for instance. It is a field, and the sooner she gets into it, the better. She may need to move to the Dakotas or who-knows-where to get a job in that area, but if she can start building a resume in her field, she will be on the track to get better pay than she’s getting now.

With what money? She doesn’t even have a car. Relocation is expensive, especially across several state lines.

If memory servers correctly, she says she’s working 10 hrs a day and yet she’s grossing under $15K a year. She can do better than that. Even if she gets a job in social work and doesn’t do a lot better than that, she’ll at least be building her resume to get something more typical for her field, which is more in the region of $40-$50K.

**That would be great.

But if that doesn’t happen, she will need to look elsewhere.

Also, it’s not clear that she does have an aptitude or interest in the fields that you’ve mentioned. I wouldn’t encourage her to go that route unless she felt an actual calling–the burnout rate is terrible in social work.

socialworker.com/feature-articles/field-placement/What_I_Wish_I_Had_Known_Burnout_and_Self-Care_in_Our_Social_Work_Profession/**

At any rate, this isn’t something I’d take to amateurs on the internet. I’d go to the placement office at my alma mater and get some real information. Even if she is stuck in the Portland area–maybe liking it, but not having an option to move even if she didn’t–because she has friends and relatives there that she can live with, the placement office may be able to help her find something.

Right.

Community college classes cost money, and she doesn’t have any. She has a degree that can get her a better-paying job than she has. She needs to find a way to get one of them.

I have two relatives that teach at the CC level (in WA) and they have plenty of students at the OP’s income level or lower. Everybody, no matter how poor, goes to CC.

A little bookkeeping training or an extra computer class could be just the thing for her to make her a more marketable office worker and make it clear to prospective employers that she has her feet solidly on the ground.

 

[Xantippe]

A few more thoughts:

1. Colleges are often happy to hire their own graduates in entry-level administrative positions.
2. There are sometimes good tuition programs at colleges for employees. I knew a guy that worked as a secretary at a college department while doing an MA elsewhere in the college in a hot topic.

 

[EasterJoy]

I have two relatives that teach at the CC level (in WA) and they have plenty of students at the OP’s income level or lower. Everybody, no matter how poor, goes to CC.

A little bookkeeping training or an extra computer class could be just the thing for her to make her a more marketable office worker and make it clear to prospective employers that she has her feet solidly on the ground.

Her income level is $60K in debt and clearing $350/month total, with the interest clock running on the loan because she’s graduated. If she can avoid digging that any deeper, that would bea good thing, so unless the coursework is a way to put her repayment schedule on hold it is hours out of her work day and dollars out of her pocket that she can’t afford. Her loans are already beyond what is at all comfortable for her likely eventual income level. The chances are that someone in her age group did a great deal of her coursework on a computer. It is time to become someone with experience at social work, advocacy, riding herd on recovering addicts or whatever she hopes to do with her degree.

If someone comes out and tells her,“your college counsellor should not have let you graduate without Coursework X, because you can hardly get a job any more withiut it,” that is something else. Otherwise. from here on out she should not “invest” in anything for which she has not established a particular and compelling need.

 

[mommy_k]

There are several people that I know who have degrees in one area and pursued careers in loosly related ones—and some completely different.

A bachelors degree can open doors. My dh’s boss has a degree in philosophy, and is an investment banker–the company liked his ethics background.

I would apply to positions that seem interesting even if not related to your major that require a BA as other posters stated.

No need for extra school. Focus on the classes you had to take. I know history is reading and writing intensive, so that may be a hint of a transferable skill-perhaps at a newspaper, a law office and things like this.

 

[IrishAm]

It’s criminal that young people are allowed to burden themselves with a mountain of debt to acquire a piece of near useless paper. I’m sorry you are in this position, but if your loans are truly 100 percent private that is actually good news, because unlike those with government backed loans you can discharge yours in bankruptcy. File Chapter 7 and don’t look back.

Bear in mind, if someone co-signed for the loans (such as your parents), the financial institution will go after them should you default.

 

[slh3016]

I don’t get paid for all of the hours I work (the time I spend opening/closing the store, or staying late when there are customers), and I definitely don’t get overtime.I normally average 35~ paid hours, although sometimes it is closer to 30 depending on if the store closes early for an event. I do work 5 days a week (most weeks, except when there are holidays). I won’t lie, a lot of the practices of the people who employ me are a bit questionable. There have been times I’ve waited weeks past the day I’m supposed to be paid for a paycheck. This isn’t to say I’m not grateful for my job, because I am, so I hope it doesn’t come across that way. I am still actively looking for another job, but until then I need the money so I can’t justify leaving this one unless I have another lined up.

On days I don’t work I try to do odd jobs for neighbors and friends, such as petsitting and babysitting, but that if often spotty and I can’t rely on it for a steady source of income.

I will try to find ways I can cut my expenses more. Part of the stress I think comes from the fact that my parents cosigned on the private loans for me because I had no credit, so if I end up defaulting on them, then it will go back to my parents. I don’t want them to suffer because I couldn’t get a good enough job to pay my bills. Right now I’m on a 10-year repayment plan, but I’m hoping that if I put extra money toward my loans every month I’ll be able to shorten that. Possibly finding a live-in situation like was discussed previously in the thread could help free up more money to put toward the loans.

Oh wow, what sleazy business practices!! Please keep accurate notes and detailed proof of all you said. It could be very useful to you in the future. I know, for the time being, you are grateful to have a job and don’t want to risk not having one at all by rocking the boat, but, again, keep those records.

As for your loans, I would think your lender would be willing to take $50-100/month if it meant you didn’t file bankruptcy and them get nothing.

Are your parents willing to help you out any with your student loan debt? Honestly, if their income kept you from getting financial aid, I would like to think that maybe they could help you somewhat, even if it’s just to keep your head above water on it.

 

[Xantippe]

It is time to become someone with experience at social work, advocacy, riding herd on recovering addicts or whatever she hopes to do with her degree.

**I did not get that particular vibe from her OP, especially because of the double major with anthropology.

But the OP can tell us best herself if what she really wants to do with her time is spend it with addicts, mentally ill people and molested children. If that isn’t her passion, it could be really soul-killing. **

Also, for the human misery involved, social work is really low-paying.

I listened to a Dave Ramsey call a few years back. A lady had gotten $80k in debt while doing her master’s in social work. She was making a grand total of $40k at her job, having advanced and gotten a raise by virtue of her MSW…

There are way easier ways to make $40k.

One of my aunties was a parole officer for juvenile delinquents for quite a number of years. Being a sensitive and emotional person, I’m afraid she wasn’t able to leave her work at work. There were other issues going on, but her husband eventually left her. For the long haul, I think it is worth thinking about the toll that certain kinds of work take on family relationships.

 

[Xantippe]

Also, I don’t encourage further debt.

But I do encourage a course here and there and paying as she goes, with more of an eye to a career this time.

 

[meltzerboy]

Also, for the human misery involved, social work is really low-paying.

I listened to a Dave Ramsey call a few years back. A lady had gotten $80k in debt while doing her master’s in social work. She was making a grand total of $40k at her job, having advanced and gotten a raise by virtue of her MSW…

There are way easier ways to make $40k.

One of my aunties was a parole officer for juvenile delinquents for quite a number of years. Being a sensitive and emotional person, I’m afraid she wasn’t able to leave her work at work. There were other issues going on, but her husband eventually left her. For the long haul, I think it is worth thinking about the toll that certain kinds of work take on family relationships.

Salaries for social workers have increased…slightly. The average salary is still in the mid-40’s. Much better today are salaries for occupational therapists and nurses. Perhaps the OP might look into one of these programs if she has any interest in healthcare.

 

[agnes_therese]

It’s criminal that young people are allowed to burden themselves with a mountain of debt to acquire a piece of near useless paper. I’m sorry you are in this position, but if your loans are truly 100 percent private that is actually good news, because unlike those with government backed loans you can discharge yours in bankruptcy. File Chapter 7 and don’t look back.

As to the job front, consider teaching English overseas. There are several countries (Korea for example) where you can do this, make a reasonable wage, and have an adventure to boot. Just do your research and make sure the agency you work with is reputable.

Since she legitimately owes the money, advice to run out on the debt is not a good first choice. Everything possible should be done to pay them – the money was lent to her in good faith.

 

[Norm_The_Robot]

I say BK it. The government says it is ok to BK you debt if you meet certain criteria so what is wrong just getting rid of that debt so you can start your life. There is even biblical precedent for this as God commanded the Israelites to forgive debt and release slaves from bondage every seven years right. Seems to me that you are both in debt and a slave so if the government has a path for you to do this then do it. Otherwise you will be stuck like this for quite some time I fear. You should have gone to trade school instead and learned to weld or be a plumber or something.

 

[EasterJoy]

Also, for the human misery involved, social work is really low-paying.

I listened to a Dave Ramsey call a few years back. A lady had gotten $80k in debt while doing her master’s in social work. She was making a grand total of $40k at her job, having advanced and gotten a raise by virtue of her MSW…

There are way easier ways to make $40k.

One of my aunties was a parole officer for juvenile delinquents for quite a number of years. Being a sensitive and emotional person, I’m afraid she wasn’t able to leave her work at work. There were other issues going on, but her husband eventually left her. For the long haul, I think it is worth thinking about the toll that certain kinds of work take on family relationships.

Those are concerns to be considered *before *you choose your degree, though. It does not do her much good now–besides, we don’t know that she did not go into this area with both eyes open, via internships and the like.

Once you’ve chosen a path and gone up to your neck in debt to choose it, you’d better get what money that education can net you until you can find a financially-sensible way to do something else. She took out a lot of loans to pursue this dream. Why not find someone who can help her realize it? Maybe social work isn’t a lot of money, but it is more than she is getting now, and unlike many other things she can do it is a job she dreamed of having. She’s paying for the dream–why give up on it when she does not have to, instead of pursuing it with a mind to finding a more lucrative and satisfying way to do it? That is where placement offices can help.

By the way, any mentors in the field she can find would also be good people to consult. She’s cast her lot with social work. I say, until you find something that you know will pay you better, don’t invest another penny in something else. You do not need any more debt that won’t give you a positive return on investment.

 

[Xantippe]

I say BK it. The government says it is ok to BK you debt if you meet certain criteria so what is wrong just getting rid of that debt so you can start your life. There is even biblical precedent for this as God commanded the Israelites to forgive debt and release slaves from bondage every seven years right. Seems to me that you are both in debt and a slave so if the government has a path for you to do this then do it. Otherwise you will be stuck like this for quite some time I fear. You should have gone to trade school instead and learned to weld or be a plumber or something.

Then her parents are on the hook. Do they BK, too?