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Poor and in Debt: How to Break the Cycle
As someone from a seriously disadvantaged background, I never believed I would be accepted into a college, let alone be able to pay for it. I studied hard at my local community college but, between the ever-increasing costs of living, and the onset of a serious chronic autoimmune condition, I felt certain that my dreams of attaining higher education would ultimately crumble. A kid with a background of homelessness doesn’t have much to look forward to in a society that only provides help in the form of poverty traps.
But I persevered. I fought tooth and nail to follow my passions, to live my version of the American dream. I was accepted into college, where I excelled, and I eventually went on to pursue and complete a graduate degree in my field. But, to accomplish all this, I was forced to take on massive student loans.
Given my intermittent health, I soon found it impossible to find work within my field that could offer me the top-quality healthcare I needed, keep a roof over my head, and pay off my student loans. Forget the dream of finding a job with a high enough starting wage to allow me to live a wholesome life, all the jobs I found demanded that I suffer grueling conditions in exchange for a pittance. And still, hovering over me, the threat of terrible consequences should I fail to pay off my loans — loans which continued to rise at an…
