I have zero sympathy for people with college loans.
When I was a senior in high school I insisted on going to a private college. What a dummy I was. My parents took out a loan and had me sign the paperwork 'it will come due in four years when you graduate'. I had no concept of money. $1000 was the same as $10,000 to me, both unfathomable amounts of money, but boy once I graduated engineering school and got the big job, I could pay off any loan. What a dummy I was.
After three semesters of ball buster math classes my grades were shitty and my parents started to warn me about my loans. If I didn't make it through I'd be in trouble. So I quit school and worked full time for an engineering company. As a draftsman. I was good at it but the pay wasn't enough to pay rent never mind get the car that I wanted. So I lived with my parents and drove my old shitty car.
After a year of that and two 25-cent raises I realized that I needed to get back to it. So applied to the state school and got in. They accepted about half of my credits. Wow the tuition was a lot cheaper than before. Yeah, I was educated about money now.
After paying my first semester tuition from what I had saved working full time I had very little money in my savings account so decided that I needed to get a part time job. The best paying job on campus was driving a bus. It took a whole semester to train, unpaid, but with the relatively rare qualifications, the available hours were nearly unlimited. Between the job and engineering school I had very little down time but was happy to be busy, productive and above all, not poor. It really sucked to be poor. During school vacations I worked at my job in Boston. So I was busy making dough 52 weeks out of every year. I didn't even think of vacation. Seriously never even entered my mind.
After getting the ball buster courses out of the way I really stared to enjoy my junior and senior years. Every semester my grades got better and I was staring to ace courses. Professors were taking notice and encouraging me to take on some 500 level stuff, which was basically graduate level work. I did and aced those too.
One prof offered me a TA job which would pay for my tuition if I went on to grad school and thought long about that. About 30 seconds. "I can't do it" was my reply. "I got loans that I need to pay off."
I didn't even have paperwork for the damn loans. 'Don't worry about it, you're still in school' was what my Mom said. Unbeknownst to me, the poor gal was having a personal crisis and not managing well. The bank had been calling me at the home number, and she had been hanging up on them with the same response that she gave me: 'he's still in school, stop bothering him'.
Three months before my last finals the bank finally got a hold of me at my college phone number. An angry voice announced: "You have until 5:00 pm to pay $1500 to us at blank street in Boston, or you're in default. Cash." It was 2:00 in the afternoon. I knew that I had about $200 left in my bank account, not nearly enough to pay what the bitch was axing for, so I did a quick calculation of time. Two hour drive to get to the bank, assuming no traffic. Gotta stop for gas, add ten minutes. Would have to call my Dad and explain to him to meet me with some cash; add ten minutes. Find a place to park; add ten minutes. Really cutting it close. With my luck, I'd arrive one minute late. Chance was that my Dad was not in his office anyway. "I don't see how I can make it by 5:00 today. Can I have until tomorrow?"
"No" was the terse response from the bitch on the other end of the line.
The next day I got a call from a collection agency and in five minutes had a payment schedule. I think it was $150/ month. I don't remember how many months but at least I was out of the woods. There went my beer money until I graduated and got a real job, but I could handle that. At least I had money for food and rent.
Two weeks after that the sun shined down on me so hard it was unbelievable. The phone rang and it was my boss from my Boston job. 'Are you available to work on campus starting in three weeks? It's full time, actually 10 hours/ day, seven days/ week. It's a state job so we have to pay you the state wage for engineering interns (like five fucking times per hour what they had been paying me). Plus we set you up at the campus hotel (luxury digs compared to my shitty apartment), and a per diem for meals.'
"Yeah, why not?" was my response.
I started that job about six weeks before my last final exam. Since I was in good standing with all my profs they all basically told me to not bother coming to classes unless I got lonely, just show up for finals. Got the best grades of my college career that last semester. I went from to poor house to The Man in a snap.
That job went on for about four months, and then another just like it at a nearby public school that was closed down for the summer. So I got my resume together and took my pick of three or four offerings, the highest paying one an hour down the road in Hartford CT.
Since that sunshine phone call I have never been unemployed. My credit rating was shitty because of the default, and would be for seven years after I paid off my school loan, so I accelerated payments and paid it off in five years.
I can still hear that bitch in Boston from years ago "You have until 5:00 pm..." Fuck her. My credit score is 840/850 now. Big fat 401k, could retire next week if I wanted to. But I'm having too much fun. I payed off my last three-year car loan in five months.
When I was a senior in high school I insisted on going to a private college. What a dummy I was. My parents took out a loan and had me sign the paperwork 'it will come due in four years when you graduate'. I had no concept of money. $1000 was the same as $10,000 to me, both unfathomable amounts of money, but boy once I graduated engineering school and got the big job, I could pay off any loan. What a dummy I was.
After three semesters of ball buster math classes my grades were shitty and my parents started to warn me about my loans. If I didn't make it through I'd be in trouble. So I quit school and worked full time for an engineering company. As a draftsman. I was good at it but the pay wasn't enough to pay rent never mind get the car that I wanted. So I lived with my parents and drove my old shitty car.
After a year of that and two 25-cent raises I realized that I needed to get back to it. So applied to the state school and got in. They accepted about half of my credits. Wow the tuition was a lot cheaper than before. Yeah, I was educated about money now.
After paying my first semester tuition from what I had saved working full time I had very little money in my savings account so decided that I needed to get a part time job. The best paying job on campus was driving a bus. It took a whole semester to train, unpaid, but with the relatively rare qualifications, the available hours were nearly unlimited. Between the job and engineering school I had very little down time but was happy to be busy, productive and above all, not poor. It really sucked to be poor. During school vacations I worked at my job in Boston. So I was busy making dough 52 weeks out of every year. I didn't even think of vacation. Seriously never even entered my mind.
After getting the ball buster courses out of the way I really stared to enjoy my junior and senior years. Every semester my grades got better and I was staring to ace courses. Professors were taking notice and encouraging me to take on some 500 level stuff, which was basically graduate level work. I did and aced those too.
One prof offered me a TA job which would pay for my tuition if I went on to grad school and thought long about that. About 30 seconds. "I can't do it" was my reply. "I got loans that I need to pay off."
I didn't even have paperwork for the damn loans. 'Don't worry about it, you're still in school' was what my Mom said. Unbeknownst to me, the poor gal was having a personal crisis and not managing well. The bank had been calling me at the home number, and she had been hanging up on them with the same response that she gave me: 'he's still in school, stop bothering him'.
Three months before my last finals the bank finally got a hold of me at my college phone number. An angry voice announced: "You have until 5:00 pm to pay $1500 to us at blank street in Boston, or you're in default. Cash." It was 2:00 in the afternoon. I knew that I had about $200 left in my bank account, not nearly enough to pay what the bitch was axing for, so I did a quick calculation of time. Two hour drive to get to the bank, assuming no traffic. Gotta stop for gas, add ten minutes. Would have to call my Dad and explain to him to meet me with some cash; add ten minutes. Find a place to park; add ten minutes. Really cutting it close. With my luck, I'd arrive one minute late. Chance was that my Dad was not in his office anyway. "I don't see how I can make it by 5:00 today. Can I have until tomorrow?"
"No" was the terse response from the bitch on the other end of the line.
The next day I got a call from a collection agency and in five minutes had a payment schedule. I think it was $150/ month. I don't remember how many months but at least I was out of the woods. There went my beer money until I graduated and got a real job, but I could handle that. At least I had money for food and rent.
Two weeks after that the sun shined down on me so hard it was unbelievable. The phone rang and it was my boss from my Boston job. 'Are you available to work on campus starting in three weeks? It's full time, actually 10 hours/ day, seven days/ week. It's a state job so we have to pay you the state wage for engineering interns (like five fucking times per hour what they had been paying me). Plus we set you up at the campus hotel (luxury digs compared to my shitty apartment), and a per diem for meals.'
"Yeah, why not?" was my response.
I started that job about six weeks before my last final exam. Since I was in good standing with all my profs they all basically told me to not bother coming to classes unless I got lonely, just show up for finals. Got the best grades of my college career that last semester. I went from to poor house to The Man in a snap.
That job went on for about four months, and then another just like it at a nearby public school that was closed down for the summer. So I got my resume together and took my pick of three or four offerings, the highest paying one an hour down the road in Hartford CT.
Since that sunshine phone call I have never been unemployed. My credit rating was shitty because of the default, and would be for seven years after I paid off my school loan, so I accelerated payments and paid it off in five years.
I can still hear that bitch in Boston from years ago "You have until 5:00 pm..." Fuck her. My credit score is 840/850 now. Big fat 401k, could retire next week if I wanted to. But I'm having too much fun. I payed off my last three-year car loan in five months.
