Thoughts about life, death and student loans.

I'm in Louisville currently. Came back for a brief photo shoot. I hadn't written in this blog because I was working, incredibly stressed, slightly hermitic and I didn't see the point of writing in Louisville. Until last night.

I went drinks with my friend, Lauren, which always results in a multi-hour, looping, creative pondering session that I absolutely love. The only point that I want to touch on from last night's conversate-o-thon is student loans. At present, Lauren is coming to terms with the magnitude of owing $50,000 in student loans, which is actually going to be closer to $100,000 in the end. Having graduated with over $40,000 in student loans, myself, I understand that it can seem like a crushing weight that you desperately want to dart away from it in any direction possible. Being five years older, I've already reached the acceptance phase and I don't think too much about it.

Last night, I was more or less telling her, "You made your bed and you're bummed because you put scratchy sheets on the damn thing. That sucks. Nobody likes scratchy sheets but what are you going to do?"

That's maybe a little too unsympathetic for my nature so I wanted to write a more explanatory letter to her today. I decided to just put my thoughts in the blog because I know this is an issue that lots of people struggle with. Below is a better explanation of how I got to be more or less comfortable with my own set of scratchy sheets.

First off, if you are dead set on getting out of paying your loans it is possible. There are some forgiveness programs available through the government if you work in public service. You need to have made 120 payments on your student loans first though. That's not really getting out of them because you have to pay for ten years and only work in certain fields but it might be an option for some of you.

Other options that are less straightforward involve making less that $15,000/year or moving to Kansas.

For anyone interested in the Kansas option, there are 50 counties in rural Kansas that hardly anyone wants to live in. The state of Kansas will pay up to $15,000 of your student loan debt if you move there and become a productive member of the community.

I've actually driven through many of these counties and that experience greatly impacted my decision to become a vegetarian. There are a lot of feedlots in this area. I imagine partly to due with the fact that they are out of sight and out of mind from most Americans.

I don't think this is such a terrible option. It would certainly be a unique experience and there is a sort of serene beauty to the land. Some people call it boring but it reminds me of Jackie O, stately and calm with her slight, subtle ecru covered curves under constant threat of life altering storms.

If you like this option, here you go. http://www.kansascommerce.com/index.aspx?NID=320

On to the second option I mentioned, poverty. The government offers Income Based Repayment options. It means exactly what you think it means and it is possible, if you are in the narrow parameters of the poverty index, to get assigned a monthly payment of zero. If you so choose and you can maintain poverty level income for 25 years, the government will say, "Alright, fine. Just never mind" and that will be the end of your loans. Each area has its own poverty index and parameters so you can look all that up yourself if you are so inclined.

I haven't chosen any of these options. Over time I came to realize that if I just stopped worrying about my student loans, I could live a happy and full life. I pay them when I can afford it, which is most of the time, and I call and get them deferred when I can't pay them. I NEVER ask or am even aware of how much I will pay in totality. This would simply ruin my day and yet not change the amount I am going to pay. The dye is cast. I already spent the money. I'll just put on my rose colored glasses, sip my coffee and go sniff my hydrangeas.

Back to Lauren's personal predicament. She has money saved up that she's trying to decide what to do with. Do you put it toward your student loans? I wouldn't and I'll tell you why.

Many people are desperately trying to get away from paying their loans or maybe just the interest on their loans to "save money". To save money for what though? I think it's important to answer that question before you sit around stressing about keeping all this money out of the hands of your financial institution. What amazing thing are you going to do with all this money that they aren't? Why is it so important to keep it for yourself? Furthermore, does saving money improve the quality of your life?

Let's say you have $10,000. There are a lot of things you could do with that amount of money. You could use it as a down payment on some property you want and continue making your monthly student loan payments. You could quit your job, postpone your loan payments and use it to travel around the world for a year and then continue paying your student loans when you become gainfully employed again. You could donate it and have a beautiful community garden named after you and continue paying your student loans. You could also put it toward the balance of your student loans and continue paying them but be done 5 years earlier. All of these scenarios result in you paying your student loans. What I suggest doing, even as just a creative thinking exercise, is to take away the student loan portion of the equation because it's the constant. Now solve for the variable and tell me what your variable is and we can figure out a workable scenario because maybe the quality of life should be more important than the quantity of dollars it takes you to achieve it.

Many people will call this idealistic. My only response to that is to shrug and say, "so what?" I enjoy my life and you can't stop me.