I jumped up and down in the front door when I got a letter in the mail last month saying I qualified for the Federal Student Loan Forgiveness Program. It forgives student loans when you make consistent payments for 10 years while working in certain sectors, like a nonprofit. I literally cried when I got that letter, because I’ve been paying close to $700 a month since 2006 and hardly made a dent in the balance due to interest and fees and whatever shady calculations buried within. I even called my parents with the good news and thought that maybe in 6 years our family can go on a real vacation. Maybe in 6 years I wouldn’t have to be so obsessed with couponing or cutting corners or shopping the clearance racks for my children’s clothes.
Well, like life itself, that was short-lived.
Today, I received an email saying I have to be in a certain type of repayment plan to qualify. I called FedLoan and was informed that none of my previous payments in a qualify, meaning that I’d get no credit for the last 4 years of working at a nonprofit. To qualify, I’d have to be in a payment plan that’s an extra $200 a month. It’s actually higher because I’m married. It wasn’t the customer service rep’s fault, but I lost my proverbial shit.
I don’t know what the right answer is. Maybe it’s taking the extra $1.50 a week in my paycheck to apply to the principal (thanks, sweeping tax reform. sarcasm.)? Or perhaps getting divorced, quitting my job and going on welfare — at least we’d have food in our refrigerator. Maybe I shouldn’t give a solid F and not pay my bills at all? I didn’t vote for Mr. Cheeto, and he certainly doesn’t give a shit about someone like me, a salaried mom of two who works 60+ hours a week to pay $1,300 a month for daycare and stays up to sort garbage from recyclables and puts quarters in other people’s expired meters.
I took out both federal and private loans during the Bush administration, which cut grants to families like mine even though we were poor with a family of 7 , then graduated college in a recession. I was doomed from the beginning, underpaid and running ahead of a tsunami of layoffs in a male-favored industry. I knew the dice I was rolling at the time taking out loans, but my only other option was not going to college and continuing the cycle of systemic poverty.
I’m writing this as at 8:35 p.m., just getting done making dinner (cereal again), snuggling with my two boys and listening to my husband bitch about how the kitten shit all over the baby’s bath tub. I typically get only 3 hours of asleep a night, so I’m testy.
I’ve been reading about tax reform and how it’ll help ALL THESE PEOPLE, but not me. At 33, all I want is sleep and a lower interest rate on my student loans.
Mom flare 