I, like a lot of other mid-level adults bought in to the idea of college straight out of high school with my more than stellar GPA of 2.9. Thank you, high school guidance counselor. long story (awesome story, later story), short, I managed roughly 7 semesters of college, attaining the rank of barely sophomore. At this point in time, I happen to have MASSIVE creative differences with the university I was attending and decided I was way better off not digging an even larger, unattainable, massive, all knowing, all future decision impacting student loan debt. 

The only reason I realized I was in this hole is because of a generic Civics 101 class that was covering a very small federal lawsuit by a man named Michael Zahara. He alleged a gouge of an outlandish possibility. The suit (filed by Zahara, a former employee of Sallie Mae, a student loan shark) claimed employees of Sallie Mae were given incentives to push student’s loans into forbearance, sometimes without the student’s knowledge, to keep reported default levels artificially low. They would dare prey on the youth? No, preposterous, false, commie, red, sinner… Truth. Students information was coerced from universities. The terms of the loans were not properly explained to the unexpected youth, yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know what happens next. He then withdrew his case, ask him his reasons, he hasn’t been clear. What actually happened next turns out to be I just turned thirty-one, am married and work almost as many hours as your grandfather did. Hey, I said almost.

What we tend to not talk about is that some of the kids, and I should say children, that are indoctrinated into the college system, fail. It’s a real thing, and these people don’t fade into the sunset. They don’t disappear and neither does their debt. They have shit healthcare, if any, and they struggle. Struggle probably doesn’t cover it. Google student loan wage garnishment. I was 17, I am 31. We rent houses. We buy 3000 dollar cars and put 2000 dollars into them over 3 years until they shit-out. Most people don’t know the difference between a 3000 dollar car and a 5000 dollar car, its 2000 dollars worth of wasted fuckery and time that you never get back. Yes, we should have studied harder.

Moving on to the year 2050. There is an army of us, without health care, without pensions, just paid our student loan debts off in time to die. The baby boomers are pissed that they saved and then got fucked. We were fucked before we were even given that chance. #fucksalliemae #vote