The Waste of Supposed Higher Education *edit*

Like so many recent college graduates, my student loans have come into repayment recently.  All $20k+ of them from 3 different loan entities.  I don’t work in my field, or at least not technically.  I have a bachelors in biology.  I work at Best Buy and CVS.  Part-time at both places.  I don’t get a lot of hours or a lot of money.  And yet I am expected to shell out $300-400 A MONTH in student loan payments!!!!  I just got a very nice $290 paycheck from Best Buy which included Black Friday.  It’s a paycheck for 2 weeks worth of work.  After paying 2 of my 5 loan payments due this month (one due on the 10th, one on the 11th) I am down to a whopping $73.46 in my checking account.  I have another 2 payments due this month: one for $141.48 due on 12/27, another for $356.06 due on 1/2, though this is in part because I hadn’t realized any of my loans had come into repayment and the statement I was sent was not indicated as STATEMENT ENCLOSED and so I had filed it away with the rest of my loan paperwork as being another notice of interest accrued.  So that particular first payment of $178 was due on 12/2 and is now being paid on 1/2 instead along with the new $178. 

It is outrageous to me that I am basically working now simply to pay off my loans!  It’s ridiculous that in our bass-ackwards government’s mind, the cost of higher education is worth taking out student loans.  Um, reality check, no it’s not really for the thousands of us graduating into a shite economy where we can’t get a decent job and are in competition with the other thousand something graduates in our field.  So to make ends meet we take minimum wage retail jobs in the hopes of being able to afford the continuously fluctuating cost of gas.  Thank God I’m not one of those poor saps who is also trying to pay rent and bills and live on my own too!  I’d be homeless at this rate.  How on earth would I be able to pay $835 in rent every month when I’m making maybe $1000 a month (maybe, when I actually am getting decent hours at both jobs) when I am also paying close to $400 a month in student loans back.  Forget having a cell phone, or cable, or possibly even food.  Living paycheck to paycheck must take on a whole new meaning for those guys, that’s all I’m saying.  So we get our fancy diplomas and think we are smart.  We think we can make it out in the world and that nothing can stop us.  We think we understand how things work, how the government works, the economy works, the schools work.  What self-absorbed bullshit.

And let’s not forget Christmas is around the corner and I have YET to start my Christmas shopping for this very reason!  I have to buy a gift card today and send it in the mail to a friend.  Ok, reality check.  I don’t HAVE to, but I really WANT to because this particular friend is very deserving and has had a pretty shite year too (You know who you are and I love you!) so I want to make their holiday season just a little brighter if I can.  So I’m not sure quite yet how I am going to do the whole loans payment things yet.  Right now it’s looking like that $356 one might be just a few dollars short.  Oh being a grown up sucks. 

I just can’t wrap my head around how higher education is supposedly worth so much?  Right now it’s not worth the paper the diploma is printed on as far as I can see.  How can it be?  I’m working 2 jobs, neither of which I need a degree to do, neither of which are helped by my degree, neither of which even really CARE that I HAVE a degree!  I don’t even work full-time at either job, I’m lucking to work 30-40 between the two of them.  I am living at home again and just trying to stay afloat with the rest of my floundering family in this crap-tastic economy.  It doesn’t help that my mother is disabled and can’t work and my brother is handicapped and can’t work.  How on earth can anyone in our government look themselves in the mirror these days?  They must know that all of our nation’s problems start and end with them.  How could they not realize that?  They control the national budget, they allocate funds, they bail out big business, they basically swindle America with their inflated salaries and egos.  Jeez.  We are the only nation that has to deal with a government for 4 years no matter how shite it is.  Unfortunately that’s because there is no one in our nation who seems capable of rising up and actually changing things for the better.  If people in the US bothered to stand up for themselves and DO SOMETHING about the government maybe the government would take notice.  But there are no sit-ins anymore, no marches on the capital, no movement for true revolution to show the bureaucrats in charge how upset we are with them.  We are a nation that has lost its spirit. 

I blame it on supposed higher education.  It costs a fortune, but really, what do we gain from it lately?

**EDIT**

For all you jerks telling me this is the grown up world, bite me.  No one is making you read this, and I certainly didn’t ask for a bunch of negative comments.  I am in the grown up world, that’s why I’m working 2 jobs not in my field to help support a family of 4.  I have grown up my whole life being flat out fucking told that a degree helps you to get a job that pays well.  Not misled, not insinuated, fucking TOLD that a degree is the only way to make real money in this country.  How can it be when everyone and there mom now can get the same degree from some online school and there are no jobs?  And I took out loans because my family is fucking dirt poor and it was the only way to get through school and I wouldn’t have finished had I not finally turned 23 and qualified for grants and such my last year of school, during which time I took out NO loans.  As for the government, that was actually a side rant almost and I re-read it and realize it came off as part of the same thing but there was a lot more to it than that, including a lot of issues that have to do with my mother and brother and how retarded the government has been about handling their cases.  And yes this is partly the government’s fault because I had a year deferment on several of my loans and they came back and said "Sorry, we need the money now not in May".   On TOP of that, this is a rant, meaning I’m not sitting here verifying shit, I’m writing because I’m fucking pissed off and I need to get shit out of my system or risk blowing up at people that I care about who don’t deserve it.  However!  Thank you to everyone who commented supportively and especially those with tips and helpful advice.  I did look into some of my consolidation options and will explore them, however the deferment is out due to how spread out my loans are right now and none of them equal up to the value with the respective holders that would allow me to defer.  I am shy about consolidating since I am still researching but several people have mentioned to me that once you consolidate you cannot defer again even if you go back to school.  Thanks again supporters, naysayers, remember that karma isa bitch so don’t be a bitch.

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