To recap, I had gone to a scam graduate school for a year, I owed $50,000 for that, and I had done a few shitty, low-paying jobs since then. I couldn’t foresee any way that I was ever going to pay this off. And looking back, I was right.
We’re talking about 20 years ago that this all happened. I probably wasn’t going to work in a casino or as a substitute teacher or whatever for 20 years. I probably would have found another job. Something more suitable. Maybe a job that I enjoy. Maybe a job that pays reasonably well.
But maybe I wouldn’t have. And even if I did, we’re talking about like $800/month that they were asking. That’s significantly more than what I was paying for rent. It’s not possible. There is no way that I could have paid this.
I don’t know how things are done now. Maybe now they only take a reasonable percentage of your salary. Maybe now the loans are automatically forgiven after 20 years or whatever. I have no idea. But at the time, they would send you this bill for $800, every month, and you were expected to pay it. If you don’t pay it, they would eventually file a claim against you in court. Have your wages garnished. For the rest of your life.
If I borrowed $50,000 to start a business and the business failed, I can just declare bankruptcy. I’d have a tough time getting loans for the next seven years or so, but the debt would be eliminated. Don’t have to pay anything back.
Or if I got $50,000 worth of credit cards and spent it all on lottery tickets, I can declare bankruptcy and the credit card debt is wiped off. Same deal. It would be tough to get loans for a while. Who cares?
But because I spent $50,000 on graduate school, a place that I assumed to be legitimate, and it wasn’t, I’m just fucked. Can’t discharge the debt. Can’t declare bankruptcy. That zombie Ronald Reagan changed the law so that student loan debt can’t be discharged in bankruptcy. It’s the one debt, perhaps other than tax debt, that can’t be discharged. It’s ridiculous. Whether through accident or design, this has now enslaved several generations of Americans.
I didn’t want to be a part of this bullshit. So I was looking for ways to leave the country. The more I looked into teaching English in Asia, the less attractive it looked. And it never looked attractive to begin with.
I was watching videos from Ryan Boundless. He was some somewhat weird guy teaching English in Japan. And he would talk about what it’s like. He regularly used the phrase “dancing monkey” to describe the job. I don’t want to do that shit.
So I started looking into getting a visa based on my heritage. If you have a parent or two grandparents (or even sometimes just one grandparent) who is or was a citizen of another country, you might be eligible to get a work visa for that country. And this applied to me so I looked into it.
As it turned out, I was not only eligible for a visa, I was eligible for citizenship. The laws are always changing. You have to look into it.
So I said great. I’ll do that.
I had to fill out a bunch of forms. The forms weren’t in English and I didn’t speak the language that the forms were in so it was something of an ordeal. I had to get a bunch of documents. I had to get a bunch of shit notarised. I had to talk to a bunch of people in embassies and whatnot. Then I had to pay whatever the fee was. It was a whole ordeal. Took over a year, probably.
But in the end, I got citizenship. Then I applied for a passport and I got a passport.
So now I’m free to do do whatever I want. I have $2000 saved up. I can leave today. It was a liberating experience.
I was able to go anywhere in the European Union. So I looked at the options. There are some cool possibilities but better stick with the English-speaking countries.
There was a message board that I used to go to. It was overwhelmingly English people. I knew some of these people for five years. They knew everything that was going on with me. I talked to these people regularly. So I said, “Hey. I’m thinking of moving to England. Can anybody help me out? Let me stay with you while I look for work.”
Fuck no. Not one taker.
So I said fuck these completely inhospitable assholes. I’ll go to Ireland instead. Dublin. It’s the only Irish city I knew and there’s a reason why immigrants go the major cities. This is where the jobs are.
I went to Borders or something to get some guide books on Dublin. I got a Rick Steves’ book on Ireland. That was surprisingly helpful and useful.
Then I just left. There wasn’t much planning. I got a one-way ticket. I said goodbye to my family. I got in a taxi. Went to the airport. There was some guy there with his family. Going to Dublin for vacation. He asked why I was going to Dublin. I said I’m going to look for work. He said that was cool.
That was that. That was the last time that I lived in the US. And I didn’t give a fuck what happened in Dublin. If I end up living on the streets and a hobo stabs me, it’s fine. I would have killed myself if I stayed in the US much longer anyway. This is at least an opportunity to do something and get away from that fucking debt.
There was no conceivable future in the US. These shit jobs. Living in my childhood home. This massive student loan debt. I made the only sensible choice.
I left because of gross dissatisfaction with my own life and ultimately with the US. These scam schools should not exist but they’re all over the US. And it’s allowed to continue. Tuition should not cost $50,000/year anywhere. You should not have to pay college tuition debt off for the rest of your life.
There are the inevitable bootlickers who will say, “You should pay your debt.” And I had to deal with a few of these people. Americans who I met abroad particularly held this view. I quickly learned just not to mention it. If somebody asks why I moved to the UK, just make something up.
But I think that things have really changed in the past five years or so. There’s a growing awareness that this shit isn’t right. There’s something seriously wrong with the higher education system in the US and the student loan industry.
It’s become mainstream to talk about forgiving student loan debt. I don’t know if it will happen or not. I’m doubtful. Too many people are making money off of this. But at least there’s a growing awareness that there are fundamental problems with the system. If you owe tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in non-dischargeable student loan debt, it’s not because you failed. The system failed.