I Repaid $125K in Student Loans. The Interest Left Is Sickening

In the early 1990s, I went to college like many of my peers did. I picked an inexpensive public university and as the first in my low-income family to go to college, I received scholarships and grants, and took out loans to pay for it.

I planned on going to school for four years, earn my degree, and then join the law enforcement community as a Federal Marshal. Those dreams, however, became derailed first by my father's untimely illness and subsequent death, and later, by an attack on our United States

I had always worked, back before work permits were a thing for kids. When my father passed away in 1996 I couldn't immediately return to school because there was no money coming in to support my family outside of my mom's small income.

I figured the best way for me to get back to school was to double down. I worked two jobs before I took a position as a resident advisor, which was compensated with free room and board so I could return to school without the burden of those charges.

I managed to return to school for two years, before having to leave again, to help my mom with finances and my younger siblings.

I tried taking classes at local schools that were close to home in the Chicago suburbs or one of my two jobs. But they were private schools and more expensive, which meant I had to take out more private loans while I was put into deferment for my existing loans.

Topping the scales at $50,000, I went to EMT and paramedic school to help pay the bills a bit more, and finally jumped in, feet first, to finish my last year of college at the public school I started at in 2001—eight years after I had first joined.

I was working three jobs at the time, including a part-time job 80 miles away at a fire department to pay the bills, making roughly $10 an hour, when the 9/11 attacks happened.

It was a beautiful September day and I'll never forget hearing about the attacks from my neighbor (I couldn't afford cable at the time). The tragedy of the day shook me to my core and I was even more committed to becoming a Marshal after everything that happened.

But what I didn't expect was my internship with the U.S. Marshall's office to get canceled as well as my backup internship with the Secret Service. All federal internships were canceled due to national security.

While I walked on graduation day, it was without an internship and with the knowledge that hiring requirements had changed—and I now didn't meet them.

I didn't have a job offer waiting for me and financial servitude would continue to be an anchor around my neck. So while I got that very expensive piece of paper, its meaning and value was all but lost to me.

After I had graduated, repayment was automatically triggered, something I wasn't aware of. I was paying $700 a month for my private loans and $380 for my federal loans. I was working three jobs as a firefighter, a paramedic, and for a private ambulance service.

I worked 48+ hours a week and brought home about $22,000 a year before taxes, insurance, and health care. I had a cheap used Chevy to take me back and forth to work, but no money to pay for much else.

After years of working harder and harder and not getting ahead, I decided to go to nursing school, where I got waitlisted at the community college for several years. I eventually bit the bullet and took out even more private loans to go to a school that wouldn't waitlist me.

I finished my degree in four years, with honors, although I couldn't afford to attend my ceremony, and have been working as an ER nurse for the past 12 years. Not once has loan forgiveness ever been mentioned to me by my employers or by the government.

I don't have an issue with paying back the money I borrowed, but the interest is killing me and those like me.

While the existence of public servant forgiveness as well as the numerous hoops to jump through have been a very well-kept secret, I still trudged on in my battle to overcome student loan debt.

Last year, I finished paying back $125,000 in private loans and also paid on my remaining federal loans all through the pandemic. Yet even now, I still owe more than I borrowed.

I've got a $72,000 anvil around my neck that threatens to drown every chance of financial stability for me and my family. My initial federal loans are slowly strangling me and everyone like me.

I will still be paying on these loans when my only child is ready to go to college and to this day, I still work two jobs. Many days, I wonder why I even bother.

Thankfully, my husband doesn't have any student loan debt, but I have to wonder about all those like me, who had worked as public servants and never even heard of the option of loan forgiveness.

The hospitals I've worked for are both in impoverished areas, so while I should qualify, I haven't made the necessary payments for 10 years because of hardship forbearance.

Like I said, I never had an issue with paying the money back. But the money will be repaid ten times over by the time I'm done, and although I've been paying on my loans during the interest freeze, it's never enough to make a dent.

I challenge our legislators to come up with a better way than this broken public servant program. Like a tax incentive for those first responders, essential workers, and ER nurses like me who risked so much during the pandemic. Perhaps something like a $10,000 tax credit per year for three years.

That would make a difference, that would be a huge help for those of us who put our lives on hold on a regular basis to help others. If this loan loophole has happened to me, it's happened to others and it all begs the question: What next? What is the way out?

Victoria Foxworth has spent the last 24 years of her life helping others. She spent over 10 years as a firefighter and paramedic, and another decade as an ER nurse while also taking care of her elderly mother who is battling cancer. In between her two jobs, she volunteers at her daughter's school teaching art, rescues black dogs deemed unadoptable, and teaches her daughter about the joys of thrift shops and garage sales.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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