This week producer Emma Klauber solo hosts with guest Ryan Connelly, a former opera singer and current Navy musician. Ryan shares the impact of student loans on his music career and his unique intersection of the arts, the Navy, and student loan forgiveness.

References

• Ryan C. Connelly
• The Navy Band
• Ryan on Instagram

Transcript: 

[00:00:05] Emma Klauber: Welcome to Matter of Life and Debt. I’m Emma Klauber, one of the producers of the podcast. I’m so excited to be hosting today. I have my longtime friend, Ryan Connelly on. Ryan, welcome to the podcast! Great to have you here.

[00:00:25] Ryan Connelly: Hello. Thank you. I’m happy to be here to chat.

[00:00:28] Emma Klauber: So, Ryan and I have known each other since we were teens. We did musical theater together, and that will be extremely pertinent to this conversation as we talk about both of our subsequent careers in the arts and the transitions we made within that space. But Ryan, to kick off, I’d love to hear from you, what is your personal relationship to student loans?

[00:00:55] Ryan Connelly: Oh yeah, that’s a great jumping-off point. So I do have them, I’ve been out of formal education for 11 years, but still do have student loans kicking around. I’m also married and my wife has student loans. So we of course tackle those now as a team. That’s the TLDR.

[00:01:19] Emma Klauber: Mm-hmm.

[00:01:20] Ryan Connelly: To start as a summary, we had more. They slowly grew because we were too poor to pay them. but then because of various circumstances, we are now whittling them away. So we’ve kind of crossed over the scary hump and entered into a more positive vibe for them, cause we can sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel start to form.

[00:01:45] Emma Klauber: Right.

[00:01:45] Ryan Connelly: But that’s my elevator pitch. That’s a very short summary,

[00:01:51] Emma Klauber: Yeah. So give us a little background- when you were finishing high school, thinking about what you’re going to do next. What was sort of the conversation you had with your family around college? Maybe older people who were already in college or out of college? What was that whole consideration process for you when you were applying, filling out FAFSA.

[00:02:15] Ryan Connelly: Yeah. Oh gosh. Yeah. My God, that’s a throwback. So to piggyback off of how you introduced me, in high school, I was doing musical theater a lot and I had been taking professional voice lessons, since before my voice changed, when I was still a little boy soprano. And unsurprisingly I ended up looking at careers in music. So, I had very supportive parents, thankfully, who were super into the idea of me going off to school, to pursue that music career. Oddly enough, because I’m sort of an odd dude, I was very fascinated by classical music in particular, and opera.

[00:02:56] I think I was actually talking to somebody recently about this. I think the origin of that was because I was so fascinated by languages, and I love musical theater. It’s got great beats, story wise and music wise. It’s got really interesting things going on. Obviously, it’s a lot easier to connect with an American audience.

[00:03:16] But there was just something about the flow of romance languages, because I’ve done work in many different languages. It’s just so fascinating to me, the study of the languages to make the text really work and to make everything sort of work together. I love the, well, it’s called diction, but I like the pronunciation of the words.

[00:03:38] I’m very fascinated by all of that. So anyway, a long, long walk for the short drink of water, that is, I was interested in pursuing a music career, and so I came from a pretty, let’s say, solidly middle class, maybe a little bit below middle, like, extra middle. So it was pretty clear that I would need to apply for student aid of some kind.

[00:04:01] So yeah, I did the whole FAFSA thing and it was also the weird thing of having a career in music or to go to school for a degree in music. You could get a full scholarship, you could walk into scenarios where you’d pay $0. And even in America. One of the schools that I auditioned for was the Curtis Institute of Music, which was one of those scenarios, if you were accepted into the conservatory, you paid nothing.

[00:04:27] You were there, obviously, you had to live somewhere, right? So you’d have to get an apartment in Philadelphia, but you didn’t pay for your classes. Now the trade off there is the year that I auditioned, that would’ve been 2005, so it would’ve been like fall of 2004. They were only looking for one voice student.

[00:04:48] So I was one of however many that applied. I did actually get a live audition, showed up and I think there were like 20 or 30 of us there, and we all sang for the one slot, which I did not get. That’s fine. It happens. It would, as any of us in the theater or in the performing world, know. You get thousands of nos. 

[00:05:11]  So that was the beginning of that journey for me. I got a variety of responses for all of my university auditions. I think Curtis was the only one that turned me down. But then from that point, it was, how much are they going to give you, versus how much the university costs.

[00:05:32] I auditioned at Ithaca in New York and they accepted me, which was pretty awesome. Would’ve been a fun school to go to. But even in 2005, I think tuition was somewhere in the low to mid 40 thousands.

[00:05:46] And they only offered me $12,000 in scholarships. So, the gap to make up there was a lot different. And then, the school I ended up going with was Temple University, which was also in Philadelphia. Their tuition was so much lower. I think it was only $17,000 or $18,000 at the time. Even though I got substantially less, I think I only got like $4,000 my first year. And then I applied for additional scholarships later on. But still, it was just so much drastically less that it just sort of made sense. So I did my four years there, catapulted myself immediately into a master’s program. By that point, I had a much better grasp on the industry and the opera world in general. So I was starting to sort of hone in on some better deals.

[00:06:31] And I managed to get into a master’s program at the University of Cincinnati College, Conservatory of Music, which is definitely up there as far as opera programs are concerned. And one of the perks of going there, a similar story, is that most people are on a majority scholarship. So, I wasn’t one of the lucky few that got free, but I was there on 85% scholarship.

[00:06:52] That’s a master’s degree. So it’s like two years instead of four obviously. And then the issue became that I was doing so much more there. I was in these opera productions. I was doing so much more that I ended up actually taking out loans the first year of my masters, to just to pay for living expenses until I could find a job.

[00:07:13] Emma Klauber: Oh yeah. I mean, that happens. I think a lot of people, a bulk of their student loans are those living expenses. Particularly, I mean, not that Cincinnati is a terribly expensive city, but you know, you had real living costs. And this is something, if Shanna were here, she would point out, when you’re in school, you’re there to study and you’re there to learn and participate.

[00:07:37] And there shouldn’t ever be pressure on a student to work a full time or even like an invasive part-time job even because this is the time of your life where this is your focus and you’re working on your vocation or your craft or your area of study. 

[00:07:55] Ryan Connelly: Yeah. Although, I will say it did, it did prepare me for the future career of being a musician and having two side hustles.

[00:08:03] Emma Klauber: Yes, of course.

[00:08:04] Ryan Connelly: It’s sort of just the expected, you know? And when I was in Philly, actually, which was drastically more expensive, of course, I worked as a singing server at a pretty decent fine dining restaurant downtown. 

[00:08:19] I worked half as much as I ended up working in Cincinnati and made probably twice as much because I just sort of lucked into a better job scenario there. Whereas in Cincinnati, cost of living was like zero in comparison. I had to make that money somewhere.

[00:08:38] So, you parlay your skills into various things. I ended up working like catering, doing catering work that paid very well, paid hourly, a great hourly rate and tips. It sort of helped move it along there. But, the problem just always was- continuing on in the story until I finished my master’s degree in 2011, and then immediately entering, I’m gonna use the word workforce with some heavy scare quotes. Because the workforce when pursuing an opera career and leaving your master’s degree is sort of, you’re entering what’s called, let’s just call it the apprenticeship phase, because I mean, let’s be real. I was 22. 

[00:09:24] Emma Klauber: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:25] Ryan Connelly: Not old enough to be singing giant opera roles at the Met. And if anybody who tells you that they are, is wrong. From a schooling standpoint, from a maturity standpoint, and especially from a physiological standpoint. As far as your instrument, your voice is concerned, you’re just not ready. To bridge the gap and to sort of help you continue to learn, what most singers, if not all singers do, is enter the young artist phase. Which is where you get hired by a company to go in and be the understudy, or you’re singing in the chorus, or you’re doing like a super small role that isn’t super taxing. And the idea being there, you’re getting experience, you’re getting exposure. It’s like your internship phase. The problem there is you still have all of these life expenses that go along with it.

[00:10:12] Emma Klauber: Well, right. I mean, I think what you’re describing is extremely typical of careers in the arts. Even if you have a master’s, you’re graduating to, like you said, an internship, apprenticeship position and it certainly is not paying enough.

[00:10:38] Ryan Connelly: I think even at that now, the sad thing is too, that those numbers for pay for young artists have not gone up since I started doing this. 20, almost 20 years ago. Yeah. And it’s, I think one of my first ones, I was making like $350 a week.

[00:10:47] Emma Klauber: Yeah. 

Ryan Connelly: And that first gig I did did not even provide housing at first. I had to pay for my own apartment and all my own food and everything, transportation on, essentially $1,500 a month. So like, come on, And that’s pre tax because of course, don’t forget, when you’re in the arts, everything is 1099.

[00:11:07] So at the end of the year you get half of that taken away by taxes. Unless you do a really great job with your deductions, which I did very quickly get very good at. Obviously everybody has that little magical, like what is it? Six months? No, that makes sense because it was Christmas. I was in my parents’ house, like in my old bedroom on the phone with somebody at FAFSA or at, I don’t know, FedLoan.

[00:11:35] Emma Klauber: Right. Your student loan servicer.

[00:11:37] Ryan Connelly:Yeah. At just being like, I don’t have any money to pay this, what are my options?

[00:11:45] And so that was when I started to learn about all of the different things that are out there. The end result was, I ended up on it. I did defer a little bit right there in the beginning just to get my feet under me. And then I did, an income based payment system, which I’m still on. Although, I now have the option to switch into something else, which comes along in my story eventually too.

[00:12:07] Emma Klauber: Okay. 

Ryan Connelly: But yeah, so, the nice thing was when I was super poor in that young artist’s life, my payments were zero. But then of course the problem is that then the numbers are slowly going up, right?

[00:12:20] So, I did that. I mean, that was 2011 and I sang professionally for the next basically 10 years. Making with varying amounts of success and like I said, side hustles and such. And married my wife in 2012, 1 year later. And so then the two of us kind of could like tag team it a bit. Now the tough thing was she came to the table with, sort of a different scenario because she had a sort of a combination of federal and private loans.

[00:12:49] So thankfully I don’t remember what the tipping point was for that, but we managed to nip those pretty quickly in the bud. I think that there was some kind of a windfall from a gig here or there that allowed us to just sort of take care of those in one fell swoop. But then it was just like a maintenance of making sure nothing really got out of hand until we lived in Cincinnati. We continued to live in Cincinnati because it was just so cheap. And, eventually Danielle got offered a position managing a restaurant in her hometown, in, let’s not call it upstate New York, but north of New York City.

[00:13:31] So we moved out there because the salary that she was offered was like twice what I had made, even in my best year as an opera singer. From that point on, that was 2017- we pretty much started aggressively paying things down because we knew that we could afford to for the first time in our lives.

[00:13:49] But then as I’m sure is a common theme among most people, Covid hit, and pretty much everybody lost a lot of things. In the meantime, I had also picked up a good salary side hustle, but all of that sort of disappeared. Which sort of brought me to the whole story that you and I were talking about the last time we spoke, which was that, in 2021, I auditioned for and got the job in the United States Navy Band.

[00:14:17] Emma Klauber: What prompted you to pursue that?

[00:14:20] Ryan Connelly: That’s a great question. It is. It totally was like a meant to be thing, I think because I’ve actually had interactions with military band people since like 2013. There was a guy that actually my wife sang with, during a production that they were both covering, they were both under studies in Romeo and Juliet, in the opera version obviously. He ended up auditioning for the Army Chorus and when they needed a tenor, which is what I sing, I’m a tenor. It’s like the higher of the male voices for those who may not be, not be familiar. So he actually reached out to her to reach out to me because they had found my website and they were like, hey, we found your husband’s website.

[00:15:08] We love the way he sounds. We have a tenor opening and we would love to have him come audition. And this was in like, Winter 2013. But I was like doing the opera thing and I was like, well, I wanna do opera. Why would I wanna go sing in a chorus? You know, that doesn’t sound like the direction I want to go.

[00:15:23] That’s less spotlight, not more spotlight. And so I politely declined. I said, I just don’t think it’s the right time. The month after my wife got the job at the restaurant in 2017, the same chorus, the Army Chorus, had another tenor opening and a different person that I knew in that group reached out to me that time.

[00:15:42] And it was the thing where I was like, I just moved cross-country from Cincinnati to New York with a U-Haul and I just did the whole thing. And all of my stuff is in storage. I can’t even begin to think about moving again.

[00:15:56] I thank you so much, but like, no thanks. Then Covid happened.

[00:16:00] And, I don’t remember when the moment struck me, but I remember like sitting at my computer in my little office of our house that we had up there and just thinking to myself, I wonder if the Army is hiring again. And I went and looked and sure enough, it was totally like, meant to be. The Army Chorus had a tenor audition slot up. So, you put together materials, and I had to make new recordings, which in the time of Coronavirus was absolutely absurd. I ended up renting out a church space from a church that was like arts friendly, and because it was covid times, they weren’t doing in person services. So it was a lot easier for me to get the whole sanctuary to record in, but then I had to find a pianist who would be willing to do it. And in that part of New York, there’s like nobody. It was this whole quest. I was actually, I had been doing some coaching with one of the conductors down at the Metropolitan. And so I actually asked him, found a pianist who I had come up to meet me and we recorded together. So sent in some recordings, which thankfully turned out well. And, got invited to go sing for the Army Chorus. Which you may have noticed by this point isn’t the group that I’m currently in.

[00:17:14] So I went down, they actually paid to fly me down to DC and I went down and sang for them. It ended up, they didn’t hire any of us, which was this weird thing that I didn’t know happened. And now I do because I’ve experienced it from both sides of the table because these jobs are so coveted. So basically you’re entering into a position where you can stay and just retire from this. Any of these positions you can stay for 20 plus years.

[00:17:48] Emma Klauber: You’re like a Supreme Court Judge Ryan.

[00:17:51] Ryan Connelly: Well, I think they kicked me out a little bit before I die. But really it is sort of, I mean, it’s like a serious thing when they have one of their jobs open.

[00:18:00] And so from their side of the table, they’re like, we have to make sure this person is a hundred percent what we want because they’re gonna be here for a while.

[00:18:10] And so it ended up, this happens apparently a lot more in orchestras where there was for that audition, there were five of us. And then they narrowed it down to me and one other tenor for the finals round and we both sang and then we waited for an absurdly long time. And at the end of all of that, they called us both out and they were like, hi, thank you so much. We’ve actually decided that we’re not going to hire either of you. So this is who you can reach out to for notes on your performance. And then we’re gonna repost the job. And if you’d like to re-audition, we’d love to have you back in to hear you again, but anyhow, I was totally caught off guard by this and sort of demoralized.

[00:18:50] But yeah, and of course I have two friends in this chorus and both of them were like we totally thought you were gonna get it. We’re super sorry. They’re not in leadership positions, so they didn’t get the final say. But one of them was like, oh, but you know my buddy who you also know, right?

[00:19:08] Oh yeah. You know this other guy, He’s in the Air Force chorus. Maybe he knows about other jobs. And so I talked to him and he ended up knowing one of the conductors for the Navy Chorus, and they were like, oh yeah, they’re gonna need a tenor. But the audition isn’t gonna be until the fall, because this was in April of 2021. And so the audition ended up being in September. When the job was posted, my friends both sent it right away. So I was able to use the same materials and submitted those for this audition. There were eight people instead of five. Funny enough, the same guy who I was in the finals with for the Army job ended up being the guy who was in the finals naturally.

[00:19:47] That’s the way the world works. But, I managed to win the job as they say. So then I had to start preparing to go to bootcamp at the age of 34. Which is just wild.

[00:20:01] Emma Klauber: I mean, how does it feel to find yourself, you’ve had this 10 year plus career in opera at this point, and now you’re preparing to go to bootcamp because you’ve taken this step? You’re still very much in the performance world but you have this whole new sort of context that you’re applying it in.

[00:20:26] What does that feel like when you’re really like, oh, I’m in the military now.

[00:20:34] Ryan Connelly: Yeah, and that was sort of the weirdest part to come to grips with. But the thing was, it was obviously something that I had never really considered, because I had turned it down several times. But at this point in my life, I mean, I guess other things that I sort of skimmed over, by this point I had two young daughters. I’m married, I had bought a home and needed to continue making mortgage payments

[00:20:56] Emma Klauber: Sure.

[00:20:57] Ryan Connelly: Life goes on. And so part of it to me was, well, I’ve sort of been disillusioned at the opera industry in general. The politics of it are really unfriendly. I am not getting the jobs that I thought I would be getting, the particular roles that I was told that I would be making the most money on. Sort of went away.

[00:21:24] I mean, you probably remember more than many people in my life, I did a lot more of the like, funny man stuff than like serious ingenue roles. And in the opera world, we call that character work. But character work in the later part of the 2010s started just going to young artists because they knew that they could pay them $300 or $400 bucks a week and save $15,000 and just not pay people.

[00:21:54] So the career that I was told, 10 years ago, oh, you’re gonna be a character tenor and you’re gonna have a condo in Berlin and a place in California and you’ll just travel and sing. It wasn’t real anymore. So I had become so disillusioned with this idea that I would be this jet setting opera singer that the idea of suddenly having a paycheck and health insurance and being able to support my family and still sing.

[00:22:24] Ryan Connelly: And by the way, the unit that I’m with, it’s literally a presidential support unit. So like, it’s a real honor to be able to do it. Music, what I went to school for and do it at a high level and be able to still live my life. I think the hardest part of it still just was despite the fact that I am in the band, I still am enlisted, so I did still have to go to boot camp and do the whole thing despite the fact that I was twice the age of some of these other guys and girls. And, but I did it. I mean, I made it through all three months of it.

[00:23:10] Flew off to Chicago in January of 2022 and didn’t graduate until April. So yeah, I did the whole thing, the pushups, the running, the shooting guns and all that stuff. I did good enough at shooting guns and I got a little ribbon.

[00:23:28] Band members are like unicorns, especially at places like basic training. Most people have never encountered one in person because these job turnovers are so slow.

[00:23:44] Emma Klauber: Yeah.

[00:23:44] Ryan Connelly: But the idea at these places is, especially for the Navy, is that everybody that goes through there has to be able to do everything on a ship if they find themselves on one.

[00:23:55] So I had to learn how to fight fires. I had to learn how to patch pipes and like to do all this damage control stuff. Because if you are, it doesn’t matter if you are a she, if you’re a cook on a ship or if you are the one pushing the buttons to fire missiles, when stuff goes haywire, everybody has to pitch in and like make it work.

[00:24:15] So, the whole like unity aspect of it was not lost on me. That was a very interesting experience and certainly was in better shape than I have ever been in my life. It’s such an odd thing to have happened as a musician. But I have to say it’s extremely rewarding because the group is great. And, I’m very much enjoying all the performing that I get to do now.

[00:24:47] Emma Klauber: That’s incredible. I mean, as you said, these are people who are extremely high caliber artists to go through the audition process that you described and then be chosen because you work together in a very particular way, like you compliment each other. 

[00:25:06] Ryan Connelly: Totally.

[00:25:07] Emma Klauber: That’s very cool. Now zooming out a little bit before the idea of auditioning for the military happened, how were your student loans impacting, you obviously implied this, but impacting your life as an artist and perhaps Danielle’s as well?

[00:25:29] Ryan Connelly: Yeah, it was, let’s just say it was a struggle. Because of the amount, it was one of the reasons that I had to continue side hustling because I could get by on the amount of money that I made in gigs.

[00:25:47] Like our rent in Cincinnati was nothing. We had a great place for very little money. Ohio was incredible. I love Cincinnati to death. It’s a great town and it’s a very easy town to live in. And so we actually had, we talked about that often when we were there, if we didn’t have, even with the income based repayment, by that point we were paying, I don’t know, probably at least $500, if not closer to a thousand dollars a month.

[00:26:14] In those, combined between the two of us. And if we didn’t have to spend that every month, we would say between the two of us, my gosh, what would we even do with that money? We would actually have savings. We would actually be able to put money away to buy a house or to do any number of things so we could start planning for a family and all of these things.

[00:26:35] But with that in place, it just wasn’t a possibility. We were just basically hand to mouth the whole time. Because whenever I didn’t have a gig, I would run back to the hospitality industry to make as much money as I possibly could. But then the problem there being that meant that I wasn’t putting as much time and effort into my craft, you know?

[00:26:56] And to make myself a better performer, to be able to get better jobs. Whereas you see people who maybe don’t have any issues or with money or have, you know, what I mean?

[00:27:07] Emma Klauber: We talked to a comedian last week who, it was very clear to him, who in his peer group didn’t have the burden of student loans. Because perhaps they even sort of broke through faster because they had the time to go to auditions during the day or, at the drop of a hat or jump at an opportunity that someone who had, like you’re saying, multiple side hustles, couldn’t neglect that to do.

[00:27:31] Ryan Connelly: Absolutely. Yeah. And like the, sort of the, the thing that’s sort of joked about, because opera is of itself a very posh career. A lot of the people that you see, you’re like, oh, well, I mean they have money because maybe they come from a wealthy family. Or, even some of the people that I know that are very successful, that are sort of my contemporaries, maybe they have a spouse. My one friend has a wife who has this kick ass job. And she’s able to work so that when he’s at home, he’s not off like busting his hump. He’s doing whatever he wants, like practicing or taking lessons. The maintenance that goes on in the career is just as expensive depending on where you live.

[00:28:19] You may be paying hundreds of dollars for lessons and coachings and all of these getting recordings done. The recording that I had made in New York was cheap because I was in the middle of nowhere. But sometimes you’d be spending hundreds of dollars to get recordings made to apply for things that you might not even get.

[00:28:48] So, how much money are you gonna spend per season applying to all of these programs to hopefully get one. So then where’s the break even point? You’re spending a thousand plus dollars, so then you need to make that money back before you’re even in the black, you know?

[00:29:07] So yeah, it was often the people who had that jump start that they didn’t even have to worry.

[00:29:16] Emma Klauber: Right. Right. And there’s, there’s something to be said for not worrying and stressing about that on top of everything. Right. I mean, you can just enjoy what you’re doing even more then. 

[00:29:34] Ryan Connelly: Or you can even, in our industry too, sometimes it’s just continuing to do the thing because even if you’re not taking the best paying jobs, the person who’s booking nine gigs last year is in a better position than the person who’s networking. You’re getting your face out there. People are here, you’re resume building, you know? All of that. And depending on what manager you have and does this manager cost money or does this manager have a good political favor in the industry and what have you. And so, there’s a lot of that that I didn’t have as much time to devote myself to as some of my peers just because we were sort of barely scraping by.

[00:30:07] No, that’s not to say that I haven’t seen people do it. I know people who have come to the job with less money than even I have and have succeeded. But then it becomes more, it just becomes more and more of a lottery of like, are you gonna make it? You know, are you gonna get your break?

[00:30:25] Emma Klauber: Right, right. And I mean, this is something you’re obviously extremely passionate about. Do you feel like this was your personal path you saw for yourself, you know, post-college? But if you sort of knew the cost, the stress, the effort to maintain all of these, balls up in the air to have a career in the arts, do you think that is something you would have pursued?

[00:30:59] Ryan Connelly: That’s a great question. I think that I come at that from a couple different directions. I think that if I could have done it again, there are a few other things I would have tried.

[00:31:10] I never ended up getting an agent, a manager, because one of the early choices I made was, I’m never gonna spend money on a manager.

[00:31:20] Ryan Connelly: I’m gonna manage myself until I have enough work that I need a manager, which was not a strong choice. That was maybe a strong choice like 10 years ago before I started singing professionally. That was a thing that was more practical, but especially if I could have seen into the future of the industry, I would’ve just taken the first manager that even gave me any time. But the similar, like sort of what you’re driving at here a bit is, yeah, if I had been able to see where everything was going, probably would’ve given that 2013 Army Chorus audition, a lot more thought and weight because, now I entering at 35, I look at some of my, coworkers, some of the other band members who actually, one of the guys that was with me at boot camp is a saxophone player and he’s 21. And so, in 20 years if he wants to leave at 41, he has an entire lifetime of career ahead of him and is technically retired.

[00:32:29] So, you have all those benefits for the rest of your life regardless. It’s sort of like the naivete of the young person where I was like, no, I’m not gonna go for that.

[00:32:42] I’m gonna be a star. I’m gonna make it. Which I don’t really ever delude myself into thinking that that’s really what it was gonna be. But I did think that I would have a career with it, and be able to support myself. So yeah, I don’t know. Looking back, I could have seen it going a bunch of different directions.

[00:32:59] Emma Klauber: Absolutely. And what are you thinking, feeling during the pandemic while federal loans are on pause, all this cancellation conversation. The 2020 presidential candidates even coming out with the, I’m gonna cancel $10,000 or I’m gonna cancel $50,000, like, what was that making you feel about your career trajectory as an artist?

[00:33:27] Ryan Connelly: So I actually managed to hold on to my, like, salary, nine to five side hustle for a decent portion. I actually, most of the way through 2020, still held onto that job. I was working in the wedding industry. Weirdly, everybody at my employer was so sure that it would just all be back to normal so soon.

[00:33:53] Just like, just business is normal. Yep. People gotta get married. That was literally what it was. It was like, just sell the dates. And we’re like, because I was both running the weddings as a maitre d but I also was like the planner/ seller of the wedding. So hilariously when the pause started, we were just still paying because we were like, oh, great, we’ll get ahead.

[00:34:15] Like, you know what I mean?We were like, okay, I’ve budgeted for all of this, like let’s throw it in. And then obviously the, eventually they couldn’t afford to keep me on anymore cause they were just hemorrhaging money. So at that point I was very thankful for it, cause I didn’t have the job.

[00:34:34] And honestly with the whole cancellation of some of it, I totally thought that was just a pipe dream, never expected it to happen. I was like, oh, that would be really nice. But sort of in the same way, you’re like, it’d be really cool to win the lottery.

[00:34:47] I was just like, that’s nothing. So even now I’m still like, is that really gonna happen? Do we really think?

[00:34:57] Emma Klauber: Well, that’s still to be seen, isn’t it?

[00:34:59] Ryan Connelly: I think so. That’s my point is just like, I don’t, until I see it deducted from my balance, I don’t believe it. I don’t think I’m gonna believe it. So yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know what I think about it.

[00:35:13] The nice thing is now it’s, to me, sort of a non-issue because I am now, as they say, gainfully employed. So I think it still goes through the end of this year, but then once next year, I’m good to restart on those payments again. I’m very thankful that I have the ability to say that. Not many people in my field can say that.

[00:35:42] And like you were sort of alluding to in the arts industry, most people do not get to be that well off. Like they don’t get to have that security. It’s a struggle because you do also, which sort of seems like it’s contradictory- you’re sort of expected to have all of this education in the arts. You’re sort of expected and required, right.

[00:36:06] Emma Klauber: Yes. Yes.

[00:36:07] Ryan Connelly: And so it’s, it’s sort of that hypocritical thing where you’re expected to get all these degrees, but then you’re expected to pay for them.

[00:36:16] Emma Klauber: Well, not only expected to have education, you’re expected to have had the resources to see lots of art and know the history of your craft which all takes money. You know? It’s like you were saying about opera, it’s extremely exclusive. It’s very much held for people who grew up with a certain level of accessibility.

[00:36:39] Ryan Connelly: And people are trying to change that, which I appreciate. In the states, people are trying, there’s companies all over the country that are trying to make it much more accessible. And I love that. I am here for those companies. I’ve worked for some of those companies. They’re doing great things.

[00:36:52] You see it a lot more in Europe, obviously. Friends of mine that went over and did the Berlin thing, which is just to say that Germany, the state, the government, the German government supports the arts itself. Whereas in America it’s all privatized. So I’m sure that you know all about this, there’s probably similar things for other theater genres as well. But you can just go over there and get a salaried position as an ensemble singer in an opera company. And I had people who went over there, friends of mine who I did my master’s with and my undergrad with who went over there to sing. And they would tell me these stories of how it’s just a totally normalized thing over there.

[00:37:29] People in their twenties would just on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, just go to the opera. Bunch of kids, basically just like, oh, we’re just gonna go, like you’re going to the movies, we’re just gonna go see a show. But it is also much less expensive there. Now again, other companies on this side of the pond are trying to do that too. Student rush tickets and low cost or free performances that are sponsored by wealthy donors. They defray the costs so that more audience members are able to attend, which is cool, you know? It’s still a highfalutin art to be sure. 

[00:38:11] Emma Klauber: And does military service fall into Public Service Loan Forgiveness?

Ryan Connelly: So I actually am sort of in the process of switching because, so military service is considered, a public service.

[00:38:29] But it’s funny, I almost didn’t switch over because at first I wasn’t sure if I would’ve actually benefited any, because I’ve been on my income based repayment plan since 2011.

[00:38:45] Emma Klauber: That’s hard to give up.

[00:38:46] Ryan Connelly: Well, and it’s the thing where I’m only saving four years because the Public Service Loan Forgiveness is a 10 year thing. I’m already 11 years into the 25 year thing. So part of me was like, for ease of use, should I just not even bother? But like, I sat down and crunched the numbers a little bit and I was like, all right, well it would be worth it. And, it is something that I am offered.

[00:39:14] In the military you do get money to go to college, but I’ve already done that, which is, that whole thing. So the nice thing is I can give that to my kids. That’s kind of the silver lining to that cloud. I guess I could go back and get a doctorate, but I don’t really have a need for a doctorate at this point. Unlike my friend who went in at 21 and will be done, he might benefit from something like that. 

[00:39:43] Emma Klauber: You could, like you said, have a totally different career,

[00:39:46] Ryan Connelly: Well, and basically my trajectory, if I have my choice now, is to try for advancement through the ranks of my command and stay in for longer than the required 20 years.

[00:40:00] And then just retire fully when I’m finished. Because right now I went in at 35, 20 years would be 55. Which again, if I’m able to financially, I would retire then, absolutely. But more likely just because I can see from other people who are older in the band. It’s more likely that I’ll stay in for longer than that. Depending on how long I want to go rank wise, I could stay up to 30 years if I make advancement, which then would put me all the way to 65, which is like pretty traditional retirement age. All of that to say, I don’t really need another degree because I’m not gonna be going to teach at a university at the age of 65.

[00:40:40] Probably I’m gonna want to go home and like not work but yeah, so the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, they sent out a few emails about it and that was what tipped me off to like, oh, this might actually be worth looking into. It’s gonna basically be the same deal as it was before.

[00:41:00] It’s based on your income roughly. And then you just pay what they tell you for 10 years and then at the end the rest goes away. As far as I know.

[00:41:10] Emma Klauber: No, that is it. Yes, that is how it works. Your employer has to be qualified obviously. But did you start the clock on that?

[00:41:20] Ryan Connelly: No, because I have the paperwork to do. We just got the email that I’m referring to, I think I read it like two weeks ago. And we’ve been really busy with, just with concerts and such with our normal operating procedures. So this weekend, I have a little time to take a breather and like to fill out the forms and get everything done. Because then also like our loans just changed servicers.

[00:41:47] So I’m with a different person now. I’m with an Aidvantage now.

[00:41:52] Emma Klauber: I have Aidvantage as well.

[00:41:53] Ryan Connelly: Yeah. so I’m pretty sure that now I’ll just send all that paperwork into them, which is fine.

[00:42:00] I mean, look, it’s just like when you have a mortgage on a house. It changes hands. And I think my first mortgage on my house in New York, I think it changed hands like four times in the three and a half years that I had that mortgage. I will ideally be taking advantage of that I have until the end of the month to get that paperwork submitted.

[00:42:22] Emma Klauber: That’s right. You do. And when you join the military, do they sit you down and say, hey, here’s a benefit of being in the military?

[00:42:31] Ryan Connelly: Yeah. Oh you wait for the Public LoanService Forgiveness? I don’t know if they ever specifically mentioned that, they might have mentioned it in boot camp cause now, they have classes when you’re in boot camp. They call it life skills in the Navy at least. I don’t know if that’s what they call it in the other branches. But they actually have all these classes now that they teach you, after you’re done with your pushups for the day, they like to take you to a classroom and tell you not to fall asleep. Basically that’s what it is that you, you’re trying not to fall asleep for like 10 weeks. But one of the things that they teach you, how to do your taxes.

[00:43:08] And the one that I always use as sort of an ice breaking joke is, they teach you how to not spend 37% interest on a car, right after you finish basic training. Like, that’s the stereotype, right?

[00:43:20] Is that like, the young soldier or sailor gets out of basic and goes and buys a charger for like $40,000 with 30% interest and loses all their money.

[00:43:30] They teach you not to do that now. But one of the other things is they tell you all about the student loan programs, the Montgomery GI Bill and the 9/11 Bill, which are the two bills that allow you to have money for tuition, for classes, and to get a degree after your first enlistment. So that’s the thing that traditionally people are the most familiar with about entering the military. You go to the military, you do your tour, and then you get to go to college. So you sort of, quote unquote, put off college for four years, six years, and then you go and get your degree for free. Right? That’s what sort of everybody’s familiar with. I’ll briefly mention, actually I have more information about this than the last time we spoke. The band in particular also has an additional program because they know that most of us already have their degrees.

[00:44:18] So the way that this works in the Navy is, when you enlist, you’re enlisting for a specific job. So I was enlisting and they all have a job code.

[00:44:29] I’m trying to think of one, yeoman is one that comes to mind.

[00:44:34] The yeoman in the Navy is basically like, they do all the paperwork. They’re another that’s like the people in the band, a lot of times they won’t see a ship. They’re mostly shore duty. They’re doing paychecks and clerical work. But like a yeoman is YN or a gunner’s mate who’s somebody who operates machine guns.

[00:44:53] They’re a GM. These are the other things that they teach you at basic, by the way, is all of the terminology, starboard and port and aft and forward and all that fun stuff. So there’s all of those. I don’t know if there’s any others like, oh, AO is an aircraft ordinance.

[00:45:08] So there are people that deal with the bombs that go on planes, but they don’t fire them. They literally are like the technicians that work on them.

[00:45:16] So it’s all very specific. It was interesting to me because everybody has their own little job to do and they all come together to make this entire giant floating city work.

[00:45:27] It was very fascinating to me as somebody who had very little knowledge of military life before enlisting. But anyway, all of that to say, I came in as an MU so. When you go to enlist, you have to go up to this facility where they take your blood and make sure that you’re healthy enough to go into the military and that’s where you sign your contract essentially.

[00:45:53] So this gets back to what you were saying, do they sit you down and tell you stuff? So the band in particular, because they’re all MUs, you’re all musicians, they offer a special bonus. Some people get enlistment bonuses of various amounts.

[00:46:08] The enlistment bonus per se for the band is that you actually get student loan forgiveness. So it’s a pretty rare thing in the military, but they know that we already have the degrees. So they say, we’ll forgive X amount of money per year of your student loans. You still have to pay tax on that amount.

[00:46:27] But at the end of however many years, I’m pretty sure that’s the way it works. At the end of however many years, you no longer have loans. So that was something that, it wasn’t like the reason that I took the audition, obviously, as we’ve already talked about, there were a lot of other things.

[00:46:42] Emma Klauber: I didn’t know that. That’s incredible.

[00:46:46] Ryan Connelly: Yeah, it was like a thing where I was like, whoa, okay. And so then when I got to where you sign your contract, I’m talking to the guy, and of course you’ve been there since like 4:30 in the morning. So, you’re just sort of like rolling through the day. And I’m talking to one of the guys, they’re all very helpful. It’s not, some people like to demonize this kind of thing where they’re like, pressuring you, but especially for me, somebody who I already had the job that I was looking for.

[00:47:12] So there was really no conversation to be had. He was like, oh, hey and just so the only thing that’s that’s not normal for you is, 2021, they were having record low numbers of people coming through meps and joining the various branches.

[00:47:29] So for the Navy, one of the things they did to combat that was they opened up this student loan forgiveness program to more jobs. So not just the MU jobs, but a bunch of other jobs. And I was entering in September, which is the end of their fiscal year, because their fiscal year starts in October. So essentially when he sat me down, the quote unquote bad news he gave me at that point was they ran out of money for that program.

[00:47:56] Emma Klauber: Oh my God.

[00:47:57] Ryan Connelly: I was sort of at this point where I was like, I already want this job for all of these other reasons. I’m the whole way in, the whole way. And so, It was one of those things where I sort of looked at the pros and cons list, and obviously the pros were still vastly outnumbering. So I was like, great, cool.

[00:48:18] What are you gonna do? It ended up that it’s really only just a couple of us because of course as luck would have it, they reinstated this then later on this year, because Navy hit their numbers, they no lead no longer needed to add this extra incentive. So now the band members who are joining now are getting that forgiveness again. Which actually then hilariously, there we are now inquiring, we say, running it up the chain of command. So to see if I can retroactively be extended that courtesy.

[00:48:49] So that’s what the process now is like, once I heard that it was . Being that it was now back in effect, my first question was to email the person directly above me and be like, hey, what can we do about this?

[00:49:01] Clearly, like, there’s not very many of us that aren’t getting it, so is there anything to be done? Since we’ve had a few more auditions, not for my group in particular, but for a couple of the other smaller bands within the giant umbrella of the Navy band. And, we’ve had some new arrivals that are now getting it again.

[00:49:22] Emma Klauber: Okay. Do you feel optimistic about that?

[00:49:25] Ryan Connelly: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I feel optimistic. I mean, for me, either way it’s gonna be fine. It’s funny now, especially too, like with the whole cancellation, Danielle, my wife and I are both gonna get $10,000 allegedly taken away. Allegedly. I think we started with around $110,00 combined. And she can hear me probably in the other room, but she knows, the majority of it, probably like two thirds, one third was my wife’s, because her undergrad was at a school that was just more expensive. She went to Carnegie Mellon for her undergrad.

[00:49:59] Emma Klauber: You can tell Danielle, I had way more than her, if that makes her feel better.

[00:50:04] Ryan Connelly: She’ll love that. But we paid that all the way down. Now, mostly, like I said, in those last four years, we paid that all the way down to, I think we’re down to like under $70,000.

[00:50:20] Emma Klauber: So first of all, $20,000 isn’t nothing, that’s a nice chunk that you can have right off the top. 

[00:50:33] Ryan Connelly: Well, yeah. And the way that we ended up doing it was Danielle’s, cause she had a couple that were not federal, so they had higher interest rates.

[00:50:40] So we nipped those real quick. So actually Danielle has only like $20,000 something left. So after we get rid of the $10,000 that is allegedly happening, we might just try to take the rest of that one out. Which then would also make sense to be a little bit more aggressive on that one. Especially if I’m getting this PSLF.

[00:51:00] Emma Klauber: Right. Right. 

[00:51:02] Ryan Connelly: Because then I’ll ride that, right? So like that, even if I don’t get this other forgiveness, it’ll be fine. If in the end I’m able to run it all the way up the chain of command and get the other incentive back even better.

[00:51:17] Emma Klauber: That’s really exciting. Ryan,, like your end is very much in sight. 

[00:51:23] Ryan Connelly: A hundred percent. Yeah, a hundred percent. That’s sort of one of the other things, going back to thinking and considering this audition, like going back and considering this sort of career shift, that was one of the really exciting parts of it to me. I was like, oh, the financial freedom idea of being out of debt and getting there is so alluring that it’s kinda like, why not?

[00:51:52] Why would I not try for that? You know?

[00:51:55] Emma Klauber: It’s that, and I mean, I don’t know how you feel about this, but I certainly feel my career is at a great place. I went from working in the arts to working in data at a bank, which is wild. I hate crediting student debt to anything positive, but I do love that it forced my life on a timeline I absolutely never could have projected for myself.

[00:52:24] And it sounds like for you, you’ve taken on this whole new set of skills just being in the military for the last year. I feel really excited when I think about how I’ve evolved personally and professionally because of what I was forced to take on due to student loans. Now I don’t advocate for anyone to be in debt and forced to be burdened by this stuff. But I do love the way my skills have evolved because of this like context that I live my life within.

[00:53:03] Ryan Connelly: Absolutely. It’s that whole adaptability thing, would I have ever gone through these experiences if I hadn’t had this external pressure to do so? Just like you said, you learn all of these skills. I mean, even in the hospitality industry and all of these things and tech industry stuff, like I did some work. You pick up all these jobs, right? Like I briefly did some work, some backend work for Spotify. I started building computers to sell to people and you like to learn all of these things that then become widely applicable in your larger life, you know? And if I hadn’t had that pressure to do so, I don’t know what I would’ve done.

[00:53:42] It’s the best of both worlds. You have like the arts career experience, but within like, kind of normal business hours.

[00:53:49] Ryan Connelly: They’re much more respectful of your work life balance because it is an arts community, but it’s a little bit more regimented because it’s military. So, like when you take leave when you’re on vacation, they’re like, nope, don’t work, don’t do anything. Go be with your family.

[00:54:09] Emma Klauber: Well, that’s so fantastic.  I’m so happy for you, Ryan. This sounds awesome. It’s just a really cool convergence of just the right time, like in your career, in your personal life. A really nice balance of things. So that’s fantastic.

[00:54:25] Ryan Connelly: Yeah. And still singing for my supper as it were.

[00:54:28] Emma Klauber: Exactly. Exactly. Well, Ryan, thank you so much for being on Matter of Life and Debt. It was great to have you. This is a perspective we definitely haven’t had before. It’s so interesting to mix the intersection of arts and student loans and military, that’s very unique. So thank you for sharing that with us!

[00:54:52] Ryan Connelly: Definitely a little off the beaten path,huh? 

Emma Klauber: Ryan, do you wanna promote anything? 

[00:54:55] Ryan Connelly: Oh yeah, sure. If you want to hear me scream, you can, just go to my website. I always call it screaming because what is opera, but a prolonged scream. It’s my name.com. So it’s Ryan, with my middle initial C, Connolly, so that’s www.ryancconnelly.com. I’ve got some audio, some video up there, if you wanna hear what it sounds like. And, I’m sure that there’ll be some Navy stuff up there pretty soon here. I’m waiting on some recordings from my first few solo performances, which I’m hopefully gonna have up there as well. So I think I’m getting a video from the Navy birthday concert, which I’ll put up because I think it went pretty well, or at least so I was told. But, yeah, I don’t know. That’s pretty much it. If you wanna follow me on Instagram, I’m @ryan.c.connelly on Instagram. I post stuff about music and Navy music separately.

[00:55:49] Emma Klauber: Great. So check out Ryan on his website. Check out Ryan on his Instagram. Thank you, Ryan. It’s been a pleasure to talk with you.

[00:55:56] Ryan Connelly: Absolutely. I’m so happy that we got to connect.

[00:56:00] Shanna Bennett: If you liked this episode of Matter of Life and Debt, subscribe and share it with a friend. It really helps people discover us. Matter of Life and Debt is hosted by me, Shanna. It is produced by Shanna Bennett, Emma Klauber, and Nikki Nolan.

It is edited by Nikki Nolan and Talia Molé, transcripts and writing is done by Emma Klauber. Efe Akerman created the theme music.

Visit our website www.matteroflifeanddebt.com, where you can listen to more episodes, access transcripts, and get additional context for the subjects you just heard about. Absolutely for free the website again, www.matteroflifeanddebt.com.

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