This website has discussed at length how student loans can force individuals to make a number of sacrifices. Indeed, many student debt borrowers need to save money in extraordinary ways and miss out on a number of enriching experiences when trying to pay off student loans. However, my own personal experiences have shown me that student loans shouldn’t keep you from your dreams, and you must not let debt prevent you from finding happiness.
The main reason why student loans shouldn’t keep you from your dreams is because objectives can be harder to accomplish if you wait too long to achieve them. One personal example is instructive on this point. For much of my life, I aspired to join the military. Many people in my family served in the military, and I always wanted to give back to my country by joining the armed services.
When I was in law school, I participated in ROTC, and this was an extremely enriching experience. At the time, I participated in ROTC in order to be eligible for a two-year Army ROTC scholarship that could help pay for my last two years of law school.
However, after transferring law schools, I realized that I could pay off my student loans faster if I worked at a large law firm after graduating and devoted all of my extra money to repaying student debt. I also did not like the thought of receiving debt-repayment in exchange for serving in the military, and I wanted to repay my debt on my own and later join the army. I thought that student loans shouldn’t keep you from your dreams, and I could just delay joining the military for several years.
Six years after I stopped participating in ROTC, and five minutes after I paid off the last of my student loans, I started working on my application to be a lawyer for the Army Reserves. I needed a medical waiver when I participated in ROTC, and I was happy to receive a medical waiver after only a few business days. The second time I tried joining the army, I spent around $2,700 of my own money and went to numerous doctors’ appointments to complete my medical waiver application.
After an 18-month process, my medical waiver was eventually denied. This devastated me, since it meant that I would not be able to achieve my long-held aspiration of joining the military, even though this opportunity was available to me earlier in life. As this example shows, student loans shouldn’t keep you from your dreams, since waiting too long to achieve objectives might make it harder to eventually accomplish them.
I have a number of friends who have also had trouble achieving their dreams because they waited until after they paid off their student loans to pursue some goals. I know a few people who waited until after they paid off their student debt before starting families, and it makes sense that individuals would want to be financially secure before they have kids. However, some of my friends had difficulty starting families later in their lives, and they might have had an easier time if they started earlier.
In addition, I have one friend who always wanted to become a history professor, but this friend had a sizable amount of student debt from law school. He decided to work in the legal field for a number of years in order to pay off his student debt. My friend hated working as a lawyer, and by the time he entered a graduate program in history, he was older than many of the people in his cohort. This made it more difficult for my friend to handle the responsibilities of graduate work and family obligations, and he told me that he wished he started his graduate career earlier.
In addition, I have a few friends who always wanted to enter the public sector, but had difficulty taking public interest jobs shortly after graduating from school because of student loans. A few of my friends went to work at higher-paying jobs in the private sector, reasoning that student loans shouldn’t keep you from your dreams, and after a few years at a higher-paying job, they could transition into public sector work.
Of course, many of us know that this is often easier said than done. Some of my friends got “golden handcuffs” and had to keep working in more lucrative fields because they were used to the lifestyle they enjoyed while working these jobs. Friends of mine also eventually had children and other responsibilities, and later could not take a pay cut to pursue public interest work that would have brought them more fulfillment. Had these friends kept in mind that student loans shouldn’t keep you from your dreams, and pursued their passions earlier, they might have been more content with their lives.
This website has mentioned in several prior articles how a balance must be struck between sacrificing to pay off student loans and enjoying life in the present. People cannot take time for granted, and everyone should live their best life as soon as possible. In the end, student loans shouldn’t keep you from your dreams, and so long as you keep moderation in mind, you can work toward debt repayment while pursuing your passions.