Welcome, Shanna Bennett, the new host of Matter of Life and Debt! Shanna kicks off her new hosting duties in a conversation with Kiyomi Kowalski, who is a diversity and inclusion educator, and a lifelong public servant. Kiyomi talks about why she signed up for the Marine Corps at age 17, paid education being the main motivation, and where she’s at today on her student debt journey.

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Transcript – 

Nikki Nolan: I am so excited. We just recorded the first interview. I would love to take a step back and say, I am going to take a step back from hosting Matter of Life and Debt. And I feel like I found the perfect person to take over as the new host. And I just want you to introduce yourself. Do you mind introducing yourself?

Shanna Bennett: I don’t mind at all. Hello, I’m Shanna Bennett, the founder of Student Debt Brand. And I’m hanging out with Nikki on the podcast.

Nikki Nolan: We just did our first interview. And I think people are going to be really excited to see this new energy breathed into the podcast that’s been going on for over a year. How did it feel?

Shanna Bennett: It was so much fun. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Thank you for even suggesting it because I’m always down to talk about student debt, any time, any place. I love it. And our first guest is just so multifaceted. Has so many great stories. Has so much to say. It’s a good time for sure.

Nikki Nolan: I’m so excited. And really the reason that I had been thinking about stepping back for a while- I do have another podcast that’s going to be coming out March 10th around disability called Disability Bandwidth. So take a look at that. In the previous episodes of this with Fred, he had talked about how we need to make sure that we have a range of voices that are telling the stories. And you were just such a perfect fit in my mind. I know the perfect person that needs to come and take this over. And I am just so grateful that you, you just knocked it out of the park.

Shanna Bennett: What’s so funny as I told you when we were talking before, that I was thinking of doing a similar format, but maybe on Instagram live and then you reached out and I thought, well, this is great! This is similar to what I had in mind. So let’s do it. I’m so excited. I think it’ll be a lot of fun.

Nikki Nolan: Before I sign off for hopefully the last time and have you take over the control panel- no pressure. Where can people find you? Where can people learn more about you? You are doing some incredible stuff all over the internet, and I want to make sure that people can find and learn more about you as well. Before people listen to this episode.

Shanna Bennett: So I’m hanging out at Student Debt Brand, posting all things, news, humor, data about student debt and how it affects us in our everyday lives.

Nikki Nolan: You’re doing an incredible job. Well, everybody enjoy this wonderful conversation and I’ll see you on the flip side. Keep on the fight.

Shanna Bennett: Love it. Love it.

(podcast interview starts)

Hi, I’m Shanna Bennett, And I’m here with Kiyomi Kowalski, who is a diversity and inclusion educator, and we’re on Matter of Life and Debt. Kiyomi, welcome to the podcast!

Kiyomi Kowalski: Hi friends, hello, friends thank you for having me.

Shanna Bennett: It’s good to have you here. We’re going to dive right in. You are so multifaceted that we’re so eager to get your perspective on a couple of different topics. And when I say multifaceted, I do have the list. You are a Marine Corps vet. You attended Cal State Northridge, where you earned your degree in Political Science. You went on to earn your law degree. You earned a Juris Doctorate from Southwestern Law School, no big deal. You hold a certification in Diversity and Inclusion from Cornell University that doesn’t include all that you’ve done for your community. And then more specifically the Jewish community. You’re a parent. You have a partner, so let’s dive right in.

There’s a lot of meat here.

Kiyomi Kowalski: I am the multitudes and that’s only the stuff that’s fit to print, like, right? Like, offline. We’ll talk about the side hustles and gigs…

Shanna Bennett: So basically if we don’t feel like we’re getting enough done in the day, we should not talk to you.

Kiyomi Kowalski: I mean, I’m like a couple of steps below Beyonce. Yeah. My 24 hours are not the same as everyone else’s 24 hours.

Shanna Bennett: We need to have a side conversation on productivity, for sure.

I thought we could start with, just take it back to baby Kiyomi, the senior in high school and what some of those conversations were like in your home about higher education and about the cost? And did the cost come up? Was the cost an issue at all?

Kiyomi Kowalski: Okay. So yeah, I’m going to be Debbie Downer. Cause I’m pretty funny, but this is actually not funny. I had a terrible upbringing. I didn’t have a family that was going to send me to school, but it was embedded in my mind and soul and the idea that I needed to go to school. There was no other way to live. You had to go to school. And so even though terrible parents certainly were not planning, they couldn’t even keep the cable on it. They were too busy pretending to be rich, to like, bother to actually acquire wealth of any sort. And certainly not for us.

So, I woke up one day and realized, oh my God, I’m going to be alone in this world. And I need to be able to pay for myself to go to school because that’s the only concept I had. And it’s kind of like my north star at all times. Like, I’ve got to go to law school, I’ve gotta go to law school, like every day. So, that kind of kept me on a certain path. The path got wider, in certain years.

And so, I seriously remember waking up, in a frantic feeling in 11th grade and was like, oh my gosh, I’m alone in this world. And I need to actually literally find those bootstraps that people talk about and pull myself up by them.

So, I enlisted in the Marine Corps. I was like, well, I’m going to join the military because I know they have the GI bill. And then, all the things that you can, you know, somebody you could possibly have a life, on your own. And so of course, like I could have joined any branch, but I was like, screw that. I might want to join the military to be listened to, like, I don’t have anything against the Air Force or the Navy. I’m a marine, dude. I mean, seriously, 30 plus years later, it still stands up and I’m like, yo, hey, I shut it down at a cocktail party because I was a Marine.

So, yeah, so that’s what I did. I joined the Marine Corps. So anyway, I say all that to say the cost was not a factor because nobody even thought about the cost of college necessarily until I thought about it myself in 11th grade, because I really had to like… My sister and I kind of raised each other and were like, oh my gosh, these people are not the people we can rely on. That’s what I had and that’s what I did. So I didn’t even think about it.

Shanna Bennett: Right.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Then I got into the GI bill and we’ll talk more about that, but as you do, when you’re in 11th grade and have no parents that are decent.

Shanna Bennett: And I think too, that’s why it’s so important to highlight that part of it, the very beginning part where you haven’t quite figured out what you’re going to do. You’re a junior, you’re a senior in high school, especially for black and brown folks. And we can talk about this more later. Sometimes those conversations are different because the resources aren’t always there. And time and time again, the stories that we’re hearing are, I was told that this is what I was going to do. This was going to be the pathway for success. And so I did it. Not at one point did anyone mention the cost.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Oh, it costs money.

Shanna Bennett: It costs money. It costs money. And my experience as an immigrant, my family came to the US in ‘91. It was, “We came here for your education. We came here for a better life. This is what you’re going to do. No matter the cost.” Costs, all of a sudden we had all the money in the world, which we did not have. And just wasn’t discussed. That’s very interesting,

Kiyomi Kowalski: I know I’m here as your guest, but do you mind sharing your story?

Shanna Bennett: Sure. Sure. So I came to the US from Jamaica in ‘91 and hit the ground running. I think the saddest part of my story is the fact that my family came to the US as teachers and salesmen and this and that, but ended up having to do some different things to kind of get by and so on. You know, nannying and house cleaning is how my mother kind of kept our household together.

And again, the pathway to higher ed was the only pathway that I was offered. I think if I had chosen to do anything differently, I probably would’ve been disowned. Then afterward, when I’m, when I’m sharing about how much debt I’m in, or when they’re asking me, hey, you’re the most educated in the family, you have this graduate degree now, what do you have to show for it?

I’m like if you want to know where my money is, call Great Lakes. They have all my money, and I think it’s important to highlight that also. When we talk about student debt, one of the retort or the responses we get is, well, you had a choice, you had a choice.

You have to take out those loans. I go, I had a choice where? I don’t have a choice like nobody is opening the door for a black woman who doesn’t have a minimal amount of education. Like nobody.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Please, what choice is that? So then you go to law school and to be competitive with all of the younger students because I’m technically four years behind because I went to the military on active duty. So I’m four years behind. All the younger students who have parental support and things like that. If you want to compete with them, by the way, the entire law school is on a curve.

So if you want to compete with them, you don’t work. And I had a kid. And I had a house. And I was in the economic downturn of 2008. Like I had to short sell a house. I was in the middle of a divorce. I had a lot of things that were going against me.

Shanna Bennett: Right.

Kiyomi Kowalski: But yeah, I mean, I guess I had a choice, but like to be marketable in any way, is that really a choice? Be marketable or not be marketable?

Shanna Bennett: Right, right. And then hitched onto that choice argument is always the same thing where it’s like, well, if I bought a Ferrari, I too would have the same amount of debt that you have. And it’s like, again, when we commodify education, it’s not the same thing.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Can you say that again, louder for the cheap seats?

Shanna Bennett: A luxury vehicle and higher education should not, and is not the same thing! It’s just not.

Kiyomi Kowalski: But it is different, you’re right because you can’t, I can’t repossess your brain.

Shanna Bennett: It’s unreal. It’s unreal. We can pivot to your Marine Corps experience. Cause I have some questions about that too. I’m always curious about the motivators behind joining such an institution. And I think it’s because of the training, first of all. Because Marines do not play. And then secondly, the sacrifice that can, and then sometimes involved with joining an organization like that. So I was curious as to a) whether you took advantage of any of the federal options for loan repayment. And if any of that was, a factor in you deciding to enlist?

Kiyomi Kowalski: I have a couple of stories. Okay. Cause I always got stories. When I decided to join the military, I didn’t realize that I was starting my entire life and career, based on public service. I didn’t realize that at the time I was just like, gotta do, this clock in this time and, make sure I have access to the GI bill. And when I signed my documents to go in, cause you’re 18. You don’t know shit from Shinola, like for real, like, Shinola, I don’t even still know what Shinola is, you know what I’m saying? Love that we’ve got The Shinola definition,

Shanna Bennett: A defined American brand of shoe polish. If anybody was wondering.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Nikki for the win. Thank you.

Shanna Bennett: That was necessary.

Kiyomi Kowalski: I needed that.

So, I’m signing these papers that are legally binding, you know. Raising my right hand and swearing my life to God and country.

Shanna Bennett: Yeah.

Kiyomi Kowalski: One of the things that’s flashing on all the ads is you’re going to get the Marine Corps scholarship funds. So it’s not only the GI bill, but there’s additional scholarship funds. $40,000 sounds like a lot of money, right? It’s just like $40,000 for you to go to school. And I’m like, okay, okay, let’s do this. I’m going to get educated. I’m going to be a bad-ass, let’s do this, right. And I’m like, where do I sign?

$40,000, whatever you’re gonna pay for college. Then I get to the end of my enlistment and I’m signing all my papers, like, maybe a few years brighter than I was years before. Right. So I’m like, okay, all right. Where’s my money?

Oh no, no, you don’t. You don’t get that, that money. You’re not eligible. You’re not eligible. First of all, you’re not eligible for the Marine Corps college. I had some dodgy times in high school, so I was like, okay, well maybe it was like my situation, but I have not met any, it’s like a frickin magical unicorn these scholarship funds. I have not yet met, not one person who was eligible and received additional funds for school. It’s a hustle, right? Like, I mean, major hustle. So we’re all like getting out of the military and we got no money. And the GI Bill interestingly, which a lot of people don’t know, you have to actually pay into that. So, when I seriously was making $200 a month. God it was, it was like during bootcamp, I made no money when I was enlisted.

Like when I was like in the fleet, I was making like $800 a month. Like, and that was like balling. And do you know what I’m saying? Like that balling status $800 per month. Do you know?

And that’s in ‘97 and $800 a month is nothing now. And it was nothing then too. It wasn’t like the fifties, this was in ‘97, 2001, that’s a couple of drinks at the bar, you know? So yeah, but you pay into it for your first year, a hundred dollars per paycheck. For your first year.

Shanna Bennett: You have to pay into your own GI Bill?

Kiyomi Kowalski: Yeah. So you’re paying $1,200 to get, like, I think it ends up being for school specifically $12,000 back, like something like that. It wasn’t a lot. So I paid into it.

So talk about it again, bootstrapping it. And then I didn’t have the extra money in the end. So undergraduate came and went and I only picked up, which I would like only because I went to a California school. It was a public school. So, for all four years, $20,000, which is a pretty solid-like, okay, like that’s something, by the age of, almost 40, 43. You can pay off $20,000 now because I’ve done a lot in my life. So that wasn’t bad. Private law school in Los Angeles really kicked me in the ovaries. And I’m like Southwestern, a great school.

Shanna Bennett: Yeah.

Kiyomi Kowalski: If you’re appearing before a judge in Los Angeles. Your judge is likely from Southwestern, but it’s not Yale. Do you know what I’m saying? Like, it’s not. My partner went to Yale law. Like he holds a quarter of the debt that I hold.

Shanna Bennett: Right. Wow.

Kiyomi Kowalski: I’m going to private law school in California, in Los Angeles. And then, because you want to be more competitive, it’s like, okay, well I’m going to quit my job so that I can be more competitive for whatever.

So not working. So I’m pulling out that money, cause I’m not thinking like, okay, pull it out that money. But I’ve got a mortgage to pay in a house that’s steadily declining. Like, I got a lot, I got a lot of things to do. I have a lot of debt. And so I told you, I like to say a number.

I liked numbers. I think people should always share income, salary, and all that stuff so that we know, especially amongst women, we should be real. I owe just over half a million dollars in debt. Now that it’s capitalized.

Shanna Bennett: Wow.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Yeah, that is real. I mean, I can give you the exact number down to the cents. But it’s, it’s like $526,000, blah, blah, blah.

Shanna Bennett: Blah, blah, blah.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Blah, blah.

Shanna Bennett: I think I’m at $133,000 right now. Yeah.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Ah, I remember those days, those days were so fun. $133,000, those were fun, flirty days.

Shanna Bennett: I cry myself to sleep…

Kiyomi Kowalski: Fresh and fun. Flirty. I was like out a single at $133,000.

Shanna Bennett: I feel so much better now that we’ve talked.

Kiyomi Kowalski: It is still shitty. It’s so terrible because we, and I love that you say it because I say the commodification of education in the United States is absolutely tragic. And then we tell everyone that there is no other way than to be educated. And so then you’re saying in essence, there was no other way to be than to be straddled down in debt.

Shanna Bennett: And there’s a gap. And then we were surprised when people feel the gap between the cost and how much we actually have with debt. How else are we going to make that?

Kiyomi Kowalski: With debt. What are we going to do with that?

Shanna Bennett: Right.

Kiyomi Kowalski: I mean, I didn’t have anyone who was paying my tuition checks. I mean, I had a couple sugar daddies here and there, but they were not good for tuition…

Shanna Bennett: Do you have one that I can borrow?

Kiyomi Kowalski: A couple of nice dinners only. Would have had a different motto.

Shanna Bennett: And you know what now. And that’s why too I wanted to make that connection between enlisting and then of course having the education paid for, because I did not know, again, as an immigrant, I did not know- I was not familiar with the American military. The culture, the systems, the processes. But once upon a time, I was married to somebody in the Air Force.

And so through that experience, I got to know the culture a bit more and the processes, and I kept finding myself, having the conversation of, what were your motivations for joining? Cause I kept thinking maybe there’s something beyond patriotism. Maybe there’s something beyond familial ties to the organization.

I was surprised when I found the trend of the cost, the cost of education. This organization is offering to pay for my education. And so I’m going to join. It’s terrific marketing.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Okay. Also you don’t think about when you’re 18, I’m signing up to die. Like seriously, dude.

Either I’m going to get educated or I may die. Like, you know what I mean? Like seriously. So like at 18 you don’t realize you have no cognizance of your mortality. And, I got out legit September 7th, 2001. That was four days prior to September 11th and my friends on the other side of that enlistment, had their enlistments frozen indefinitely and then actually went to war for a period of years. And I was never recalled. My big joke is that like, of course, they didn’t want me back. I did, I did my worst. I’m going to sign up to die on the gamble that I can get an education. That’s some shit.

Shanna Bennett: Yeah, it is. It is. And that’s where we’re at.

Kiyomi Kowalski: You don’t see recruiters in Beverly Hills at the high school. You don’t see recruiters all over the campus there. They have recruiters everyday buying your sandwiches, taking you out in Palmdale, California. In 1997, they were all over the campus.

Shanna Bennett: Exactly. And now other employers have caught onto the fact that this is a very attractive benefit to offer. And so now we have other employers doing it, but I just think it’s sad that it even has to exist. I think if you want to join an organization, join the organization because you are into what they’re doing. And you’re passionate about what they’re doing. Not because you have this burden that you have to consider regarding education.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Yeah, wouldn’t it be nice? Well, I mean, like at this point in my life, I have accumulated quite a bit of privilege as I call it. So it is interesting to talk to my peer group now and their kids are not going to be paying for school. Of course, because you want people to be able to make a meaningful choice of their careers and about what their, what their lives and life and happiness. Believe it or not people can be happy. It’s fucked up. Listen, there’s a world out there where human beings actually like what they do and they do what they love because they love what they do. I know it’s mind-blowing and people who have privilege are able to bestow that happiness. It’s a wealth passage in another way, right? It’s like, oh, let me bestow on your happiness.

Shanna Bennett: I like that.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Because this is why I come with gems, you gotta take notes. I mean, like I’m going to add, and I’m going to need them back.

Shanna Bennett: Right.

Kiyomi Kowalski: I’m going to write that down myself just in case because you don’t look like the type I’m going to get notes from.

Shanna Bennett: And what’s so interesting is that I work in HR, right? So I’m constantly recruiting and it’s always interesting to me, Gen Z’s approach to their careers. Cause I’ll interview folks and they will flat out say, I don’t like that. I don’t do that. And then I have to be home by four o’clock, dah, dah, dah, dah. And then when they get a job, if they’re unhappy, guess what they do, they just leave! Roll out.

Kiyomi Kowalski: You know what, as you should.

Shanna Bennett: As you should be able to.

Kiyomi Kowalski: And roll out, do people get mad? These people they’re just so, blah, blah, blah. Why? Because they know their worth?

Because yeah, it would have been nice. Yeah. I bet you, it would have behooved you at many points in your life to know your worth. For some job, that’s not gonna take for you. Like, no.

Shanna Bennett: And they’re making different choices, enrollments and higher education are dropping. Apparently, they’re not buying engagement rings. Right? They’re choosing to sometimes rent over buy. I think it’s brilliant. I think.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Except the rent over buy. I’m going to stop you right there. It’s a waste of money because the tax code is written against people who rent. If you can. But that’s another thing. That’s a very privileged thing to say, because how easy is it for me to say, oh, I got half a million dollars in student debt. I’d rather own a house.

Shanna Bennett: Right, right.

Kiyomi Kowalski: It’s half a million dollars in Calabasas, California. It turns out that’s a down payment on a house. Do you know what I’m saying? Like, yeah. Cause I want my kids to do better.

Shanna Bennett: Right, right. I keep saying, I am paying mortgage payments on a house that I don’t own. Does that make sense?

Kiyomi Kowalski: I’m telling you. And not only that, you’re never going to get it back. Because the ironed tax code is written to screw you. Like it is.

Shanna Bennett: Yeah.

Kiyomi Kowalski: It keeps people out of the middle class. If you like, bring it back to student debt with student debt, you’re paying a mortgage price on a loan.

Shanna Bennett: Which is what I’m talking about.

Kiyomi Kowalski: You have to forsake buying a home that will actually recoup that. It’s all kinds of messed up. It’s all kinds of jacked up. I mean, I know you get to write off student debt, but like it’s not a student interest, but I think it’s only at a certain amount.

Shanna Bennett: Yeah.

Kiyomi Kowalski: It’s not all of your interest. All of my mortgage interest is written off.

Shanna Bennett: So wait, what I said, I was paying mortgage payments and a house that I don’t own. I meant like my student debt payments. That’s what I meant. So at one point, it was like a hundred plus a month and I’m thinking, okay, so I can’t live in it. I can’t live it. It doesn’t exist.

Kiyomi Kowalski: No, it only exists right here.

Shanna Bennett: Yeah.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Right here.

Shanna Bennett: Yeah.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Yeah. you’re probably earning a low income to qualify for certain deductions. An itemized deduction is interesting, right? You have to own a business to take itemized deductions now. Cause there’s almost there’s I think through Trump, there was no such thing for individuals anymore anyway. Yeah. And there’s a max on your mortgage interest deduction that you can do. And that includes state and local tax. These are things that you just pick up along the way, because you’re crying, over writing the IRS yet another check. At midnight of April 15th every year. And I’m like, oh man, I hate, I think Sam, I thought we were friends. Sam is terrible.

Shanna Bennett: Terrible terrible. Switching gears, if you could speak just generally about and I know we’ve kind of been, we’ve kind of been heading in that direction anyway, but if you could speak generally about how student debt has impacted your life, what would you say to that-

Kiyomi Kowalski: I won’t let it.

Shanna Bennett: Yeah.

Kiyomi Kowalski: I won’t let it. I’m alive. I’m telling you I won’t let it. So listen, I call myself the law school equivalent of The Producers. Like if you’re familiar with the play. The worse they do the better off they are. So the less they earn as a play, the better off they are because there’s a whole scheme behind it right?

That’s me. I am the human equivalent of The Producers. So I make timely payments of $0 and 0 cents in the income-based repayment program.

Shanna Bennett: I remember hearing about this on the panel. Right, right.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Oh, I am so serious. Like a timely payment routine. Oh, here’s another payment of $0 and 0 cents. But I do have some bones to pick with them for the last two years.

But at any rate, timely payments of $0 and 0 cents, let’s go. If you’re in the income-based payment program, it goes, it counts against your payoff date. So they write it off at a certain point. I got in on that action, but a lot of people didn’t.

Shanna Bennett: Right.

Kiyomi Kowalski: So they write it off at a certain point. And if you work in the public interest, you can write that off you, but you have to work full time, blah, blah, blah. There’s like a certain amount of things that you can do. And then it’s written off in 10 years. There are lots of qualifications and loops to jump through, but at any rate, I don’t let it. So what I’ve done is not get married. My partner bankrolls this operation.

Shanna Bennett: Right.

Kiyomi Kowalski: I think people should be very truthful. I don’t believe in romance. I believe in anything that helps me financially. Like I advocate like I’m a tax-advantageous person. I don’t love you enough to fuck up my tax bracket. Do you know what I’m saying?

Shanna Bennett: I love it.

Kiyomi Kowalski: I just don’t believe in it.

Shanna Bennett: Right.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Yeah, follow me for more tips on love. So yeah, so we have been happily or unhappily depending on the time, okay, unmarried for, going on 13 years now. We have two kids. I have one child from my prior marriage, and one child with this dude. We don’t need to get married because his income would factor into my repayment. And so then we are paying for two houses at this point, because when we do my payments, it would be at- I think it’s more than my mortgage actually. Now I’m at $3,300 a month. That would be like serious, serious business if I wanted to pay these bad boys back, which I won’t, I’d rather wait until 25 years from now.

Shanna Bennett: Yes.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Because I linked up with a white dude who went to an Ivy League I’m like, I’ll ride this carpet home, not everyone’s got privileges, you know? Let’s just be real.

Shanna Bennett: Interesting. So interesting. So, okay. So I took a different gamble. This is what I did. So I got married. We did Financial Peace University, which is a product of Dave Ramsey’s whole organization.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Okay.

Shanna Bennett: That was my first introduction to financial planning and the zero-based budget and the snowball method, the avalanche method, different approaches.

Kiyomi Kowalski: You’re talking all kinds of words. I don’t like cold weather, so these are just words.

Shanna Bennett: Exactly. Okay. So I go into it and we basically, one of the theories is you have to keep your roof over your head, right? So the basics, food, lights, roof over your head, then what the debt that you can afford to pay, you make a strategy to pay that. At the time I had six-figure student loan debt.

I had a lot of shame around it and had no idea how I was going to be able to afford that. I was working for a health literacy consultant, this brilliant woman that was taking the legal jargon and the medical jargon from the insurance and medical world and distilling it and turning it into language that the everyday American could read.

But I was getting paid pennies. And I loved it. I loved it, but I was getting pennies and I had six-figure student loan debt, and I was newly married. So I thought, okay, let me follow this strategy. What I can’t afford to pay. I won’t pay. I’ll negotiate payment agreements if I can. And if I can’t negotiate it, then I won’t pay. And I had a lot of private loans at the time. And they’ll work with you but to a point. And once you’ve exhausted their payment plans, that’s it. They’re coming for the money. And so I really damaged my credit at the time, but I thought this was fine. I’m married to a white man in the air force. It’ll be fine. I’m fine.

Kiyomi Kowalski: I mean, I don’t know their bank accounts.

Shanna Bennett: Where were you when I was making these decisions?

Kiyomi Kowalski: I’m dead serious.

Shanna Bennett: It’s fine. My partner’s credit is good. And so that’s what we’re living off of to buy the cars, we use his credit. To buy the house, we use his credit. I won’t put my name on the title. I won’t put my name on the deed. So when the debt collectors come, I’m just this little lady that has nothing. Owns nothing. And so then in divorce is when I realized, oh, hey now.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Oh, community property.

Shanna Bennett: Where were you? When I was making these decisions.

Kiyomi Kowalski: I was here, find me.

Shanna Bennett: But I walked away. I walked away from the marriage with nothing. I didn’t claim anything. I think the only thing I needed at the time was my car so I could get to and from work. That was it. So here I was with no property, really. And a very poor credit score. That’s when I really had to put a strategy together. How much debt do I actually have? How am I going to pay for it? You know? And I found myself having to live on a credit score that was a joke. I know, I think I had to, in the end, that my car ended up being recalled. So I actually had to buy a car. So here I am, a big girl moving now. Now I’m buying a car with a credit score that is lacking. Oh, it was recalled for like some kind of filter they gave us cash.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Interesting. I thought you meant repo. I’ve never had a car recalled.

Shanna Bennett: All I know is if you want to feel like you don’t matter, go to a car dealership. With not a lot of money and a poor credit score by yourself, no family in the area and just sit there while they walk around you. And then they sit and they go, so why is your credit score so bad? And I –

Kiyomi Kowalski: Yeah. They really ask you.

Shanna Bennett: They really do. They go, what’s going on here? And I go, student loan debt is what I have

Kiyomi Kowalski: And they go, okay. Okay. Here’s this Chrysler LeBaron from literally 1993.

Shanna Bennett: Quite literally. And that’s why I really don’t value personal finance gurus that act as if the credit score is not important. It’s actually very important if you’re not an uber-wealthy person, it’s very important. It’s how we’re living right now.

Kiyomi Kowalski: No, we strategically divided up so David’s the front man on this operation,

Shanna Bennett: Right.

Kiyomi Kowalski: I pull the strings. He doesn’t even know how much he makes. I do all the calculations. When you live like this, it’s like this weird shadow life. He’s the front man. He makes the money.

Shanna Bennett: Right.

Kiyomi Kowalski: We put everything in my name, debt-wise so that when we go to buy a house, a car or whatever, we can put him in as a front person on money. And, any debt remains in my name. That’s a lot of trust there, but I’ll tell you that I own half this house. Cause I, I don’t have enough trust like that. You know what I’m saying?

Shanna Bennett: I know what you mean. I know what you mean.

Kiyomi Kowalski: I’m going to need my equity. So he takes the loan and he takes the risk.

Shanna Bennett: The reward

Kiyomi Kowalski: I only like the upsides. You have to live this strange life.

Shanna Bennett: You do.

Kiyomi Kowalski: So yeah, that shadow life and like how you have to structure your finances and be really strategic and thoughtful my partner, God bless him. Ivy League-educated.

Shanna Bennett: Right.

Kiyomi Kowalski: He’s an incredible attorney. He ain’t got no street smarts or no street hustle. Okay? I made sure Paul was paid. He had the worst credit score when I met him. Like the worst, I’m just like, homie, how do you live like this? Like just couldn’t pay a bill on time. The money would be sitting in the bank, not paying. So then I’m like, let me bring it to you my street smarts. And so we did that. I got him grown man credit. I was like, you’re welcome. We just did another refinance. And I’m like, you’re welcome. You are very welcome my friend. And that’s why I take my cut.

Shanna Bennett: It speaks a lot about how debt, specifically student debt affects marriage and affects different aspects of life that people don’t realize.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Yeah. Because you have to know the system and not too many of us don’t know the system. I’m on here talking about hustling the system because the system has been hustling us for how long? I’m not doing anything illegal.

I just know the tax code. It’s not advantageous for me to get married. Oh, because we’re not married we can keep separate assets. Oh, I can take the upside and he can take the downside. Great. Like, please all day, all day. I don’t apologize for it. And I’m like, everyone should email me at kiyomikowalski.com for more tips on love and finances.

Shanna Bennett: At what point did you realize that student debt was a racial justice issue, a gender equality issue, a social justice issue? At what point in your journey did you realize that?

Kiyomi Kowalski: I would say too late in my journey. I started doing diversity and inclusion education a few years ago. And prior to that, really just starting reading and being involved in the ether and thinking that’s not fair. Like at first it starts with the outrage and then you’re like, oh, okay.

I need to do something about this. So, I realized it quickly, once I started looking into things and then you realize, oh, black women are the most educated block in the country, like right? Most highly educated, they have the most higher degrees of, of any block, right? Racial block, and gender block. right. Cause that’s an intersection. But a lot of us are like me, you know? I mean, I’m in Mocha Moms as the president of Mocha Moms. These women, even though they came from better families than I came from, they didn’t have money to be like sending them off to whatever school. And then you’re seeing like, these women saddled down with this debt, and then you’re like, wait a second. We make pennies on the dollar. Do you know what I mean? Like we’re making far less, and more educated, we’re more qualified. We’re more educated! So then you think about it and the social justice exists in these intersections. All of the social justice issues. As black women, we eat most of it.

And then a lot of our other, BIPOC brethren, have the same situation because they don’t have the same wealth capacities. And I hate to say it. I don’t hate to say it. Sorry, not sorry. Institutional racism deeply embedded in our society actually kept people out intentionally for a very long time. If you disagree with me, that’s fine. You need to read a few books and then come talk to me. Like I can’t, once about all of the things that are very real and well-documented and embedded in our legal system and in our policies and things, you can’t deny how unjust this system was created for certain people and certain people cannot win unless they talk to Kiyomi Kowalski.

Shanna Bennett: Yeah, KiyomiKowalski.com.

Kiyomi Kowalski: .com.

Shanna Bennett: Which actually a really nice segue into the next question. So I think in terms of messaging for the student debt movement and on the wide-scale, the student debt cancellation movement. Do you think that there are barriers to how we’re communicating these issues? Because again, we’re still getting this pushback of just “pay your debt”.

You had a choice, dah, dah, dah, are there ways to better that, especially coming from a social justice perspective or the diversity and inclusion perspective in terms of how we communicate that message?

Kiyomi Kowalski: I love conversations like this, where it’s just people who are average everyday people talking, and not like a scholar necessarily, but, it’s just average everyday people bringing these types of conversations to your living room, into your dining table. The next crop of people and I would just say people in general are not raised to believe that this is a problem that other people have. This is a problem that is solvable. And there are solutions. If we could just talk about people in a more humane way and think about people like us, as opposed to them. Right,

I do feel like we talked very seriously about what unites us as people, as opposed to those people being lazy or whatever the buzzword is because we’ve kept people out. Then we’ve taught people that, because they’re out there they’re lazy. And it’s a very successful thing in America that we’ve taught. So we have to, these conversations have to be occurring at everyone’s dinner table so that their brains can expand to treat every person, as a person who is worthy of an education and worthy of defining their own destinies.

We have to change the paradigm on how we think about each other, which sounds very socialized. It’s a very terrible word, this S word of social, but if we all just cared about our neighbor, we would all be better off with a rising tide lifts all ships.

Shanna Bennett: Exactly. This is what I love about what Nikki has done with this body of work with this podcast sharing very personal experiences with debt. I think the more we do that, hopefully, the more people can relate to stories and see themselves in the stories and ultimately get as passionate and as upset about our higher lending process as we are.

Kiyomi Kowalski: I can go on and on. I’ve got more material. We haven’t even talked about my work in the 2000s. I did sell cars for a period of time, and I know exactly what you were talking about

Shanna Bennett: Yeah, I was just kind of handed off to different people and I think I finally got this very nice, pretty young lady who I think you could tell she was brand new and I think they were like, I’m not gonna get any commission from this lady. So let’s just give her to Leslie. I don’t know. Very sad.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Yeah, It’s a tough, tough situation.

Shanna Bennett: A part of it though. It’s all part of it. Is there anything that we didn’t touch on that you wanna mention?

Kiyomi Kowalski: Wow. As you mentioned in the opening, I’m a diversity and inclusion educator, but my work is very centered in the Jewish community. I do inclusion education in Jewish communities, specifically because I want people to expand their minds about what Jewishness is and what it looks like.

It looks like me, and sometimes it looks like you, I have no idea. That we have to build inclusive communities so that they reflect what Jewishness and America look like in our synagogues and our Jewish spaces. In order to do that, you have to be ready for inclusion before the need to include arrives. I do a lot of that through this organization that I started and co-founded with a friend of mine called Jewbian Princess, like Nubian.

Shanna Bennett: Yes.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Jewbianprincess.com. But if you go to Kiyomikowalski.com, you can link to Jewbian Princess and vice-versa, you can also find me on my Peloton handle, Jewbianprincess. I’m the one holding the Costco cash in the picture.

Shanna Bennett: I love it. I love it. Oh my gosh. I love it.

Kiyomi Kowalski: I just want to say, thank you for having me today. We need more of these conversations and that is lighthearted because these are really sad stories, frankly, that go with this. And there’s a lot of pain behind and shame behind it.

Shanna Bennett: Yeah.

Kiyomi Kowalski: I want to remove that and we all just have to be able to laugh at ourselves. We’ve all been through this. Some of us have been on the other side, I’ve gotten to the other side of it. And, we just have to keep dialoguing and being authentic about our dialogue and that authenticity will allow us to, to laugh at, see, hopefully, the darker spots in this and we’ll get through it.

And also, don’t pay him.

Shanna Bennett: I just posted about that. Are we paying or are we not? Someone just tell me. Cause if we’re not, paying…

Kiyomi Kowalski: Decidedly not, yeah. I mean, look, figure out how to do that and maintain your credit. Like, you know, timely payments of $0 and 0 cents are actually the best way.

Shanna Bennett: Hello.

Kiyomi Kowalski: But honestly, yeah, don’t let it define your life in a way that you can’t find happiness in this world.

Shanna Bennett: I completely agree.

Kiyomi Kowalski: It’s never getting paid by the way. The real thing for me, it’s not, I mean it, when I was fun and flirty at $133,000.

Shanna Bennett: So funny, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. Come back, anytime.

Kiyomi Kowalski: Oh, it was great to chat with y’all. Take care of my friends.

Shanna Bennett: Take care.

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