In the first episode of A Matter of Life and Debt, host Nikki Nolan shares her personal journey with her student loans, which ended in her paying off a total of $157,885.12 over the course of 29 months, ending in August 2020.

Nikki talks about her early struggles with education and her undiagnosed learning disabilities that led her teachers to say that she was “unteachable” and that she would “never attend college.” When in 8th grade she was finally diagnosed with dyslexia and a sensory processing difference, her whole world opened up. Her passion led her all the way to pursuing a Masters in Fine Arts from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.

She began her master’s program having been previously debt-free. In order to follow her passion for art, Nikki took out the maximum possible loans to cover the expensive private school tuition and the high cost of living in New York so that she could make the most of her experience. She left her MFA program with $121k in federal loan debt. After six years of making regular payments under an income-based repayment program that adjusted for her low-paying civil service job, she was shocked to find that her debt had grown to $152k- in part because of some bad advice she had received from a student debt lawyer.

Finally, having had enough, she took matters into her own hands and refinanced with a 7-year loan at a much lower interest rate. This, along with new, higher-paying jobs, enabled her to pay down her loan, she is completely student debt free.

Over the course of 9 years, she paid $162,144, which included $53,832 in interest. Now Nikki would like to share what she has learned about the broken education system in America, as well as hear stories from other people who have student debt or have paid theirs off.

 

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Transcript

Nikki: I’m Nikki Nolan. This is A Matter of Life and Debt. a show about people in the United States and their student debt. Today’s episode: A Matter of Life and Debt. On this episode today, I talk with myself about my story. I explain what I did to pay it off, and the reason why I’m doing the show.
This is my story.

Welcome to the show. It’s so good to have you here.

I currently do not have any more loans. I paid it off. It took me 29 months to pay it off. Well, it took me nine years, but over the course of before the 29 months that I decided to aggressively pay off my loans, I had initially borrowed $108,000. And by the time I graduated, it had ballooned to $121,000 from the interest alone- just from being in school.
And I just didn’t understand loans. I didn’t understand life. A lot of folks that I’ve interviewed have reflected back similar sentiments, that it was hard for them to have education around what they were doing or what they were getting themselves into. And I was in that same boat.

I was very young, it was during the great recession and I couldn’t find a job and I borrowed $108,000. When all is said and done, I paid back $167,000. And I started paying it off really aggressively 29 months ago because I just couldn’t take the debt anymore. It was just exhausting. It was impacting every waking moment. I was just thinking about how much debt I was accruing and I ended up privatizing them.

I went and got my master’s degree with the idea of building interactive things for museums. And I actually got that job. I got that job. I worked at the California Academy of Sciences and I got to make some interactive games for the floor and some interactive experiences. And that’s what I wanted to do. Like that was my dream job, but I wasn’t being paid enough.

My loans kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And so the impact of my student loans is it’s made me have to make a loan, the decisions that were based financially instead of like more inspired-based things that were based on my passion or what I’m interested in.

So I ended up getting a job in tech primarily because it pays. And it pays a lot better and it’s been a rollercoaster of experiences. And the impact has just been pretty psychological. I have felt like a failure a lot, that I got myself into the place where I got that much debt.

And, something that’s really interesting is one impact that my student loans have had on me, is it pushed me to make this podcast. So there is a really positive thing that is coming out of my student loans is that I’ve been able to connect with a lot of folks. And many more folks, I’m sure, around student loans and be able to share my story and share their stories. And I hope in doing so that we all can learn from each other and hopefully build a better future.

The show really came about because I was in a situation where I had a ton of student debt and it just seemed to be getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger. And I had no way of comprehending what was going on. The system that I was in- the student loan system.

I was very confused and I just wanted to understand, and it felt like there was disparate pieces of information all over the place. And my initial goal, when I started this podcast- I recorded the first episodes in 2017, 2018. My ideal was that I was going to make a point podcast that tried to be investigative. And I tried to uncover what was happening and why it was happening, who were all the players involved.

So I started taking classes. I took writing classes. I took podcast- making classes- I took so many classes. Yet, I could not seem to make this podcast come into the world. It was just so overwhelming to me.

I recorded five episodes in 2018. Few of those will be on the podcast. Some of them, I have re-interviewed folks that were on those podcasts to see where they were two years later.
It is now coming into the world now. And why now?

Because I paid off my loans and somehow paying off my loans gave me this renewed sense of energy to be able to actually tackle this. And so what this is, it’s interviews with people around the subject matter of student loans, It’s one-on-one conversations about the impact it’s had on their lives, the story of their lives, how they got their debt, and the story of some people who don’t have debt anymore who have paid it off.

I’m also going to interview parents. Hopefully, I can get in touch with some government officials and interview them about what their viewpoint is. I’m just really, I’m curious about the subject matter, and this is not an advice show. This is not a legal show. This is like real people, telling their stories about their life.

So now I’m going to tell my story.

My name is Nikki Nolan and I grew up in Denver, Colorado. I come from a family who my mother’s side, born and bred Brooklyn. And my father’s side was from New Orleans.

And at a very young age, my dad would travel a lot. So him and his family just traveled most of their lives. They lived in different states and different countries, his entire life until he moved to Denver and met my mom. And my mom moved to Denver to become a Vista volunteer. It’s basically like the Peace Corps for America.

I’m starting a lot earlier than a lot of the folks on the show when they tell their life stories. It’s because you have to understand where I came from to understand what an accomplishment, the fact that I have a job, that I went to the school is.

So, I went to seven schools before eighth grade and this is because I was what they described as unteachable. They said that I couldn’t learn. When I read the transcripts of the educational testing that they did on me, it basically said that my parents should expect that I will never go to college and that I will end up living with them for the rest of my life. So to get ready for that.

I have always had this real struggle with education as a child. I really wanted to be an architect. I wanted to be an architect so badly. I used to measure my parents’ house with a tape measure. And then I would take graph paper and I would draw to scale my parents’ house as a blueprint. And then I would take that and then I would build it in Legos to scale.

I loved measuring things. I love thinking about space. I loved like physical space and like how to be able to modify it to feel differently. And so I really wanted to be an architect. I will tell you when that dream was crushed, a little later on.

In ninth grade, my parents decided to put me in a school for people with learning differences. I actually did not learn how to read properly, like read sentences, understand how to write until I was in 11th grade. And this is because people refused to teach me. I mean, I admit it. I am very difficult to teach, but I love to learn.

I just learned very specifically. And, when you have an education system that is not meant for the outsiders or the edge cases, in my case, it becomes really hard to find a place for that person.

I went to a private school, and they spent time with me. They taught me how to read. They taught me how to socialize. I mean, for the most part, I’m still very, very awkward.

I started to thrive. I started becoming an, A student. I graduated fifth in my class and I got into a few undergrad schools. I actually got into all the schools I applied for undergrad. And I got really, really lucky. My mother, I could have gone to a private school and it would have cost a ton of money.

My mother was like, you go to a state school, I will pay for it. So I ended up going to a state school. And it was amazing. I loved my education at my state school. I went to Colorado state university. I did bounce around a lot. So I first started out thinking I wanted to go into marketing because they actually didn’t have an architecture school there.

So I was like, what else could I do? It didn’t really fit me. So then I went into construction management and that fit me a lot better. I love building things. It was more in line with the architecture dream that I had. However, I did run into a lot of sexism and it wasn’t a good cultural fit for me. Let’s say that. Let’s use some words that I’ve learned.

My mom really wanted me to go to school to be an artist. Unlike most parents, most parents push their kids into business school or law school, or to be a doctor, my parents wanted to push me into the arts. I really rejected that for two years. I was like, nope, not going to do this. No, nope, nope, nope. And then I took an art history class and it was, it made sense. I finally found a place where I was like, oh, this isn’t hard. art history is incredibly hard, but it felt easier. I was doing really good. I met some amazing people. So I gave in and I decided to study art.

I am so happy I made that choice. It really, really taught me so, so much about the world, about different cultures, about how people perceive the world and how big the world is. And how small the world is. And it really gave me a lot of perspective and problem solving and just like very analytical, but critical, and abstract and philosophical thinking. I would not trade my undergraduate degree in for anything. It was totally worth it.

I am privileged because my mother was able to have enough to pay for that. And so I graduated with no debt, which is pretty unheard of, but it is heard of. I will be interviewing some folks who never got any debt to hear what their stories are too.

I would not trade my undergraduate for anything in the world, because like I said, I had like flopped around a little bit and I was going into different degrees. It took me five years. So I took a victory lap and I graduated in 2008. If you don’t know what happened in 2008, go to the internet and look it up.

Or I could tell you a little bit. We went into a pretty bad recession and when you graduate with a degree in photography and sculpture, with a minor in art history and technical design and theater, there’s not a lot of jobs for you lining up. It’s going to be a difficult life. If that’s like, you’re going to have to work hard.

You’re going to have to really, really hard with those credentials, if you want something in the field. People make it, people do make it. I was not one of the people who was able to make it in 2008. So I took a year off in between grad school and undergrad school.

I taught at an art gallery and I also was a gallerist at another art gallery, which were super, super cool. But the art market was really, really hurting at that time too, so there wasn’t a whole lot of career prospects- very similar to what’s happening right now during the coronavirus. It’s probably very difficult right now to get a job in the arts, but I don’t know, cause I don’t work in the arts.
I got into two grad schools. And I decided to go to the one that had a better name on paper. I’ve really had to investigate this in my life. This is a pattern that I’ve noticed that I tend to choose things that sound better. I buy name brand over store brand, even though they are pretty much the same thing. I mean, you could fight me on Twitter about that. It’s fine.

So I chose Pratt. It sounds amazing. When I got accepted, I had written to the Dean at the time. I had asked her, ‘Hey, this is a lot of money. Is there anything you can do to help me? I really want to go here, but I just don’t know how I’ll ever pay this off. This seems so much money.’ And she wrote back a letter basically saying- and I will post the letter in this episode, on my website, matteroflifeanddebt.com. The podcast is A Matter of Life, but the URL doesn’t have a, so it’s just matteroflifeanddebt.com. And the Twitter handle is even shorter. It’s @matteroflifedebt. I couldn’t make a longer name, so that’s how it had to be.

She wrote me back and was like, ‘Yeah, I can’t tell you to take on this debt. It took me forever to pay it off too.’ And I still ended up going.

I went. I went and within the first week, I was just so overwhelmed by the idea of how much debt- and by my first semester, I actually ended up transferring to another department because I was like, I need to get a degree. That’s going to give me skills that I can get a job.

So I transferred to the digital department and got my master’s degree in interactive media. But, the entire time I was at the school, I was just fighting internally with myself. Fighting for how much it costs. Fighting for sanity inside my own body, which really made the experience not that pleasant. I did not enjoy grad school. I did not enjoy getting out of grad school, and I feel like it might’ve been one of the worst mistakes I’ve ever made in my life.

I am trying to be more positive. I’m trying to say, Hey, you know, I did do that. That was the choice I made. It was a choice I regret deeply.

I wasn’t ready for grad school. I went there because I was so worried about what kind of job I was going to get because of the recession. A lot of people probably do this- they go back to school cause they need a path. They need something to hold on to when the world is so, overwhelming and not understandable. It makes a lot of sense. I don’t blame myself for making the decision. I just regret it.

I graduated and it took me about a year to find a job. And I finally found a job. It was at the mayor’s office, of media and entertainment in New York City. So I was underneath the Bloomberg administration and I was making $37,000 a year right out of grad school. I could just barely afford to eat food, let alone rent my apartment. it was very difficult to live in New York city on that salary.

Over the course of the last eight, nine, 10 years. I don’t know. I can’t even, I don’t even know- I was at the mayor’s office. I was at a digital agency. I was at the California Academy of Sciences. The job I was talking about earlier that I absolutely loved, but just didn’t make enough money to pay off my loans.

And then I transitioned into tech. I worked as a product design for three tech companies, so far, and- been an interesting and wild ride. Then 29 months ago, actually, it was longer than 29 months ago, but 29 months ago is when I started aggressively paying off my loans.

I actually was talking to a student loan lawyer because my loans just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And he recommended that I go on a lower repayment plan so that I could get it forgiven in 25 years. And so I did this. I went onto the lower repayment thing.

I had FedLoans. It took them three months to transition me to the other program. By the time they transitioned me, I accrued so much more interest and I just- I had had it.

I privatized my loans. I got a 2.55% interest rate, which is really good. I don’t know what you can get now.

I was able to move into a really, really affordable, tiny, tiny house – 390 square feet. The size of some people’s bedrooms. I don’t have a car. I don’t have anything that is a really big expense. And I put a lot of my salary into paying it off, which most people cannot do.

Most people cannot do what I did. I’m not married. I don’t have children. I don’t have a lot of responsibilities. My responsibility is to myself, my job, making sure my dog stays alive, you know, really simple things. And so, yeah 29 months ago I started aggressively paying and it was a wild ride. It was just so much, it was so much. I gave up a lot of comforts, which I realized I could live without. I learned a lot in the last 29 months up until the day that I paid.

The day that I paid off my loans. I wasn’t planning on paying my loans off for another two months. That was my projection. And I was talking to the banker on the phone and I said, okay, what’s the end game here? How do I pay this off? I don’t know how you end a loan really. He was like, well, the day that you’re going to pay it off, just email us and we’ll let you know what you owe. Cause you accrue interest daily.

I should have known. I should have known that you accrue interest daily on a loan, but I didn’t. I didn’t know. I didn’t know until the day I paid off my loan.

Interest is terrible. Interest is the silent killer. Interest is what holds you below the water. We definitely need a restructuring of this system. This system is drowning people. Sigh. Yeah. So that’s where I am. I paid off my loans.

I felt really excited about it, but now I feel a little bit of a void cause like I am, I am mostly free. I mean, I am, I’m free, I’m free. I don’t have debt anymore. And it is so confusing because now all the excuses that I had made about why I couldn’t be an artist or why I couldn’t do this one thing. I have to stop making excuses and go and live my life.

So what advice would I give to my younger self is don’t rush. Like I rushed, I was so scared and also I said, I would get to this earlier, but I did not – the reason I didn’t go into architecture is my undergrad didn’t have it as a degree. But I also learned that you had to take some tests. In high school, I was diagnosed as being dyslexic and I also have a sensory processing difference. I just realized I was never going to be able to pass those tests no matter how hard I studied. I have never been able to be tested on a standardized test. I always test so poorly. Give me a written test. Give me an oral test.

Make sure your school is set up to support you. I chose Colorado state because they had a really good disabilities program, an amazing disabilities program. I got all my tests untimed and orally read to me because I could process the question orally, but when I read it, I couldn’t understand fully what it was asking.

I actually, I went to Pratt cause they were supposed to have a disability services program. They did, I did not utilize it like I did an undergrad. In undergrad, that was my everything. It was so helpful. It was my support system.

So I recommend don’t rush. I recommend really look into the loans. Figure out how much the interest is. Do some math. Figure out how much you’re going to end up paying their calculators online- interest calculators. You can figure this out.

Make sure your school has the programs you want. I wanted to become a professor, which is why I went to grad school and then realized that the program I was in didn’t have a teaching program.
And so I wasn’t even able to teach after I graduated unless I found some kind of other teaching things cause you to need to teach for at least two years, at least back when I graduated, to become a professor. And you need those in grad school.

So just do more research. Don’t rush.

I would give that advice to myself and I would give that advice to anybody. I just think it’s really important for us to find our passions. And to find things that make us happy. I know pursuing a passion is a luxury as not everybody has the luxury. Do things that bring you joy and happiness and that delight you and make you want to wake up in the morning.

Now I need to put my money where my mouth is. And so that’s why we have a podcast!

I’m living my life. I’m trying new things. I’m doing things that I’ve never done before. I’m going to work on making my life the life that I want to live.

This podcast makes me really happy. I’m going to continue to do it and tell it makes me not happy. And I really just hope that you will get something from this. So enjoy. Send me messages. Let me know if there are subjects you want to hear about, people you want to hear from, send me an email on my website or tweet at me. Message me on LinkedIn.

Matter of Life and Debt is produced by me Nikki Nolan.  

Special thanks to Efe Akmen for creating the music and mastering the audio. 

Additional support and thanks to Sarah Thibault  who writes the information and transcripts about each episode. 

This podcast would not have been possible without them. 

Visit our website for more information matteroflifeanddebt.com, where you can listen, read transcripts, get additional context of the subjects you just heard about, and subscribe- absolutely for free. That website again, matteroflifeanddebt.com. Thanks again for listening.

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