![]() ![]() There are fifteen years left on our Income Based Repayments, and that’s if we’re lucky and we get the debt forgiveness after twenty-five years, which the government has been parsimonious about doing. Ten years later, thanks to interest, we owe the government the cost of a three-bedroom house in a nice part of Pittsburgh, each. Michael and I borrowed the cost of a small house in a bad Steubenville neighborhood each. And then the Department of Education sent us the bill. We took out five and six-figure debt to do it, because we were told that was “good debt.” And we graduated, in the middle of a recession, when no one was hiring and there were no jobs. The grown-ups we trusted taught us that this was the deal. The real career, with your college degree, would get you a normal house in a pleasant suburb and an ordinary life where you could easily pay back those loans. ![]() That was why we were supposed to go to college. Working in fast food was an occupation only fit for high school and college students who were building up to their necktie-and-briefcase careers. Millennials learned college was something that happened after high school unless you were one of those evil slackers who worked in fast food instead of having a real job with a necktie and a briefcase. I cannot even express how deeply this was drilled into our heads. The more diplomas hanging on your wall, the more initials after your name, the more money you would make. It didn’t matter what you majored in as long as you went to college so you could get that job. ![]() A BA was the ticket to a good job and an MA was even jobbier. College was the way to get a real job, with a necktie and a briefcase, so you could buy a house and provide for a family. If you’re a Millennial, you were probably raised from your earliest years being told you had to go to college. ![]()
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