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Education loans are meant to make life easier and more comfortable. But, for me, it backfired. It did the complete opposite of making life easier for me. It just sucked me into a black hole of debt and despair.
My name is Alexandra Blair and this is the story of how I incurred student loan amounting to $1M.
I was the eldest of three siblings raised in an affluent suburb west of Los Angeles. My father, who didn’t finish college, owned a small construction business. My mother, a college graduate, worked mostly as a secretary. I found my true calling while I was still a teenager. Being insecure over my crooked teeth and an irregular jaw line, paved a way towards orthodontics for me.
After high school, I completed my undergraduate degree at a reputed worldwide university in the United States. I paid for my college tuition with money from my parents and by waiting tables at the small, cozy café near the school’s campus.
My parents had helped in paying the college tuition for all of us, that is, for both of my younger siblings too. But, Graduate school wasn’t part of the deal because they were unable to afford it being middle class and all.
I met and married my husband while at the undergraduate school, and graduated debt-free from there. I picked the USC dental school for my higher studies because of its prestige and because I wanted to live closer to my parents. My husband had no problem with it and he was exploring the opportunities in his own start-up business.
The dental school’s financial-aid director estimated that the basic four-year program would require $400,000 to $450,000 in student debt, including interest. My husband and I concluded that dental school was a good investment, given the salary I expected to earn.
I was like, we could make this work. There are certain things that are okay to go into debt for: a house, an education, a car.
So, we packed up for California in the same spirit. I got a job at USC as an administrative assistant, which provided a tuition discount. Our calculations were partly based on low interest rates that the federal government had set for students at the time. In the 2004-2005 school year, the rate for college and graduate students was 2.77%.
The following school year, which was my first year at USC, rates jumped to 4.75% for my loans. Those turned out to be the cheapest of the 50 loans I needed to finance my education. Unlike consumer loans for cars or homes, college students typically take out multiple loans each year—often at different interest rates, depending on what is available.