What happens when you have a huge balance of student debt to pay back, but no degree to show for it? This week’s guest, Alisha, tells Nikki about her experience with student loans as someone who never finished college. Alisha shares her journey during and post-college, which lead her to her current career as a tech designer. Her story illuminates the unrealistic expectations we have for young people to know how to make decisions after high school that will impact them for years in the future.

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Transcript – 

Nikki Nolan: I’m Nikki Nolan. And this is Matter of Life and Debt, a show about people in the United States and their student debt. Today’s episode is All Debt, No Degree. I met Alisha at my former job and we were both designers and became quick friends. Our misery of our student debt really bonded us together. You know, good old trauma bond.

I was toying around with the idea of making a podcast back then, that was in 2018, which is when this episode was recorded. I talked with Alisha who went to college, but due to circumstances, never got her degree and ended up with a huge amount of debt. This is her story.

Alisha: My name’s Alisha. I’m a designer. I accrued $110,000 in student loans, never graduated and paid off $50,000.

Nikki Nolan: Has that hit your principal balance? What is your balance now?

Alisha: Oh, I’m not quite sure. That’s not how I think about it. I only do it by monthly payments and I don’t, I haven’t consolidated them all. I have three different loans. I have a private loan. Two private loans. I guess if you consider Sallie Mae a private loan.

Nikki Nolan: I don’t actually know. Maybe it’s a public loan that is privately held? I don’t know that. So you have three loans?

Alisha: I have, yes. So I have one that’s the government Perkins and all that stuff. One is Discover bank, a private loan. And then a Sallie Mae. So I have three.

Nikki Nolan: Did they have different interest rates?

Alisha: They have different interest rates.

Nikki Nolan: Okay.

Alisha: The most I owe is through Sallie Mae and through this private bank.

Nikki Nolan: Why did you decide to go private versus public?

Alisha: Literally because I had no idea what I was doing, I was like apparently, I need $40,000 for this semester. How do I get that money? And so I just put in an application, I looked it up, I did look at Google, which ones were the lowest rates but I think discover had a semi-low rate.

Nikki Nolan: Do you know what the rate is on that?

Alisha: I have no idea.

Nikki Nolan: You don’t know?

Alisha: I don’t, I don’t, I just, I do auto payments, I don’t even know really. I don’t really keep up with it. I just know that. Around a thousand dollars a month, but I’m also terrible with my finances. So I should probably be better about knowing what I’m paying and stuff.

Nikki Nolan: Have you done anything besides just you got the loans and you’re paying them off? Have you done, you said you haven’t refinanced or done anything like that?

Alisha: Yeah. Well, I just assume my credit is shit, so I don’t really think about doing that.

Nikki Nolan: Why do you think your credit shit?

Alisha: Oh, because I, well, it is, I know it should, because there were a few years when I, after I dropped out that I didn’t have a job. I was terrified about getting, having to pay more money for it. And then I started getting these calls about paying these loans off. And I was like, I don’t have $500 a month to pay these or even $300, any of it. So, cause I was working as a server at the time, I only have money to pay my rent. And so, yeah, I didn’t start paying it until I moved out to San Francisco and I was just always terrified about like loan sharks coming kind of coming out to get me. Murdering me or something.

Nikki Nolan: Oh my God. I can’t. Yeah. So you just sort of, just sort of got the loans and then you were just, I can’t do it. So you just ignored it.

Alisha: Yeah. I just ignored it awhile. And then, so that’s why I know that my credit is shit, cause I just ignored it for two years. Just hanging up calls on mystery numbers constantly. I got letters. It’s bad.

Nikki Nolan: Sounds like you’re back on track. So you said you didn’t start paying on until you moved?

Alisha: I just, I’m going to ignore this until I have to do something about it.

Nikki Nolan: I think so many do that, but a lot of people I’ve talked to, I was talking with this one woman and she goes, I just can’t even talk to anybody about it. Every time I talk about my loans, I just get angry.

Alisha: Yeah. I feel angry, but also ashamed because I feel I should have known better, but I just was, oh, no, I’m just gonna, it wasn’t really money to me at the time. It was just, oh, this is a number that I have to pay off every semester. And I have to somehow get $40,000.

The harder, the harder part too for me was that my parents we’re going through a divorce and it was a very costly divorce. And so my dad had ongoing bankruptcy and he also was getting his, he got his doctorate at the same time.

Nikki Nolan: While he was going through bankruptcy, a doctorate?

Alisha: Well, I was going, yeah, well, I was going to undergrad. He was getting his doctorate or maybe it was, he graduated a little bit before, maybe my sophomore year.

Nikki Nolan: Okay. So he had nothing. Your family couldn’t help you.

Alisha: She [mom] sort of works paycheck to paycheck. So she’s busy paying her rent. And I don’t really have grandparents that I talk to frequently and I don’t think they’re in the place to help me out either.

So I have an aunt that I’ve spoken to maybe once. My dad actually had to ask her to co-sign my loans, because I didn’t have anybody to co-sign. Or, I mean, my parents couldn’t really co-sign for me. So that sucked. That was also a part of my student loans situation was that I didn’t have anybody to co-sign. I’ve heard this thing about how chefs, when they go home, don’t cook dinner for their families because they’ve been cooking all day.

My dad, because he’s a teacher and because he’s also going through this stuff, student loan stuff, and he wasn’t super helpful, but he’s still figuring it out. So he was like, I don’t have any advice for you.

Nikki Nolan: Oh, I don’t know how to, how do we fix this?

Alisha: There’s nothing.

Nikki Nolan: It feels there’s nothing to do. It’s just such a problem.

Alisha: Especially I feel with my parents, they weren’t money savvy. I think we lived maybe lower income for a very long time and saving money wasn’t an option for us. I knew that going into college, that there was no bank of money for me, or, or there was, I was going to rely heavily on financial aid. So, but that requires, I feel like parents who know how to fill out all those forms and like what financial aid places to apply to, to send the forms to all this.

I didn’t even know what FAFSA was. And I remember my school. I was lucky that my guidance counselor was really adamant about filling out FAFSA and doing all these things. But if that person didn’t exist, I don’t think I would have.

Nikki Nolan: What made you decide to go to school?

Alisha: I think it’s cause I thought that that’s what you’re supposed to do. I mean, my school was pretty competitive. It’s a bit of a nerdy school, high school. And so we’ve been talking about college since middle school and PSATs and SATs and all that stuff. So I knew that going to college was an expectation. I just didn’t think about how I would go or the financial side of it.

I didn’t think that I was like, so many people are going to college, so it has to have been figured out. I’ll figure that part out later. I don’t really understand. I think, I mean, and they ask questions. How much do your parents make and what I was, I don’t know how my parents make.

Nikki Nolan: Yeah. Did you just make it up?

Alisha: I mean, I think, yeah, probably asked. I don’t even remember. I don’t remember what was on that, but it just felt like it was, that was a huge differentiator. Well, at least for me, I decided to go to out-of-state school. Which was probably more expensive than going in-state.

Nikki Nolan: Why’d you decide to go to an out of state?

Alisha: For arbitrary reasons, my parents getting divorced and I just didn’t want to stay around them anymore. And I didn’t want to live in LA because that would require having a car. That was what I was told.

Nikki Nolan: Isn’t it funny when you’re young, how you just don’t have access to like the knowledge that would potentially set you up for success in the future? You just make decisions because nobody else is helping you make the decisions.

Alisha: Yeah, I would just, everything was a bit arbitrary. I was, I want to go to a city that has good public transportation, because I won’t have a car. And if I lived in LA, I didn’t know anyone else who’s going to drive me from the airport to this college?

I mean, it doesn’t really happen for me. I guess I could have taken a taxi or something, just was like, oh, LA, isn’t an option. Cause apparently I have to have a car to get around. But if I had stayed in state, there was a lot of support, financial support I would have gotten because my parents were a little bit lower income.

So I had a lot of loans, money that was giving to me. I don’t think, I just knew how to like, make the best decision based on that or how much it meant that how much money meant you’re going to college or the decision to pick a college.

Nikki Nolan: I got so lucky. I’ve got, I got into two state schools and then one private school. And my mom was like, you’re going to a state school. So for undergrad, I went to a state school. And it was $5,000 a semester. It was insanely cheap. So I graduated undergraduate with very little student loans. I got super lucky.

However, because it didn’t have any student loans, I didn’t realize what student loans were. So when I was applying for grad schools, I had no concept just like you did, you had just had no concept of what impact this was going to have on your life.

Alisha: This is kind of silly to say, but college, how they brand themselves as, oh, you’ll go and you’ll change your life. And this is a really hard to get into school. Now that you’ve gotten into it, you have to go because we rejected so many other people so that you can get into the school and money can’t be the one thing that stops you because you’ve worked so hard to get to this point. Yep. You’re like, yeah, I deserve this. So I don’t care how much it costs. I deserve to get into this school because I worked so hard.

Nikki Nolan: Yeah. I feel a lot of America is just based on uh, a concept.

Alisha: Our lives are just concepts.

Nikki Nolan: It’s so true though. If you think about it, the American setup, you must go to college, you must do these things.

Alisha: Everyone’s competitive with each other. And if you go into a state school, you have some fear that you might not have a job afterwards because you went to some school that wasn’t Harvard.

Nikki Nolan: I had that fear. I was, I’m going to a state school. It hurt me. When I talk about that versus the private school, I feel there’s a total difference in how I’m like, oh yeah, I got that undergraduate from that place. My undergrad was so much better than my private school. Oh my god, immensely better. The teachers were better. I didn’t feel a lot of pressure. I developed my voice there and then I went to grad school, which was supposed to be the place where you hone in and it’s real interesting. And you’ll figure life out and you’re going to be a real artist. I went to school for art, I think you also sort of went to school for art.

Alisha: I should have gone to school for it. I went to school for graphic design, not art.

Nikki Nolan: No, but that was so much more tangible going to school for graphic design. Makes more sense, for finding a job.

Alisha: Oh, well that actually the college that I went to was, so I was slightly practical, just ever so slightly. My college was known for their co-op program.

Nikki Nolan: I don’t even know what that is.

Alisha: Yeah. So I think, well, from my knowledge, there are two schools that have this co-op program or internship program, Drexel and Northeastern. Northeastern is the school I went to. And after your first, I think after sophomore year, you’re required to go on a six month co-op, which is like an internship. And they set you up.

You have. A co-op counselor and advisor, and they have connections to places, local places that most of them actually were paying.

Nikki Nolan: Oh, wow.

Alisha: So you could go to those programs for six months and then you would come back and you would go back to school. But the idea was that you go off part of education and also have that real world experience.

So, and you go off, you network, you do the job for six months, and then you also get paid, which is nice because you don’t have to be like a poor student for the entire time, but it made it actually into a five-year school because you were doing two co-ops six months at a time. So I thought that sounded great.

That’s not just a typical private school experience and you can, you can make the, you know, that you can network, you can get paid during that time, whatever. But I just, I don’t know. I just, things just kind of fell apart for me.

Nikki Nolan: Why did it fall apart?

Alisha: I know, it just, something like every semester was harder to get.

Well, first of all, it was the fact that my parents couldn’t co-sign student loans. So I’m okay, I literally do not know how to get money. So it was really asking, I think I asked two times my aunt after that, I just, I can’t ask her anymore. I’d barely know this person and she’s on the line for my student loans. Now I’ve accrued, you know, a hundred thousand at this point.

Nikki Nolan: So it was a hundred thousand. How long did you go for?

Alisha: Yeah, I don’t even remember at this point it was, I stayed full freshman year. That was the entire year and then sophomore. And then we had this year called midler year. That was the time that was a third year.

And I went on a co-op for six months. I decided to go on a unpaid internship for some reason.

Nikki Nolan: So even though you, you said you went there because, you’re like, oh, they’ll pay me. And then you chose to do the unpaid one.

Alisha: First of all, I wasn’t loving graphic design. And I just, the idea of having to work on pamphlets at a, the children’s discovery museum for $15 an hour or whatever was just dreadful to me, or like some corporate, like just working on letterheads type setting.

This and that I just was like, this is so boring. That sounds terrible. And I had this opportunity and this arts and entertainment magazine, they always had these really fun illustrations on the cover. And I always, I think I always really wanted to get into illustration or art, you know, hand drawn stuff.

So I was like, oh, this is perfect. I ended up working. It was unpaid, but it was more, it was flexible too. So I ended up also taking a server job so I can pay them.

Nikki Nolan: Okay.

Alisha: So it was unpaid, but I didn’t have to do it full time.

Nikki Nolan: So you went and you did this internship. Is that and then you left after the internship or?

Alisha: Wow, I don’t have any memory of this.

Nikki Nolan: It’s totally fine. Most of that stuff is probably you know, you’re traumatized a lot.

Alisha: Yeah, just, it was all a mess. I just remember it was just a hot mess. And I think I tried to go back to school. I went into class and I, ah, this is so embarrassing, I think, well, at the time it was so embarrassing and it shameful, but I would go to class, pick my classes and then I would get the bill right to pay my, to put my money in my invoice, for the classes that I registered for. But I knew where all my classes were because it wasn’t a specific department. And so I knew where I needed to go. So I would go to the classes and then professors would do roll call and then my name wouldn’t be on the list because I hadn’t paid yet.

And so she was like, oh, people would be like, oh, what, what’s your name? And I’m like, oh, I’m Alisha. And they be like, oh, your name’s on the list. And I was like, oh, I think I’m just going through something with like the administration. I should be in this class. I registered for this class and be like, okay, okay.

And like two or three classes in, they will, you still have, your name is still not the list. You can’t be in this class. And I just be like, ugh. And I, but I didn’t know. I was like, oh, I’ll figure it out. I was giving myself some time to figure out how I’m going to pay that money.

Nikki Nolan: And so it was at that point, you’re just like, I can’t do this.

Alisha: So I think I went back and tried to sneak myself into a few classes and do that, that plan fell apart. It wasn’t, it wasn’t a good plan to start with.

Nikki Nolan: Pretty ballsy though. I like, I like it.

Alisha: Yeah. I could, I could’ve gotten away with it my freshman year, even though my freshman year I, it was paid for, um, because my classes were much larger and they were more general electives.

Giant math classes, but the, yeah, well, at the time I was getting into my third year, there were smaller, like, you know, dark room photography class. And I was like 20 kids in the class and I was just like, not in this class.

Nikki Nolan: I like that though. that I liked that you just showed up.

Alisha: Yeah, I would just say, I hope that you don’t notice that I’m not registered. So, I can get it for free.

Nikki Nolan: So what happened after?

Alisha: Yeah, so then I just continued working as a server and then I think I continued working as an intern at that magazine. Cause as well it’s education, but free I’m not getting paid, but, you know, I can ask the right questions and like just, I can at least be involved in this career in some way. And plus it was just easy. The person that I worked with was very good working with him and we got along. So it just wasn’t the high pressure job at all. I could come in whenever I wanted and it was easy, but yeah, I started working as a server and I think what happened. I decided that at one point, there’s a public art university in Boston called Mass Art. And because I have been living in Boston for two years at this point, I was a resident of Massachusetts. And so I was like, whoa, I could apply to the art school, the art school, which is what I wanted to do anyway. public art school so my tuition would go way down and this is what I want to do.

Anyway, I should just go to Mass Art. And so I put together my application. I got reference letters from the art director that I was working with, the CD [Creative Director] that I sometimes worked with. And so I got all these recommendations. I put everything together. And when I’m about to submit my application, there was a $50 application.

And I was, fuck, I don’t have $50. I was living paycheck to paycheck, but not even paycheck to paycheck, day by day, just whatever money I made that day, I was, oh, great. go towards rent or this will go towards my meal for the day.

Nikki Nolan: You were living day to day?

Alisha: Yeah. It was day to day. I was so broke. I remember I used to call my mom and be like, oh, I guess I don’t have anything to eat today.

And I think it would break her heart, but I would just, I don’t know who else to talk to about it, but I would just eat hummus and carrots. I was like, this will last me a few days. And I would be thankful that at the restaurant at least would get one free meal day. So I wouldn’t never starve. So as long as I wanted to work, I could get a free meal.

So I was like, that’s fine. At least I don’t have to worry about that. And some days sometimes I’ll make $100. If it’s a good night, I’ll make a $100, $200. But yeah, so I had to make $50 because, and I also waited last minute. It was really, everything was happening very quickly. I got everything together.

And then I had to, I had to come up with $50 for the application fee because by the end of the week or something, it was a Wednesday and I had to send it, submit it by Friday or something, but I only had lunch shifts that week.

Nikki Nolan: Oh-

Alisha: And so it was “fuck”. And Friday is usually the day that I can make money, but the application was due on Friday. And I knew that if I worked at dinner shift-

Nikki Nolan: Yeah, you wouldn’t have been able to get it in on Friday.

Alisha: So I was okay. I only have like two lunch shifts and I don’t make any money during lunch shifts. I was like, fuck. And so I, I like contacted all my people that I worked with and I was like, Hey, can I switch dinner shift?

Can I switch dinner shift? And maybe I didn’t ask hard enough, but I was, I needed a dinner shift and no one was, and no one was like, I don’t want to give you my dinner shift. And so it was a fuck. I’m stuck with these two lunch shifts. So I go into these lunch shifts I make like $10, $20 for each shift and I did not make $50. And I, I mean, I dunno how hard I was trying, but I was like, if I make $50, I’ll submit my application.

Nikki Nolan: And you were kind of letting luck. Like if one gives it to me, do it.

Alisha: Exactly. At this point. It was also just frustrating. I was already like, not looking forward to the fact that I was going to figure out how to pay tuition. I don’t know.

Nikki Nolan: Another, it was already traumatic for you.

Alisha: Yeah.

I was like, I’m so going to have to do this, all this, but maybe I’ll just put my application in and give myself some time, but I couldn’t come up with $50 that week. So I didn’t end up submitting my application. And I was like, wow, this sucks. I’m just gonna, I’m just like, and then it hit me that I was going to be a college dropout because I was like, I’m not going to figure this out.

And so, yeah, after a few traumatic years, my mom was like, you should move back to California and live with me for a little bit just to reset yourself because I was just like, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Will I just work as a server, the rest of my life. I was really lucky at the time because my rent wasn’t too much.

It was $500. Yeah. I was really lucky. But the people who I was renting it from, got it at a really low rate. It was a four bedroom apartment and they got it at a low rate, but the landlord was we’re going to raise the rate after that year. So I was all, I can’t live here anymore and I’m not going to find a $500 a place I can get for $500 in Boston.

Nikki Nolan: Yeah.

Alisha: So I was like, oh, and everything just fell apart. And I was like, I’m just going to give up. But at the time it felt like giving up, but yeah. And then I moved back here. Had a few months where I didn’t have to worry about rent, which was, I couldn’t, I can’t believe that that’s such a huge amount of pressure to just figure out.

Nikki Nolan: Yeah. What was the first time you felt relief? When you moved back?

Alisha: Yeah. I was like, oh, I don’t have to do anything. And I could just eat and sleep and not have to worry about living.

Nikki Nolan: I know you were just living in a constant state of stress. So that entire time you’re doing that, you were just pretending you didn’t have student loans?

Alisha: Yeah. I mean it’s, I couldn’t even worry about that. I literally have to worry about how I’m going to pay rent on a day-to-day basis. What I’m going to eat that day. So, yeah, I just was like, I can’t think about it. I just rejected the idea of it. But so I moved back to San Jose where my mom is. She even put out the money for my one way ticket back and it was just those little things meant everything to me because it felt that it was at a time when I felt like I couldn’t afford anything.

Even if I wanted to leave, I couldn’t leave. Even if I, yeah. Even if I wanted to quit, I couldn’t quit. It was just one option. So I felt so thankful that she would be, she was just like, here is a $200 ticket to get to San Jose. You can stay at my place, but I felt guilty the entire time. So I was really working out finding something.

And so I found this ad on Craigslist. It was $20 per illustration or something that, for these like digital greeting cards, paperless posts, it was some knockoff version that. And then we will give you $20 per illustration. I was like, that’s amazing $20. And if I do five a day, I can make a $100.

And I was like, that’s so much money. Now, that’s a fucking rip off. Yeah. So I did that, which was, I felt I was killing it and I could just work from a coffee shop and I could just do five illustrations a day and make a $100. And that was at least three months into just coming back. But think there is a constant pressure to even have to do something. I felt guilty the entire time.

So even though my mom, you don’t have to do anything. You can just stay here and relax and no, I feel I have to continue pursuing my career because I had a lot of pressure about being a dropout. And like, if I don’t push myself or if I don’t stress out about this, I will just become a dropout in terms of just not had not having anything.

And then I was on call for some reason, I was looking for jobs on Craigslist a lot. So that was the only way I knew how to look for jobs. Before LinkedIn, probably. And before I would do those illustration jobs here and there. And then at that time, I, I think actually a one of those talent agencies.

Nikki Nolan: Oh, yeah.

Alisha: Had reached out to me through LinkedIn or something.

And it was, hey, there’s a hip new company startup looking for a junior designer. And I had done a lot of infographics at the time. A lot of my portfolio was just infographic heavy. The one of the last classes I took at Northeastern was an information design class that I really liked.

And so I just had, that’s the only work I really put up on my portfolio.

Nikki Nolan: I remember those, I’ve made so many infographics.

Apparently one night when I was working for the Mayor’s Office and I had been making a bunch of infographics, I apparently said in my sleep, do you need that infographic? I will make you an infographic! Woke up my then husband, now ex-husband, shaking him saying that I wouldn’t make him an infographic. He was like, yeah, you shook me awake saying would make me an infographic.

Alisha: Oh man. I, you don’t even, I didn’t even hear the word infographic today anymore. Who even makes an infographic?

Nikki Nolan: It’s not a thing anymore.

Alisha: Very popular at the time.

Nikki Nolan: It was so popular. Everything was an infographic.

Alisha: Yeah. Everything was, and everyone always wanted an infographic. Anyway, that actually helped me because it was a very good thing to put in my portfolio, even though as a graphic designer, it wasn’t anything to be proud of. But for graphic designers, it was better to have books and book covers and layouts that you’ve done, all that posters and papers shit, you know, but I put out infographics, this is the only thing I was doing in college.

And that was what everyone wanted at the time. So I got super lucky. And so, yeah, I got this talent agent person being like, hey, we have this hip company startup that is looking for a junior designer to just do a bunch of infographics. And I was like, perfect. That sounds like the perfect job. I love infographics.

It was like an infographic a week. Oh. So I think the job was another, that was another contract to hire a job and I took it cause I was like, I’ll take any opportunity. I am thankful for anything. I am a dropout. I’m not going to talk about the fact that I’m a dropout. I’m super thankful about any job that I get at that time. And I have to pay all these loans back. So I have to find a job.

Nikki Nolan: So you realized you needed to pay it back when you came back to San Francisco. At what point did you realize?

Alisha: Okay. I mean, I knew I needed to pay it back. Even when I was in Boston, was like getting phone calls, being like, you need to pay this shit back.

I mean, frankly, I just needed to talk to someone and be like, this is my situation. I feel like they would have been more lenient about it, but I was just ignoring their phone calls. Can you just tell us what’s going on? So I did, at some point I was like, hey, I’m not in Boston anymore. I’m back in San Francisco. I just don’t have a job. I don’t know how to pay it back. And they’re like, okay, we’ll give you some time.

So some of them were nice and they were like, what can you pay $50 a month? You know, I feel like that’s probably the tactics that they use, but instead of $300, can you pay $50? I’d be like, okay, fine I’ll try and pay $50 a month. Yeah. So that’s how it sort of started to start slowly paying it back.

Nikki Nolan: And so that happened, right when you got back to California?

Alisha: When I was working on that contract to hire job, I felt a little bit more comfortable even just talking to someone about it. Cause I felt like, oh, I’m on the up and up.

I was just happy that I had a job in design or even just an office job. I was, oh, I have a nine to five. This is awesome. This is exactly what I wanted. is exactly what I think everyone else is doing after graduating school, I dropped out and I’m still doing the same thing. So.

Nikki Nolan: That’s what I love, sort of about your story is that you are still doing it. I know school can be important, but it just the ratio between all the pain and suffering that you get from having a student loan and then balanced out with you probably could have gotten a job without it.

Alisha: I sort of regret ever really going to college. I should have gone to community college, or I think I needed to have some time to figure out what I wanted to do too. And I know the minute I was admitted to college that I would just start accruing all this debt that I needed to pay back. I would’ve just to figure it out.

Nikki Nolan: In general. It’s just hard to get paid. So you took out all this money and student loans and it’s you just keep going through the company. So you’re like, oh my God, it is so hard to get paid.

Alisha: Oh, and the thing, the, another thing that started to frustrate me as I was working with all these people, was that, okay, we might all earn the same amount, but you don’t owe any student loans. And I do. And I, half of my paycheck goes to student loans. You, half of your paycheck goes to food, or going out or clothes or whatever.

I still felt like I was living paycheck to paycheck, despite the fact that I was earning more and then it hit me that people who owe student loans and people who don’t owe student loans, there’s such a huge life. Your lives are different. You start your lives differently. Very traumatizing. I feel like at such a young age, when you know, lawyers calling you and being like you owe this money, you owe $110,000 to the school. I’m like ah, I’m 21 years old. I don’t know how I’m going to get that money.

Nikki Nolan: Oh, it’s huge. There’s a huge amount of money. You couldn’t buy a house in some parts of the country.

Alisha: I know, oh, I have $10 in my bank right now. Is that a good start?

Nikki Nolan: I can give you a penny.

Alisha: But it’s funny because I think it’s just, I think for most people they don’t feel trapped by their decisions and it just feels like this heavy burden. And I think it started with my student loans.

Nikki Nolan: I think it started with my student loans as If you could do anything different, what would you do?

Alisha: First of all, I would’ve gone to community college for a few years just to get my general ed classes out of the way. And I would’ve, I think I know myself a little bit better now than I used to.

I thought I would feel better about majoring in graphic design, because then it meant I had a job at the end of the tunnel and that, you know, I could monetize it or whatever, but I think now I would have just try to take a more experimental route because I think I don’t thrive in environments where I’m not allowed to- we’re just turn, turn, churn.

Nikki Nolan: Play and experiment.

Alisha: Yeah. And I don’t feel good about, I think part of the most stressful thing about being a graphic designer in tech is that I just don’t really feel I’m doing my best work. That feels sad to me. What is my life then? And I think deep, deep down, I know I’m a creative person.

That’s how I’ve been my entire life. And I think I’ve compromised that for money. And that’s what makes me the most upset that I’m really into compromising these things that I’ve always been in. That ‘s pretty much the only thing that I’ve truly known about myself is that I’m a creative person and I’ve, yeah, I’ll take the money for it.

You know, that feels really gross to me. What person have I become that I’m willing to have ulcers and have a bald spot in my head and be this stressed out because money.

Nikki Nolan: Because of money.

Alisha: And that feels shitty.

Nikki Nolan: I feel very similar to you though. I feel like I’ve given up so much of who I fundamentally am for money. And I feel like a sellout. I feel like I compromised all of my values for money, just so that I can, and it’s not money so I can have money. That’s the worst part. It’s not compromising my values so I can personally be rich and have money so that I can get money so I can get out of debt.

Alisha: Yeah. And it was really sad. That is really the cherry on top of it.

It’s just like, it’s not even for me, it’s for the government or it’s for these banks. It’s I don’t even get anything out of this. And so if there’s anything that I could do to change anything, it would be to avoid being in debt at all costs. And if that meant taking the slower route to figure out what my career was, I mean, I think even the idea of a career is arbitrary.

I think I would have just taken my time and yeah at least I’m debt-free. Even if it meant that I was working at a McDonald’s and, but I wasn’t debt-free and I could still pay my rent. I don’t know, whatever, whatever it is, I just would have rather have that route where I’m just taking my time figuring things out. But at least have the emotional space and not be so stressed out at such a young age. So not normal.

Nikki Nolan: It is normal now.

Alisha: It is well, you know, but I feel like it just not, I mean,

Nikki Nolan: It’s not sustainable.

Alisha: It’s not sustainable and, but it feels you have to sustain it because you have to figure out ways to cope with it, which is just, I don’t know the idea that I have to cope with that is just, it’s really depressing. And then I’m like, yeah, I don’t. Yeah. Just the idea that I have to cope with the depression of my day-to-day. My day job is depressing. Yeah.

Nikki Nolan: I agree.

Alisha: The fact that I have to meditate just to get through a week is depressing. Why am I, why am I meeting having to call myself down?

Why am I getting so stressed out about this?

Nikki Nolan: Yeah, I have to push pressure points. I do I have to do so many things.

Alisha: Yeah.

Nikki Nolan: Well, thank you for talking. I really appreciate it. I like feeling like I know so much more about you now which is wonderful.

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