‘Going to college ruined my life.’ I have $85K in student loan debt with a useless degree

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‘Going to college ruined my life.’ I have $85K in student loan debt for my ‘useless degree’ but only make $16 per hour. How can I cope?
By Alisa Wolfson
April 6, 2022

I would give anything to go back and not go to college at all. It wasn’t worth it.

I am 32 and got my associates degree in occupational therapy. I owe $25,000 in federal student loans, and $60,000 in private loans with high interest — despite having my mom as a co-signer. I went to a great college: It was private and costly, but I have learning challenges they were able to accommodate. But I will never forget back in the beginning of 2018, my professors told me that by the time my classmates and I graduated, we would likely struggle to get jobs because of changes in the profession. Well, they were right. And of course after I took out these huge loans, it was too late to fix it.

I graduated, the pandemic hit, jobs were scarce, and despite looking and applying for whatever I could for almost two years, it didn’t matter. So now I’m going on eight years at my job in a group home where I’m paid $16 an hour. I work over 50 hours a week sometimes, and also support a severely disabled adult who is 100% financially dependent on me. I’m barely making it paycheck to paycheck as it is.

I feel like I will never be able to afford my payments, even if I find higher-paying work. I feel like I have a useless degree at this point. I would give anything to go back and not go to college at all. It wasn’t worth it. My credit score plummeted from missing one payment, and I already have a mountain of other bills I owe to credit cards and medical bills. I literally am trapped by these loans. I have no payment options that would ever pay them off and refinancing is not an option because my credit score is so low.

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