[...]below you’ll find the link to some sites that we think you should visit[...]……

I am 31 and have a BA from a public university and an MA from a British one, both good degrees, from solid institutions. The problem is, they are both int he humanities (I originally wanted to be a college professor before I realized that is virtually impossible nowadays – at least in the humanities – for anyone but the independently wealthy / children of star professors; so I got out after the MA).

I have $50,000 in student loan debt and $9,300 in credit card debt (down from $18,000 owed in November of 2007, when I put them in a credit consolidation plan) incurred from moving back to the US after my MA and the subsequent breakup of my longterm relationship. I do not have parents who can help me financially, although I was fortunate to be able to live with my mother for nine months rent-free. Then I moved to our state capital, with a job offer promising $40,000 – conveniently, just the amount I had figured I needed to break even on rent and necessities while being able to afford my $400/month (for 25 years, paying about 30% more in interest!) student loan payments.

Unfortunately, after I moved here and signed a lease and was ready to begin work, the employer pulled the offer (lesson learned: insist on getting it in writing). I ended up working three part time jobs without benefits for nearly two years, while constantly applying for “real jobs.” This was 2006-2007. Because I was unable to make ends meet each month, coupled with the start-up costs of moving from a foreign country with virtually no household items, lack of health insurance (I have a chronic disease requiring regular blood tests and daily medication – without insurance, the blood tests were $187 each!), I ended up with the massive, unthinkable credit card debt.

So. While I was living and working abroad after getting my MA, I was making good progress paying my student loans, thanks to the weak US dollar. But since 2005, they have been in forbearance because I haven’t earned enough to both live and pay.

In 2007 I got a “real” job – full time, with benefits. In 2009, I was promoted and am now, finally, at 31, making just shy of $40,000 a year. However, I have been paying $413 per month toward my credit card consolidation payments since November 2007, and will be until October 2012. So I STILL cannot pay my student loans. Every year they are in forbearance, I accrue an additional $1,000. So I now owe more than I did to begin with, despite religiously making payments for three years while I was abroad!

Luckily, my loans are federal, subsidized, consolidated, and at 5% interest – so not nearly as what many of my peers and those younger than me are facing with the private big-bank lenders. But it’s still financially and psychologically crippling. I cannot sleep, I feel trapped, and I fear that I will never be able to extricate myself from the wage economy, which has been my number one goal for the past several years.

Unfortunately, like so many others, I was told that going to college would open all the doors. Getting a degree – any degree – would allow me to enter the professional middle class and do better than my parents. That’s a laugh. I have no savings, $60,000 of debt, and the average price for a <1,000 sq ft house in my area hovers around $250,000. I can't move because I cannot afford the moving costs and I feel incredibly lucky to have a comparatively secure job with health insurance. I cannot afford to go one month without my salary.

So, I feel like I was sold a bill of goods. I was one of those who signed on the dotted line at age 17, full of hope and optimism. Now I wish I had skipped college altogether, learned a trade, and moved to a nice, small village somewhere. I want to buy a few acres with my partner and garden, raise chickens, and supplement our income with cottage industries (my partner is a home brewer, among many other things). But we will never be able to do that. Never mind have children.

I am lucky that I have a decent job, with intelligent, thoughtful, funny coworkers. Ironically, I am now a secretary in higher ed, an industry (yes, it is an industry) in which I have almost wholly lost confidence, and which I view as a racket. But I can live with that, because it could be much worse, and at least all the naively bright-eyed kids who come through my door are going to learn something and have their horizons expanded just a little. Every chance I get, I harp on and on to anyone who will listen about how debt is a trap, and how student debt should not be taken on unless you are pretty damn sure that you're going to graduate from medical school. I point out to them that I was once in their position (only tuition was about 30% of what it now is!), and I feel very, very lucky to have the low-status, mind-numbing, desk-chained job that I do. It's a good thing I am not an academic advisor, because I would probably advise 99% of them to drop out.

Sharon, I loved your book, and share your values and goals. But I wonder how this post, and your philosophy in general, can possibly have anything to say to me, or to the thousands of not-quite-so-young adults out here who are enslaved by student debt. As you pointed out, it's impossible to get out from under, thanks to it not being dischargeable through bankruptcy. And, believe me, I have looked into all the forgiveness programs out there – including the military and the Peace Corps – and there is not one single way that I can get these loans forgiven. All the programs that my parents send me links to, programs that look promising (teaching in the inner city, for one), have plenty of caveats, and for one reason or another, I do not qualify. The only ways I can see for us to get out from under these student loans are: a) leave the country and never come back (something I would do if there were any other Western countries willing to take Americans, but there aren't – I've researched till my eyes cross); b) default and face a lifetime of inability to rent, buy property, get credit, get some jobs, draw social security, or receive a tax refund; or c) die.

I cannot work 40 hours a week in a soul-destroying, mentally exhausting office monkey job, for the next 25 or 30 years, just to be able to earn enough to live in a 500 sq ft apartment with no appliances, eat beans, and pay $400+ per month on student loans. It's such a waste of life. I'm not even using my degrees. They were a scam. All I want is to escape the wage slave economy and grow my own food and help others find ways to do the same. But I can't. And I probably never can.

What do you have to say to people like me?