I can’t see how it will ever be okay….

Here I am…

31 y.o. Female 5 year old child

And idk why because I’m sure someone will come for me with the “You took the loans out, pay them!”

And yes, I think I should have to pay something. However, for the last almost 8 years, I have not been able to get over how predatory loan lending is for college. The more I think about, the more I kick myself….but how could I kick myself for something I had zero knowledge of? I thought I was doing what was best. I was barely 18 living in a low income area, parents had no education, and I was consistently told in school that college would be the ONLY way I could ever be successful or make something of myself. Nobody ever told me or warned me of the financial dangers of taking on these loans. Once I finished undergrad, I got fed some BS about how graduate school would dig me out of the hole because I’d make SOOO much more. One again, zero guidance and making all of these decisions on my own and no idea who I could even go to.

Fast forward to 2022 and I’m graduating with Master’s in Occupational Therapy (don’t even get me started. I know it’s a hobby career and severely lied to about what my earnings would be). I know it sounds like I’m blaming the universe…but I truly didn’t know what I was doing and started graduate school with a 4 week old and genuinely thought I would come out making $80,000+ after taxes (SO LAUGHABLE). I picked the wrong career with a ceiling that won’t ever make me much money.

It’s now 2025 and I’m barely making $60,000 in a highly specialized area, $140,000 of federal student loans and interest is increasing about $25-$30/day (about $10,000+/year)on SAVE (I’m not moving myself from that plan until the litigation is over unless someone can explain to me why I should), about $6,000 in credit cards, no emergency fund, nothing invested, immediate family is poor and going through unimaginable trauma, fiancé just lost his job 2 days ago (he better figure it out because I can’t support us on my own)he also has $60,000+ of federal loans in DEFAULT!!! (I also didn’t know this when we had a child together and don’t ask me how I didn’t know. Now I’m worried about my future with my fiancé, his personal debt, and ability to maintain employment or build a future for/with us.

What am I even doing?? I wish I could have at least picked a better career. How did I let my life come to this? How are people living life knowing, when they’re older, they’ll be homeless? That’s exactly where we’re headed and with absolutely ZERO hope for the future. It seems like nothing is worth it other than just existing for my little girl. That should be enough…but I’m going to have nothing for her. And what if I were to fall ill? We would basically be homeless.

Had I genuinely known how much college would ruin my life, I swear I never would have done it. I paid all this money to help care for people who are sick and in pain but I’m going to have nothing in my own old age or time of need.

I am a woman at her lowest of lows and wish I just had someone to mentor me earlier in life because I ruined mine. It makes me want to give up.