As mentioned in the first article on Student Debt Diaries, paying off student loans was one of the biggest accomplishments of my life. This feat was the culmination of years of sacrifice and toil, since I had to save money in insane ways and work several side-hustles to pay off my student loans. As a result of this crucible, I justifiably wanted to celebrate paying off student debt in order to reward myself for accomplishing this goal. However, for a number of reasons, it oftentimes does not make sense to publicly celebrate paying off student loans, since this might generate negative sentiments towards you and your accomplishment.
While paying off my student debt, I often fantasized about how I would celebrate paying off student loans. I always thought that I would throw a student loans burning party when I would take all of my student loan paperwork and burn it. I remember from a few sitcoms I used to watch that traditionally, people who paid off mortgages had similar parties when they burned all of their mortgage documents in front of family and friends after paying off their mortgages.
Of course, people rarely pay off mortgages anymore, since most folks move around too frequently to pay off one mortgage or do not have the financial means to pay off their mortgages. However, I always felt that my student loans were similar in magnitude to a mortgage, and that it would be fitting to have such a party when I paid off my student debt. Maybe I could even start a tradition so that friends of mine who also paid off their student loans could throw similar parties and generate positive vibes around student debt repayment.
However, I eventually decided not to celebrate paying off student loans in this way. I thought that having a student loans burning party would be too showy, and I felt like hosting such a party would make me similar to those people on My Super Sweet 16 and similar reality TV programs. Many people struggle with student loans, and attending such a party or hearing about it could make people more insecure about their own issues with student debt. Plus, I rarely had guests over my apartment in those years, since my roommate was usually against us throwing parties.
To celebrate paying off student loans, I ended up just posting something on Facebook about the feat and how difficult it was to accomplish this goal. I received an overwhelmingly positive response from friends and family members. I think that this post was the most “liked” post I published on social media in a long time, and it was good to receive such encouragement. Some people also told me that hearing about my student loan success gave them the inspiration they needed to tackle student debt themselves.
However, not everyone had positive reactions to my Facebook post, and this shows that people need to be careful when they celebrate paying off student loans. Shortly after publishing my post about paying off student loans, one of my college buddies told me that an acquaintance from college was trash talking me on another social media platform. This person seemed to suggest that I must have had help from family or other sources in order to pay off student loans (not true), and he ridiculed my accomplishment.
I ended up confronting this acquaintance and told him how I worked a number of part-time jobs and saved money in extraordinary ways in order to pay off my student loans. I also told this person that he could follow the same steps that I took in order to pay off student loans himself. This exchange kind of ended on a positive note when my acquaintance acknowledged that his negative post might have been written out of jealousy, and I have a pretty good relationship with this person now. I of course understood how people can be self-conscious about their student debt when hearing about the success of others.
My story demonstrates that there are a few things to keep in mind if you decide to celebrate paying off student loans. Of course it is important for people to celebrate paying off student debt, since this is a great accomplishment that is usually years in the making. People should have the opportunity express their excitement and happiness at achieving this feat, especially since much sacrifice is typically needed to pay off student loans.
However, people also need to be cognizant that student debt is one of the most distressing issues in the lives of many people. Seeing other people who have paid off student loans can make people more aware of the burdens they face because of student debt. In addition, even close friends and family members may be jealous at individuals for having paid off student loans, since everyone wants to be debt free.
As a result, I suggest that people celebrate paying off student loans privately, with perhaps one social media post to make things “Facebook official.” It seems perfectly permissible to have dinner with close friends and family to celebrate this feat, or arrange some other private means to acknowledge this accomplishment. By celebrating student debt repayment efforts on a smaller scale and in private, individuals can acknowledge all of the sacrifices they made to accomplish this feat while at the same time ensuring that they do not hurt others who may still have student loans.