Posted on 08/28/2022 12:02:29 PM PDT by grundle
One of Richelle Brooks' dreams is to send her two children to college without taking out any loans. She knows firsthand how taking out a loan to pursue higher education can amount to crippling debt.
"My daughter wants to be an anesthesiologist. My son wants to be a computer engineer. Two little Black kids want this for their future," Brooks, 35, told Insider. "And this country is telling me it's impossible for me to get them there. It's a terrible, hopeless feeling."
Brooks borrowed $203,000 collectively to attend undergrad, graduate, and doctoral studies. And over the years, has accumulated over $30,000 in interest.
"Yeah, $240,000," Brooks said.
In 2020, she decided to politicize her inability to pay back her loans. Apart of the Debt Collective, she joined a group of strikers called the "Biden Jubilee 100," calling on the president to cancel student debt within the early days of being in office.
Brooks' American dream is simple.
"My hope is that if my student loan debt balance is canceled, I can start saving for them and planning for their future," she said. "But I'm also hoping that we can get a free college education so that I don't have to also worry about how to finance their future either."
Living in California as a single mother is financially taxing, she said. She works as a principal in South Los Angeles, a career which she adores, but she often has to have a side hustle to live comfortably.
With the burden of student loan debt, saving money for the future is not a luxury for many Black borrowers.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
I had the opportunity to take out just as many students’ loans and did not. maybe the sensible thing would have been taking a break and working between grad, undergrad and PHD...if you can’t immediately get hired and get paid enough to pay back the loans in the field you are studying dot take out a loan.
I see no one bothered to post the “tiny violin” photo. If I had it, I don’t think I would bother to post it either.
#NotEvenTinyViolinWorthy
If she has a deadbeat husband, she will easily qualify for the 300 grand level..
And if single, she may still sneak in under the 150 grand level, depending on how they value benefits.
My boss’s daughter got a PhD in Engineering for free.
Always amazes me that whiners like this NEVER put any blame on their college for the exorbitant cost of a degree. Utterly clueless. And she wants her kids to be victims, too.
So she’s doubly stupid for leasing a car
You think she gonna park a Corolla in that Principal’s reserved parking slot at the ‘hood academy?
I heard a woman caller on a conservative talk show Friday saying she called about her student loan because the amount was higher than what she borrowed. It had been years since she quit school and had not paid any back yet. They told her it was higher because of interest.
She didn’t know what interest was and was complaining no one told her about that.
Don’t they teach compound interest in high school anymore?
Don’t they teach you to read a financial agreement before you sign it?
She should have better “planned for her future” years ago. She made plans and pursued those goals. It’s not my fault her plans were faulty.
At no time in her college years did she take a look at the amounts of money she was borrowing and think, “Wow, is the path I’m on going to allow me to pay that debt?”. Nope. She just kept on borrowing with her final plan being to have someone else pay for her mistakes.
If as principal she wanted to be a good example she would.
“Deadbeat.”
You got that right!
GibMeDat!
OK ... I see the tiny "slash-S" ...
I thought that was a speck of dust on my screen.
I always heard that the BS degree stood for BullS**t, MS for More Of The Same, and PHD was Piled Higher And Deeper.
From the article: “My hope is that if my student loan debt balance is canceled, I can start saving for them and planning for their future,” she said. “But I’m also hoping that we can get a free college education so that I don’t have to also worry about how to finance their future either.”
There’s the Money Shot... her ‘hope’ is that the kids get free college education...
Wheteher or not that happens, it’s clear that most colleges have endowments that could be applied ot tuitions and costs, but they choose not to so apply them.
There are alternatives to borrowing, IMO. Smaller course loads, lower fees, apprenticeships that cover some or all of the costs. And so forth...
I like how she continued to go to school because she couldn’t pay back her initial student loan and that’s how she ended up with so much debt
Big College fat cats are laughing. My wife’s father spent $210 PER YEAR to go through City College of New York. She spent about $450 per semester. Now it is about $15,000.
Principals of schools, make $150K a year with benefits. Maybe she should have gone to CC, then took 2 years of college to become just a teacher. I don’t care if she chokes on her debt. How much was used for spring break, Christmas for kids, trips to Mazatlan etc?
There is $30 Trillion in debt just in the US. Adding in all unfunded liabilities, it is closer to $300 Trillion just in the US.
What makes you think she has any idea who her father is?
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