This guest post from Jason Jacobs is part of the “reader stories” feature at Get Rich Slowly. Some stories contain general advice; others are examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success — or failure. Jason wants to be financially free so he and his wife can be missionaries with no strings attached. You can read about his journey to becoming fat free at FindingMyFitness.com.
When we’re young and stupid, we don’t think about how decisions will affect us ten years down the road. Many of us have often said something like, “If I had known then what I know now.” The thing about clichés is that they’re usually founded in truth.
When I graduated from high school, I wanted to be as far away from my family in Virginia as possible, just like every other college-bound teenager. I wanted to live in New York again, so instead of working my way through and paying in-state tuition, I decided to go to the Rochester Institute of Technology. They had a great internship support program, and I thought that would be important when I found a career.
To “save” money, I lived with my grandparents in Syracuse and attended a community college whose credits would automatically transfer to RIT after two years. By my second year at community college, I was already taking out loans.
The loans begin
My first loan was roughly $5000 because the out-of-state tuition there was triple the in-state cost. The second semester, I had to get my dad to take out a Plus loan for another $5000. After that, it was time for the big guns. I transferred to RIT, and by the time I finished school I had about $45,000 in college debt.
I was okay with that. I’d be able to pay back the $15,000 per year with the fantastic career I was going to get because of the internships I’d find by going to RIT. My first year out of college, I was only making $7.50 an hour as a programmer. Most of that was because I wasn’t looking very hard, but you can’t pay college loans back on $7.50 an hour.
I’m still paying on those loans.
Loans get in the way of life
In 2007, on a whim, I took a mission trip to a school in Paraguay. In just two weeks, I fell in love with it so much that I couldn’t wait to go back. There’s a program that allows North Americans in my church to teach English at the school. In October 2008, I found myself in Paraguay committed for a year.
Before moving to Paraguay, I paid off my credit card debt, had already owned my car, and had found renters to cover my mortgage. The only debt I had to worry about were my college loans. In ten years, I’d managed to pay the balance down to a bit under $30,000. I was able to get a deferment on one and a forbearance on the other. I had enough money in the bank from donations to live in Paraguay for just about exactly a year, but not enough to pay down my debt.
Then my life really changed. I fell in love with a girl who actually wanted to marry me! I’ll say this now: if I didn’t have any college loans, I would have stayed in Paraguay to marry her. For the first time, I felt like my debt was controlling my life and my happiness.
I’d been happy as a clam before. I had a good job, I was able to pay my debts, save a bit here and there, and never want for anything. Now all of a sudden I found myself in desperation because I’d found the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, but she didn’t want to spend it in the U.S. I was completely fine with that, but my debts were in the way.
It’s not all bad, but it could be easier
So now we get to my point: Don’t make decisions without really thinking about them long-term. I’m now faced with a situation where I have to structure my future around an irrational decision that I made fourteen years ago.
I wanted to share my experience with you as an encouragement on your own journey towards financial freedom.
In the end, my girlfriend and I spent a year apart working on her paperwork because she realized she couldn’t live without me. We’re now married and living in the U.S., but our dream since we were dating has been to go back and start a foster home in a poor area of Paraguay. But we can’t. I still owe too much money.
Don’t misunderstand: I’m not whining about my lack of foresight when I was 18. I just want to get you to think hard before you start borrowing money you think they’ll be able to pay back quickly.
These days our budget is tight and the debt is disappearing, but we’re still a few years out from being debt-free. In the meantime, our dreams will have to wait.
Don’t ever let debt make your decisions for you. Be free to dream, free to live your life!
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I think the problem isn’t just that you borrowed too much for college. From your story, it appears as if you bought a house, a car, and had credit card debt. You also admit that you didn’t work hard to find a higher paying job right out of school. The poor choices you made as a college student were compounded by the poor choices you made after college. You could have had the school debt paid off within a few years if you’d made different choices.
Running an orphanage or foster home is a noble dream, but one that will require great financial skills and sacrifice. Perhaps the few years you are spending not being able to follow your dreams are good preparation for the sacrifices you’ll have to make later.
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Ditto to what Marsha says. It’s not the student loans, but the loans, the car, the house, the credit card. The not working harder to find a better job.
We paid off our student loans before buying a house or a car and I lost my ability to eat red meat rather than go into credit card debt (which is, perhaps, going too far, but financially it worked out very well). We were in reasonable shape before buying a car and fantastic shape before even considering buying a home.
I didn’t think of adding this, but Marsha is absolutely 100% correct. Now is the time to start thinking long-term again about your dreams. If you really want to run a foster home, you’re going to need management and financial skills. Maybe it’s time to think about getting an MPA with an emphasis in non-profits or NGOs. Passion only goes so far. Real skills are necessary too. And working hard, spending less, and saving a lot now couldn’t hurt.
You can put your dreams on hold, or you can spend your time working towards them. If you blame things like student loans (especially when they’re reasonably sized and you have a lucrative degree) rather than focusing on the future and what steps you should be taking, it’s a bit easier to just put things on hold.
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I agree with Nicole — find a way to make this time useful. Don’t see it as languishing in the US; see it as time to build up the skills and resources you both need to be successful. Is your wife allowed to work in the US? If not, have her volunteer at non-profits to learn how they are run.
Also, since you do programming, can you find a job you can do remotely? There is a real possibility you’ll need ways to make some extra money in case you don’t always have backers. Keep any skills you have current so that you can work via the internet instead of having to come back to the US when cash is short.
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Good points, these. Although I am opposed to long prison sentences.
For the OP:
1. Isn’t there a rule now limiting the payment of student debt to a maximum of 10% of your discretionary income? This was on the news the other day. I don’t know all the details since the subject doesn’t directly concern me, but that’s something you should probably research.
1a. And US citizens are taxed on their worldwide income. I don’t know how this would connect with the student debt if you move to Paraguay, but I imagine it would reduce your payments– and it might take you 45 years to pay it off, but it wouldn’t overwhelm you at any point. You might have to keep paying forever but you don’t have to put your life on hold.
2. I gotta insist on Leah’s idea– if you’re a programmer, can’t you work from anywhere? Your cost of living would be cheaper in Paraguay than in the US and you might be able to actually pay off your debt *faster*.
2a. I am not a devotee of the Peter Pan lifestyle of Tim Ferris, but he sure has some great ideas about working from any place– read 4 Hour Workweek, maybe? If you have a US employer you could probably negotiate working from abroad– well, read the book and see what you think. it’s got the story of a guy who worked for HP (I think) and married a Chinese girl– and stayed there.
3. If you work for a company with a offices in Paraguay, you could request a transfer there. Or apply directly. Maybe start here?
http://www.pamcham.com.py/es/
–
ps- I am terrible at “patience” and would never recommend anyone to live a life of quiet desperation. I believe (unreasonably, of course) that the unstoppable force will eventually beat the immovable object. Make something happen.
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Wow – sounds like you learned the lesson that hindsight showed you! I won’t belabor that here, but would like to point this out: It sounds like your life has done a complete 180 from where you thought it would originally be going. Further the change happened in a brief period of time, relative to the years you spent getting an education for the life you thought you’d lead. I don’t know many people who have the skills or financial situations to change course so suddenly. It IS a process and perhaps those loans are part of it for you.
It sounds to me that you and your girlfriend, while not living in the country of your choice, are at least in a country where you can glean non-profit management skills, secure some financial backers for your next step and prepare for this next venture from a ‘business’ point of view. Granted you’re missing out on the cultural ties you could be buildling, but I imagine with your drive you’ll successfully navigate that when the time is right.
Best wishes to you and your girlfriend. I’m impressed by your goals and hope you enjoy the journey. You just never know what you’ll learn, or who you’ll meet here in the US that will help you meet with success once you make the move to Paraguay.
Once you start building your dreams or start the organizational side of this calling, follow up and let us know how it’s going!
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Thank you for sharing your story! I am happy to see that people are starting to talk more about student loans the long-term impact it has. I started taking out loans during undergrad and graduate periods without discussing the future financial impact with parents or a mentor. Now I have been paying for 10 years, and whittled about 20k off the balance but there’s still a long way to go yet. Now, I am married with a family and we’ve paid off our other debt but the student loans are still there along with our mortgage. Because we need to service that contractual obligation it detracts from what we can save for our other long-term goals, something I didn’t anticipate 10-15 years ago when taking out these loans quarter after quarter.
Student loans are easy credit and you don’t see the total amounts until after you graduate and consolidate all the loans. So much attention was paid to credit card companies soliciting student applications on campus several years ago and yet not one word was said about what was happening inside the building in the financial aid offices. When you’re 19 or 20, you don’t have to get your parents permission to take on this debt, but you don’t have enough life experience to make these decisions and consider the implications. We would strongly encourage young adults of that age to think before making other life-changing decisions such as marrying or having a child and yet we blithely send them off to college financial aid office believing the school has their best interests at heart. The reality is the school needs money to run like everything else and student loans are another revenue stream.
Thanks for sharing Jason and contributing to the public discourse on this topic.
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It’s likely that had you discussed the loan situation with your parents, you still would have done it anyway. Granted, you could have been the exception, but I found that my kids seldom took advice if that advice went against what they wanted to do. Currently my 28 year old daughter is taking out lots of loans to make it through school. I’ve tried to discuss the problem (her older brother did, too), sent her links to articles like this, talked about how I got through college (work and save, go to school until money runs out, repeat), how my husband got through school (work and save, get 2-year degree, find job and get employer to pay for B.S. and M.S.), and how her older brother got through school (work at night at a job where he could study, school during the day). I’ve noticed that my kids have to make the mistakes on their own and suffer the consequences, much as I’d like them to learn from mistakes that I’ve already made.
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sometimes it’s the parents encouraging the loan taking…believing the myths about forbearance and forgiveness and low interest rates…and/or believing that a college degree is necessarily worth any price and that you will get a good job and/or profession that will allow those amounts not be a hardship.
My young cousin and the darling of the family just attained a PA certification at the cost of 100k in loans (more than the cost of her parents’ house). Yes, PA is one of the only growing fields now but there will be a glut in the market in 5 years…and besides, the girl’s heart lies as a med volunteer in 3rd world Latin countries which is how she spent her school summers…the family is hoping she’ll get over that and settle down with a guy, mortgage and 9-5 obgyn clinic job but what if she doesn’t? (I’m hoping she doesn’t.)
She’s a better kid than I was at her age so if anyone works it out it will be her, but even so, she’s got a hard row to hoe.
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Yup. My parents insisted and insisted that student loans were no big deal, that I’d have years to pay them back and shouldn’t worry about them at all. Certainly no one at my financial aid offices (I even worked in one for a year!) ever said anything to contradict this.
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Yes. This. When I was 17 my parents went to meetings for parents about paying for college at my high school. For reasons I don’t understand (and I have asked my parents and just gotten shrugs), my parents decided it would be easier to take out all private student loans because they would all be together in one place. (I’m not stupid or unorganized, so it isn’t as though I couldn’t have handled several different accounts.) For any 17 year old, I think that being guided by you parents in huge financial matters has a lot of sway. These are huge amounts of money, huger than anything you’ve ever experiences, and you are relying on your parents to help you navigate it in this first stage, so that you can take over after college when this all makes more sense and you are a “real” adult.
For me in particular, I was struggling with major mental illness that fogged any ability I might have had to recognize my parents’ folly. And I assumed I would have killed myself before graduating from college anyway (not that I thought of this in terms of strategically not paying back my debts, but more that the repayment part of my life wasn’t going to exist, so why bother thinking about it).
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I don’t think its the house, car, or credit card debt in addition to his student debt that was the problem.
He sounds like one of those people that could have benefited from not going straight into college out of high school. He preferred moving to Paraguay for a year, and now setting up an orphanage, and he didn’t prefer to put much emphasis on his career.
To me it sounds like he went into something that he didn’t really enjoy/love doing.
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Well, he didn’t know that he wanted to do that then!
I agree that the loans for community college were the first bad step — that is, that if he’d stayed home and done CC there for two years, he’d have had less debt and maybe discovered what he wanted sooner.
But maybe not. It’s hard for kids that are good at a lot of things and like a lot of things to always be told to “do what they love.” What if you don’t know what you love?
What if you thought you loved it but taking a class in college makes you think you hate it?
Mostly I think that the message is that you DON’T always know what you are going to do or are going to love in life (look at J.D.!) so you should try to keep debt down until you do, so that when you do, you have the leeway.
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That’s about what it was. When I got out of high school (near the top of my class) I was set for a career in computer programming. The commenter who said Paraguay wasn’t even a twinkle in my eye was right.
And that’s basically my point. I had no way of planning how life was going to shift for me. We are kids in high school, and eventually we mature (hopefully). Priorities change, opportunities arise, and you hope to be able to go with it.
The whole point of my article was not to complain about my debt. Rather it was to give an example to someone who might be starting out (if they’re even reading) BECAUSE you don’t know what’s coming down the road. Debt ties you to your situation in many cases, so think really hard about getting into it before you do. Unfortunately too many of us use debt to get things we can’t pay for expecting to be able to pay on it for years. That’s a terrible way to live.
-j
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The whole concept of in-state/out-of-state tuition is ridiculous. It’s a practice that needs to end.
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The reason this is done is because so many universities get funding from their state. That money comes from in-state taxpayers. That’s why in-state people who have been paying taxes get a lower rate.
If you do away with the in-state/out-of-state setup, then you’ll need to do away with state-level funding for universities – otherwise taxpayers will be subsidizing people from other states to go to college in their state.
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“If you do away with the in-state/out-of-state setup, then you’ll need to do away with state-level funding for universities”
Sounds like an awesome plan to me! – as long as the taxes go down too ! Level the playing field. The govt is playing the whole university thing as a big business venture to enable it to grow in size and expand its influence/control in our lives.
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If you want all college degrees to cost what private colleges do… 40K/year rather than 10K/year, then sure, get rid of state subsidies. States tend to get benefits from having college graduates around to do high-skilled labor. It attracts high-skilled employers who pay high salaries that go back into state coffers (and don’t drain state coffers with needs). Without gov’t subsidies of higher education, only the rich (and only those who saved for their kids) will be able to afford to get educated (and some subset of very smart hard-working people that colleges like to give scholarships to– but your average college student, not so much).
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If you get rid of the state support of universities, prepare to pay private school prices for state schools. Rather than “leveling the playing field” for *students*, it would level it for private vs. state colleges–and raise tuitions to private school prices.
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Ann – Go research where and how State Universities REALLY get their money – if you can.. And watch College Conspiracy on Youtube.. What you state is a popular myth that the state will happily let you keep believing since you and almost everyone else believing it is how they get away with robbery. Competition in a true Free Market will bring prices down – always has – always will. Maybe those “Average students” mentioned above should focus on a solid high school diploma and learn a trade – no shame in that. Or maybe you think there is? See my other comments to the effect on the damage done to a society when we’re brainwashed to believe that everyone should go to college. I’d bet my 60-something YO High School Grad / Military Tech-school friends up against most of today’s Master’s Degree students any day on nearly any knowledge subject — Not even a competition!! They really learned their stuff in High School pre-1960′s.
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Good timing on this topic ! http://lewrockwell.com/bonner/bonner515.html
“The education industry takes more and more of the national resources while producing less and less real output. And if you want a job, you are better off as a well-credentialed zombie than as an energetic (often disruptive) producer.”
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I would be happy to pay more in taxes if everyone could get an education.
It is sad that in the U.S. education is so expensive. Even though I’d never benefit directly (I went to a private university and I will not have children) I think we’d all benefit from an educated population; likely in ways it would be impossible to imagine.
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Agreeing with the sentiment, adding my own 2 cents to support the sentiment that it is good to educate people.
Of industrialized nations the US has some of the lowest social mobility. If you’re born poor you’re more like to stay poor than if you were born in Australia, Denmark, Canada, and even France. See: http://www.oecd.org/vgn/images/portal/cit_731/7/50/44765433G4G%20ch%205.gif
And for the complete study:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/2/7/45002641.pdf
To improve one’s odds of finding the American dream, its better to live in just about any developed nation other than the USA.
Interestingly, low social mobility correlates to high income inequality. And high income inequality correlates (actually, might be causal, but I haven’t looked at the subject in depth enough to make that statement, so I’ll stick to correlate for now since I know that much is true) to a host of other poor metrics such as lower life expectancy, higher incarceration rates, lower math and literacy, higher obesity, etc.
See this TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html
I picked up the guy’s book after seeing that video and am reading it now. The kindle edition is super cheap at $4.
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Totally agree with the long-term thinking. My wife and I have made a few of those mistakes as well in regards to debt. We would like to go to Africa for a year, but won’t be able to until more debt is paid off.
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Gotta leave a comment on this one. Amen ! Similar regrets and lessons here too man. Leaving Virgina to go to New York for school as you look back IS really crazy. Virginia schools (public and private ) are among the top in the nation in all courses of study and very many give significant priority to resident applicants. I live in MD just 7 miles from VA and know plenty of people who pick up an move to enable their children to go to VA schools as residents. I went to NC for school (out of state!! – similar story) and the whole state was PACKED with students escaping from from NJ and NY –loans loans loans . Go to YOUTUBE and watch COLLEGE CONSPIRACY – Awesome video rings true! College debt is gone for me – but the IMPACT remains your whole life!!!
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I dunno, we get graduate students who have never been out of state in their entire sheltered lives. There’s something to be said for experiencing a different culture and getting some life experience while you’re still in a relatively safe environment. May not be worth the price that some kids are paying for it, but that doesn’t mean the experience is not worth something over in-state tuition.
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Nicole, I couldn’t agree more. I am in professional school with many kids who went to school in state (and are continuing to do so). Many of them have no idea what the rest of the East Coast, much less country, is about. Many of them kept expenses down by staying home (and that definitely, definitely has its merits), but now they don’t know how to maintain a dwelling and really expect their parents to wait on them hand and foot. I am struggling more financially, but I see how much more experience it’s giving me. Good and bad.
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“but I see how much more experience it’s giving me. Good and bad…”
the ability to “see” such already makes you one smart cookie, brava katie!
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Nicole and Katie, I do know! I used to believe that line of thought back when I was on scholarship money, loans (pay later), or parent’s savings. When it’s your own $$$ OOP the attitude shifts quickly. That “move away and see other cultures stuff” is really limited. You don’t (should not) go to 4 years + of expensive college with a silly “like.. like I ‘m getting culture” mindset. Not sure where you are in life, but beer bongs and wild co-eds are about the same everywhere in the world in my experience. Yeah I went South a few hours to a school with programs that aligned strongly with my goals and I got Southern culture “along the way”. I learned later that the “culture” would have happened anywhere I went. America and especially college campuses are homogenizing so rapidly, differences are getting trivial now. After 5 years being treated as a number in a BIG engineering school, I could not wait to leave the “culture” and get a life doing something cool that I liked. Just to clarify, in looking back I believe “culture” is not meaningless, but should be secondary – something on the side. Oh yeah and people can gain “worldliness” best through combined reading and travel – after the debt is gone – or just join the military !
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Another comment after reading some of the others.. Far too many young folks are “encouraged” / pushed into college from high school and we have many societal problems as a result. High school has dwindled significantly in its real educational value over the last 50+ years – which makes many think they need to go to college for the “real” education. Then they don’t get that “real ed” and think now they need a Masters etc.. Society / media tells them constantly they need a “lucrative” job in a cubicle instead of doing something USEFUL and that they like or love. Now our nation has to hire Chinese construction companies with Chinese worker to build bridges in the USA – WITH OUR TAX / STIMULUS $$- Why? Because there are not enought USA companies with enough good Welders (people who weld) that will work. Just one example. The wisest men I know have solid Degrees AND also are skilled tradesmen (usu. in more than one trade).
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I’m a huge proponent of this thinking. We often talk about how a liberal arts degree is really more of a luxury than a job qualifier at this point (you can get the same education with a library pass). We need to do more in terms of letting people know where the job deficits are (overall and geographically speaking) and then providing incentives for them go there!
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Jason I just want to thank you for sharing your story about how debt can impact your life. I’m a 23-year old recent college graduate, and I too let debt control my decisions for longer than I’d like. I was lucky enough to avoid student loans, but I racked u $7,000 in credit card debt moving to LA to pursue acting. In hindsight, it was a pretty rash decision, and it took me a year and some help from my parents to pay it off. I could have been in MUCH better financial shape if I had been smarter about my money decisions. I’m glad you learned a lesson, and thanks again for sharing your story!
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Wow, what a powerful story. You missed out on a year of marriage — and spent a year away from the woman you love! — because of debt. That story really “hits home;” it makes the long-term implications of debt much more clear.
I used to be friends with a returned Peace Corps volunteer who served in Eastern Europe. He said that after his Peace Corps service ended, he spent an additional one year in his country of service, but then he had to return to the U.S. because he needed to repay his student loans. Otherwise, he said, he would have stayed overseas.
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I have to ask, Did you ever consider walking away from the loans?
I realize that not repaying loans is typically a last resort, but if you are going to live in Paraguay your creditors options are limited.
My other question is about starting a foster home in a poor area of Paraguay. If that goal is several years away why not become foster parents in the US for now? There are many needy children closer to home.
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I like this comment – but you’re missing that for the author and his wife ‘home’ is now Paraguy
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No, our home at the moment is the US because of the debt. But as I mentioned before, I find it irresponsible to walk away from a loan just because it won’t really affect me in Paraguay.
Regarding being foster parents now, I admit we hadn’t thought of doing it right now. We definitely want to adopt at least one kid, but we know that’s an expensive process. Fostering might not be, but with my wife still learning English it wouldn’t be easy if the child didn’t know Spanish.
Definitely something to think about and worth talking about!
-j
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Many many foster kids in the US speak Spanish.
Additionally, language immersion is something that upper middle class people pay quite a bit of money to get for their kids because it is supposed to make children more intelligent. Kids pick up language much more quickly than adults do.
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Student loans are notoriously difficult to “walk away from” in the U.S. These are the only loans that one cannot be freed from even by declaring bankruptcy.
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So your dreams were put on hold. So were a lot of people’s.
The litany lately on GRS about college debt is getting a bit tiresome. For many fields, 2 years at community college does not equal 2 years at Harvard- the quality of education is just not there. I won’t turn this into a rant, just a mention that life’s choice are what shape you.
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“so were a lot of people”
maybe that’s why we’re hashing on it so much; we are tired of the american way and paradigm that insists debt is a way of life. It is only a way of life here, and only for the last 50 years or so. We are tired of losing dreams to it and are doing our best to explain to others why the bridge is unsafe.
those of us who have been reading this site for a while (years) forget that every day, some individual who needs it, is only just discovering it.
americans, at least, like to talk about a thing six ways from sunday before they do something. This is the talking.
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The reason our country is so hosed up is that for so long, so many of our nations “leaders” have spent their time at “quality” places like Harvard. Did you not get the memo? Our country is nearly toast with the HAAVAD grads having been at the helm selling off our nation to benefit themselves. Kick those people out of everything except possibly jail and get me some Tech-school trained tradesman /businessman in Congress. Then we’ll be getting on track !
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Where are the tech school tradesmen who are trained to lead? Any of them running for office? Tech school and trade schools by their very nature teach- technical skills and trades, not critical thinking skills.
Last I checked, it was people taking out mortgages they couldn’t afford who got themselves -and the country- into this subprime mortgage-made mess. No one held guns to their heads and forced them to take out $300K mortgages when they were making $40K a year.
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Or we could go further back.
It was deregulation that allowed people who wouldn’t previously of qualified for loans to get those loans. It was the false information those people were fed, that their house would keep gaining value and they could refinance at a lower rate in the future. It was the lack of regulation and oversight that allowed those banks to leverage that bad debt to sell to others to get the capital to create more bad debt.
No one held a gun to anyone’s head. No stick was needed for the guy wanting a home to call his own or the banker seeking more profits. Just big fat juicy carrots all around.
Including juicy carrots for the politicians who got rid of the regulations. Lose an election? If you took care of the corporations you can get a nice cushy consultant job. Want to win the election? Court the corporations and get campaign donations, or as its called in law, “speech.”
The people with money and influence got us into this mess and they’re still reaping the benefits.
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You clearly don’t know any of the tech-school trained LEADERS That I do – who lead departments, and entire businesses or own their own – and can fix their own cars too. Hangin’ out with all Ivy covered colege grads? Ever heard the comment that the military is run by Officers (college grads) – BUT led by NCO’s – (Non commissioned Officers -typically not college grads. Well this college grad engineer knows where he’s found the best LEADERS. (and I don’t mean MANAGERS) !!
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As Barnetto alludes to, there IS a looming college loan bubble/meltdown analogous to the subprime home mortgage fiasco that we are experiencing. Check the NIA website and videos to see more about it.
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It’s too bad that your inspiring story got put on hold. I feel empathy for anyone that wants to open a foster home in Paraguay and dramatically make the world a better place!
One thing you can definitely take comfort in is the fact that you did make several good choices. Perhaps going to school out of state wasn’t a great financial decision, but at least you didn’t go to 4-year school right away! You didn’t get sunk into debt too badly compared to a lot of others, and at least the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t too far away right? Thanks for sharing the story, and best of luck to you. Congratulations on finding a direction in life along with a partner that supports it, that alone is worth far more than any educational choice you could make.
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The main problem is that those that would benefit most from this article (17-19 year olds) aren’t reading it, and the ones that have the same lack of foresight that you did wouldn’t listen even if they did read it.
Like everything else, this article is about choices. My story has similarities to yours – I applied to RIT and was accepted. The difference is I chose to remain in-state where I had a full scholarship rather than go to RIT where only about 1/4th was covered. I graduated from college debt free.
There will always be people that make bad choices and then have to pay the consequences later on in life. Nothing new here.
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This. So much of the advice about money and college is only useful before you start college. That makes sense to some degree, but I wish there were some way to motivate those kids to read these things and take them seriously before they go to college. I suppose it is the experience of despair regarding debt that motivates many people to look for this advice afterward. I wish there was more, better after-college advice, but I suppose the lack is due to the fact that there really are few options.
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I don’t see your main problem or challenge to staying in Paraguay as the original loans, I see it as your inability to live on a tight budget and pay off more than $15K in 10 years. That’s slow and ridiculous!! Almost anyone should be able to pay off $45K in 10 years, easy. You said you didn’t want for anything during this time. Maybe you should have gotten on a tight budget and paid off your loans quickly. A part-time job would have had the loans gone in a few years. I see it as not being willing to do the hard work to dig yourself out of a mess – not so much the student loans. You also obviously lived beyond your means all around. Responsible student loans – within federal limits and guidelines – can be just fine. Taking out extra student loans to fund lifestyle, credit card debt, car debt, house debt (while still in other debt), and then not looking hard for a well-paying job and not working an extra job are all much worse moves.
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Unfortunately I cannot sympathize with the author. He claims this decision was irrational, but it really wasn’t at the time. It was completely germane to what he wanted to do then.
He talks about feeling strongly about the internship program that RIT had, and how it would forward his overall goals. The thing is… his goals CHANGED over time. He also doesn’t talk about what ever happened to his dream of becoming a _______ (he doesn’t say exactly what he intended to do with this degree). It sounds like it was just dropped altogether when things didn’t work out right away. This may just be an article editing issue, but it sounds like his priorities took a 180 and that’s the crux of the thing.
The author also doesn’t talk at all about what he gained from going to college. This seems a bit… ungracious. The title is “how debt put my dreams on hold” but those dreams weren’t even a twinkle in his eye until well after college had come and gone. If he hadn’t gone to college, he may never have ended up in Paraguay in the first place.
I agree with Regina #21, that if you make a bad choice you have to pay the consequences later. And in life, we are always making mistakes. It does not sound like the author is really taking ownership of this one — “debt” put his dreams on hold, this decision that his 18-year-old-self made, as if it was somebody else’s debt.
I guess the moral is: if you’re not truly committed to what you set out to do with an investment, then don’t make the investment. That is a very wise insight, but I don’t think the author has quite made it there yet.
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Also, ack:
“In the meantime, our dreams will have to wait.”
?? You married the woman of your dreams who was by the grace of the INS allowed to come to live with you in the US. You have a roof over your head, food to eat, and family. It seems to me like the author ain’t gonna be happy unless everything works out 100% the way he wants it! But life isn’t like that! Instead of seeing this as baggage that you don’t deserve, try to see it as part of a process of hard work on life.
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I know first-hand that coming to live in the US isn’t exactly a dream for many Latin Americans . Moving away from family, friends and tasty food to live in isolated subdivisions where nobody walks in the street and a lot of food tastes like cardboard isn’t everyone’s idea of paradise.
I myself love it here, for different reasons, yet I couldn’t force my parents to move here if I had to uproot them with forceps. They have a rich social life and enjoy a standard of living they could never find here on their fixed income. And that’s without considering that they enjoy free health care back home, while here they would be inelegible for health insurance. Yes, they don’t have ipads, and share one cellphone between them, and their internet is slow, but their personal relationships have much higher bandwidth.
My brother and his wife also moved back to South America exhausted from a commuting lifestyle, tired of having to spend a fortune in child care, bored of TV, and sick of freezing winters. They have no taste buds so food wasn’t an issue for them, but they missed friends and family.
Aside from peculiar personalities or preferences (e.g., I have little patience for people, and I love anonymity), migration is only desirable for those who struggle economically and can’t find a job where they live. Once your needs are met, I find that people in Latin America live on average much happier lives than people in the US.
So… this long-winded rant was to say that it’s very possible that Jason’s wife could be a lot happier in Paraguay than in the US and might feel very homesick beyond any talk of “dreams.” One person cannot be a substitute for a world.
This, by the way, is from someone who moved from the ever-exciting East Coast to sleepy New Mexico so that his wife could be near family and eat green chile burgers. So I’m not just spouting theory here. Many people have a profound need to be close to home.
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Also, almost forgot to say–I thought it wasn’t very gentlemanly to say “she realized she couldn’t live without me”. I chuckled a bit when I read that (see more here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39YUXIKrOFk ). He could have written instead “we couldn’t live without each other,” which is more courteous and probably closer to the truth anyway. Maybe this wasn’t intentional, but it still grates the ear, and could have been edited.
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El Nerdo, you’re married? I’m heartbroken!!
Anyway, well-said on the reasons people do/don’t migrate – sometimes Americans seem to think that the USA is some kind of mecca, even though we have a relatively very low standard of living, given our country’s wealth.
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El Nerdo, “she realized she couldn’t live without me” was intentional, tounge in cheek (you did chuckle!), and she’d completely agree
However, it’s true: we couldn’t live without each other. She wanted to wait until I paid off my debt and could just move back down, and I really couldn’t handle that. But she couldn’t either, so that’s why she’s here!
-j
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El Nerdo’s right. “The grace of the INS” is a pretty closed-minded American attitude (one that’s too common), as if to say the US is the only place anyone would want to live. It was a HUGE struggle to even get her here, and the only reason she came and I didn’t stay was what you read in the story.
The “gracious” INS made it REALLY hard for her to get up here. The only place that made me feel like a valuable American citizen during the process was the American Embassy in Paraguay (and *they* were Paraguayans). No wonder people try to come over illegally.
Every American needs to remember that we ALL are children (or grandchildren or great or great-great) of immigrants. Too many people forget that.
I read the comment to my wife and she said “Living in the US isn’t everyone’s dream.” Everything Nerdo talked about is something that attracts me to Paraguay. But until Americans get out and see the world, you don’t really appreciate that type of thing. If you’re able to live your dream just fine in the US with American debt, than I’m very happy for you.
Also, I want to make it clear that I never said I don’t deserve the debt. I made every decision that put debt into my life, and I take full responsibility for it. Which is why I’m paying it back and not just walking away from it.
-j
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It’s funny that I have a closed-minded and American attitude, because I’m not American and I’ve wrangled with the INS for almost a decade.
It was sarcasm — the INS cares little about people or families. By design, their mission is to keep people out. I dislike a lot about the US and the plan is to move back home as soon as possible, but my work is here and, now, so too is my husband, and for other reasons we need to stay here for a little while. Your assumptions about me are way off target.
I don’t really understand how you read “as if to say the US is the only place anyone would want to live” in my comment. There is not any hint whatsoever of a value judgment as to whether the US is good, bad, or ugly. I don’t give a fig what anyone thinks of the US. The comment reflected on the nature of the INS.
Where did I say that living in the US was your dream or your wife’s dream? I called her “the woman of your dreams”… not sure how you read that into my comment. We all realize that your wife coming to the US is hardly your ideal, but from my experience it’s a small miracle that you were able to achieve this tiny feat that gives you comfort in the meantime, if indeed it is true that your wife “couldn’t live without you”. (I see above in comments you were being facetious with this line, but it made me wince nonetheless.) As someone going through the green card application now, I do not take the immigration process lightly in the least.
Can’t you at least be grateful for that small mercy, even if it’s inadequate in the long term? For a lot of people to whom the INS said “no”, it would be heartbreaking to listen to someone trivialize that win. Being thankful is really important, and being thankful for the things that help you move toward your ultimate dream is an important part of achieving them. I think you have a lot to be thankful for, and if you’ll only be thankful when you reach your dream, you’ll spend life not living.
However less-than-optimal my own situation is here in the US, and however much I loathe the INS process, and however much I find the environment in the US to be… umm, a little lame to be truthful… I would never trivialize how lucky I am to be able to be with my family. There are thousands of people who would love to be in my position and I don’t take that lightly, even if my position ain’t the greatest according to me. It’s the journey, not the destination.
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Well all I could do as I read this comment was smile and wipe the egg off my face.
I think my whole comment stemmed from not catching your sarcasm. By referring to the “grace of the INS”, I read that “you should be thankful that the US even lets you in because the US is the greatest place on earth.” Admittedly a stretch, but I’ve heard lines like that so maybe my filter was tainted.
So please accept my apologies for putting words in your mouth that were not there!
We’re thankful, and though it’s been almost a year since she got here (incidentally I wrote this piece in February…we’ve come a long way since then) and we’re still working on things like work and English. Part of the struggle is probably that my wife knew no one here and felt like she had abandoned her family who sometimes doesn’t have enough money for food in a month to come to a place where people throw away massive amounts because portion sizes are huge. So while I’m really OK being here (but I’m also a bit impatient, I suppose), she’s really anxious to go back. But at the same time she’s thankful that she can babysit for 12 hours a week and make in a month what she made teaching 9 hours a day (and send a lot of it back home).
Where are you from, honeybee?
-j
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I’m from Canada originally.
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Thanks for your comments, everyone. Those of you who said the problem isn’t just the student loans are right and I hadn’t considered it completely. I often think about how I wasted a really good job while I didn’t have many expenses and instead bought Stuff. I wish I had the experience I do now back then. I would have lived as tight as possible and probably would have paid off everything by now.
I think we can usually make better decisions than the ones we’re making. For example, I did better than some in buying an inexpensive, used car, but I could have bought an even more inexpensive one. I should have thrown away my credit cards as soon as I paid off the first one just after college.
Also, thanks to those of you who reminded me that this is the best time to learn some skills to help us when we are running a foster home. I wouldn’t have thought about taking classes in that, but I think I might – after paying off everything else, of course
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Finally, to answer Harmony, no I haven’t thought about walking away from it. I think that’s the most irresponsible thing a person can do (even more irresponsible than taking the loans and running up credit card debt). I understand that some people literally can’t pay back their debts and also provide food and shelter for their family, but I can. It was my decision to obtain the debt I have, therefore it’s my responsibility to pay it back.
I appreciate everyone’s comments!
-jason
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I’m glad you shared;
just an additional note on learning the skills:
yes, continue to learn more financial discipline because you’ll need it…but
don’t wait until you can pay for classes…non-profits might trade volunteer time for knowledge or access to the systems by which it runs i.e. you volunteer your programming skills and you may end up learning how to set up an accounting program for grant tracking…or whatever
(obviously I don’t know a thing about fostering/missionarying but you catch my drift right?)
and volunteer time will give you valuable insights on both what you want to do, and what NOT to do, when you are on your own. Widening the focus a bit to include other areas of “working on it” may keep fiscal burn-out at bay and change some of the “dream deferred” feeling to “there’s one more bit accomplished.”
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You could take some time with your wife (and possibly contact a person/organization involved with family-based orphan care) to make a list of the knowledge & skills that would help you in your goal. Then start figuring out how best to learn them. Some things like infant/child CPR would probably be most thoroughly learned in a paid class, but reading books from the library about nutrition only costs time.
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I totally agree with all the commenters who are urging you to get into the action here in the U.S. Don’t think of it as volunteering though, think of it as career development.
You will learn whether this is Truly the dream you want to devote yourselves to for the rest of your lives.
I would add too that you learn how to write grant applications now. Getting financial backing will likely occupy way more of your time than you are imagining.
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I don’t see the problem with taking out the loans in the first place. With an engineering/computer science degree, it should be relatively easy to pay back 45k in student loans. There are certainly schools with the same degree that cost less, but 45k shouldn’t take more than a decade to pay off for a programmer.
Why were you making $7.50 per hour as a programmer after college? What type of programming were you doing? Did you do internships during college, and if so what did they pay? Did you change career paths from programming?
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I don’t see the problem with taking out the loans in the first place. There are certainly schools with the same degree that cost less, but 45k shouldn’t take more than a decade to pay off for a programmer.
Why were you making $7.50 per hour as a programmer after college? What type of programming were you doing? Did you do internships during college, and if so what did they pay? Did you change career paths from programming?
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Thanks for sharing your story, Jason!
What really struck me about this story is the danger that comes from expecting, even realistically, for your life to go a certain way. Engineering degrees are expensive but engineering can pay really well. I have seen a number of people get into debt with the justification that once they are working as an engineer, it will be no sweat to pay the debt off. But then they discover that they hate engineering, or love something else more … and what then? They are committed to going into engineering anyway. And let me tell you, it’s really hard to be good at something if you hate doing it, or wish with all your heart that you were doing someting else!
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Jason, thank you for sharing your story.
I used to visit my cousin at RIT quite a bit back in the day, so it’s like we’re almost neighbors!
I also plan on checking out some of your slow-card recipes.
peace.
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I think that everyone is being too hard on him about not paying off the loan in the first few years. Depending on the loans interest rates there may have been little if any reason to pay off early.
I have my remaining st loan consolidated at 3%, a rate signicantly lower than morgage 5.375%, and possibly inflation. Why rush?
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Harmony I have done the same for the same reason. My payments are about $100 month and the interest is deductible, so there is no problem. Except now that I have refinanced, I am in the weird position of my SL having slightly more expensive interest than more mortgage! Who would of thought?
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I really feel for you. I have no student debt, but I have other debt from silly choices and bad investments. I have a dream to build schools in underdeveloped countries in the world, but having debt and a family is preventing me from being able to accomplish this goal at this time in my life. Good luck to you and your wife and never give up on your dream!
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Thinking about my perspective now at 43 versus 18, ( Wow, did I type that?) I thought going to a big deal State Engineering university would make a monstrous difference in how well I do in my career…Whata sham!. I work in a high tech field with engineers and scientists from everywhere. Most people (with any brains) don’t care where you went to school – or even your GPA. They care about what’s really in your head and heart – creativity, work ethics, strong focus, ability to learn quickly and apply new knowledge – things that were inside me well before I went to college and are exercised as much as you want in most any accredited school anywhere. I counsel young engineering interns – one that worked for me I recall – told him to not peg his dreams on some hotshot super $$ school in Florida cause it sounds so coool. He’s there blowing his blue collar parent’s $$ on parties! They think he’s guaranteed an awesome job and $$$ because he’s at XYZ. – Sad. I know one young guy in my church and worked at my organization who spent tons of single Mom’s $$$ and had a bit of scholarship cash going to Cathlic Univ . After a year, he realized this is crazy and went back home to local university on a similar track he liked even better. He is a go-getter and will do real well – esp with no debt and his many professional contacts he has built. I ‘high fived’ this kid when he said he why he left Catholic Univ. We talked about it and he was refreshed to hear my view because everyone was telling him ” Go away to a big school and get ‘culture’.” He figured out this line was BS way faster than I did – I give him major credit!
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Thanks for sharing this. you make a good point.
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Just wondering, what did you major in at RIT? I’m currently in my fourth year there as one of the GCCIS majors, and have never made less than $17.00/hour on co-op — my last internship paid $27/hour plus free housing.
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You remind me of a point I should have made. I was in one of the GCCIS programs (actually they built the Golisano college while I was there, and my senior class was the first one through it), but RIT didn’t provide the internship. Not to say they didn’t have programs to find them; I just didn’t check because a friend had hooked me up with the one I got at first.
I had little drive when I was in college, maybe partly due to lack of confidence, so I took the first opportunities that came around. Things have changed in that respect, but I wish I had the drive then that I have now. I’d have found one of those higher-paying (and cooler) internships like my friends got.
-j
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Ah, okay. I didn’t intend to dismiss anything you’ve done — I was just surprised. In SE, at least, it’s unheard of to make $8/hour anywhere, unless you’re in a startup incubator during co-op or starting your own business elsewhere.
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Nice post and thanks for sharing your story. I’m slightly confused: why on earth can’t you move because of your debt? I’m pretty sure the bank will be happy to accept your payment from anywhere in the world. Maybe opening the orphanage will have to wait if you can’t afford it and make your payments too, but that doesn’t mean you’re stuck in your current situation. Think outside the box…
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We are assuming that he and wife are here and at least he is working at a decent job in the US now to pay off the debt. He will not find an equal paying job in the other country. That would be the only reason because working as a missionary is hard enough to fund without debt.
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The point here for me is that if you have a lot of debt dragging on you it’s really hard to respond either quickly or effectively to the changes or new desires in your life. By first accumulating debt when he really didn’t need to, and then not getting rid of his debt when he had opportunity, the author is having to take longer in making his latest “dream” come true. For those willing to hear, it’s a good message.
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You are absolutely right! Debt will limit your options and will keep you from being able to live the life you want to live.
I teach the people that take my Celebrating Financial Freedom course that debt can also affect your spirituality. Being deep in debt can hinder your giving by making you feel like you “can’t afford” to tithe, give offerings, or even open a foster home in a place where it’s desperately needed.
It can also hurt you spiritually because you may feel you need to work to pay your bills instead of attending church.
Most people never realize the gravity of what getting into debt means for their future. I am so glad to hear where your heart is for these children and that you are making the effort to eliminate your debt so you can help.
You can do it, don’t lose heart!
Thanks for the great writing Jason and remember…
“When you help me with money, you help the world prosper.”- J.M. DuMont
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Sounds a lot like my situation…almost to a T. I can’t wait to pay off my student loans!
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My partner and I each have about $6000 in credit card debt, as well as the $9000 on my car and $2000 student loan. At this rate it will be 3 years before we are out of debt. On the one hand, we originally agreed that we would not get married until we were out of debt. But that agreement was made when I was still employed, and could have been out of debt in 13 months (from then). Now, though, without the ability for me to work anytime in the foreseeable future, we are seriously considering getting married sooner. It all comes back to money though–with half our income going to debt, there isn’t money for one wedding, let alone two, and my friends and family live 2400 miles away so we ARE doing two weddings. It looks like we’re on the 4-year plan for marriage.
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Heather, I just want to encourage you. Weddings don’t *necessarily* mean more debt. Ideally you could get married in a developing country; then you could do it ALL for under $1000 (including the honeymoon).
But I realize that’s not your cup of tea this time. However, there are a lot of ways you can have a beautiful wedding without going into more debt over it.
My wife and I (before she was my wife) made our own invitations, and they looked really nice. We bought dried flowers and put one on each. A friend of mine designed the print work, and I lucked out on the parchment paper. We had family and friends help us with the food, and they only charged us the money to buy it. We used our church for the wedding, so we didn’t have to rent a hall.
The point is if you really want to, you can get creative and not spend a TON and still have a beautiful wedding. Just figure out what you might need and save a bit here and there until you have it!
Good luck!
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The best wedding I have ever attended cost <$100 total. Food was pot luck and the ceremony was outside so no need for flowers and decoration. I have never had more fun at a ceremony (even ones where the spend was well over $500 per person)or felt more love both from the couple and all attending.
You don't need to spend money like Kim K. to have a wedding. The only imporant thing is to have your family and friends around you. From what you've described it shouldn't cost you more than a plane (or bus) ticket home.
That said, if your dream is to have two over-the-top grand ceremonies and parties then go for it. Just distinguish that from the wedding itself. You don't need to wait to get married; you have to wait to have two grand, huge weddings.
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Another option you could consider is to have a small, frugal wedding in your current location. Then maybe for your 5 year anniversary, after you pay off your debt and save a little, you could go to the other location and renew your vows and throw a fancier bash if you wanted.
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Before starting school I spent two years working 2-3 jobs and living with 3 others in a cheap house. Made enough to pay nearly 3 yrs of tuition. When money ran low I moved back in with parents for a year and worked two jobs. They were low paying menial jobs warehouse inventory, 711, restaurant work, type of work many americans feel is below them but you’d be amazed at what you can save if you work 24/7 and don’t spend much. Made enough to finish up with no debt whatsoever. I graduated about 3 yrs after my friends but when I was through felt like I was 20 yrs ahead of them. Everyone else I knew was carrying a debt load and would tell me they wish they’d done what I had done. It’s absurd to see so many young people shackle themselves to long term debt when a few years of hard work could supply what they need to get an education with no debt.
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