Posted on 10/27/2018 4:44:26 PM PDT by Simon Green
Chad Haag considered living in a cave to escape his student debt. He had a friend doing it. But after some plotting, he settled on what he considered a less risky plan. This year, he relocated to a jungle in India. "I've put America behind me," Haag, 29, said.
He now lives in a concrete house in the village of Uchakkada for $50 a month. His backyard is filled with coconut trees and chickens. "I saw four elephants just yesterday," he said, adding that he hopes to never set foot in a Walmart again.
His debt is currently on its way to default. But more than 9,000 miles away from Colorado, Haag said, his student loans don't feel real anymore.
"It's kind of like, if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it really exist?" he said.
The philosophy major concedes that his student loan balance of around $20,000 isn't as large as the burden shouldered by many other borrowers, but he said his difficultly finding a college-level job in the U.S. has made that debt oppressive nonetheless. "If you're not making a living wage," Haag said, "$20,000 in debt is devastating."
He struggled to come up with the $300 a month he owed. The first work he found after he graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 2011 — when the recession's effects were still palpable — was on-again, off-again hours at a factory, unloading trucks and constructing toy rockets on an assembly line. He then went back to school to pursue a master's degree in comparative literature at the University of Colorado Boulder. After that, he tried to make it as an adjunct professor, but still he could barely scrape a living together with the one class a semester he was assigned.
Haag had some hope restored when he landed full-time work as a medical courier in Denver, delivering urine and blood samples to hospitals. However, he was disappointed to find that he brought home just $1,700 a month. He had little money left over after he paid his student loan bill. He couldn't afford an apartment in the city, where rents have been rising sharply. He lived with his mother and rarely went out with friends.
"I couldn't make the math work in America," Haag said. Milestones that seemed like pipe dreams back home, like starting a family, and owning a house, are now on his horizon. This year he married an Indian citizen, a professor at a local college. He now has a five-year spousal visa, and plans to renew it when the time comes.
Adjusting to a new country, he admitted, has not been entirely easy. "Some toilets here are holes in the ground you squat over," Haag said. Recently, he ate spoiled goat meat at a local restaurant and landed in the emergency room.
Still, he said, "I have a higher standard of living in a Third World country than I would in America, because of my student loans."
Teaches philosophy.
...he relocated to a jungle in India.
LOL
BA in Philosophy...Laughing my Ass off. Go get a job in construction you F’n snowflake. He’d rather shit in a hole in India, than try to get a “real” job in the USA to pay back his ill advised student loan. No pity party for him.
To be fair, what else what he going to major in? Engineering? Physics?
Those are, like, hard y’know.
I totally agree.
College tuition has gone up more than 1000% in the past 40 years, all because government got involved in handing out student loans like candy.
The colleges could charge anything they wanted, and the dumb 18-year olds would just borrow it.
Those loans should not be forgiven, but I'd be OK with forcing universities to cover them by disgorging reparations to the students from their endowments.
That would also cause a lot of Left-wing "perfessers" to lose their jobs. Win-win!
No, he went back for comparative literature not creative writing. You can make good money with creative writing because you have to be able to write, which is a skill.
Easy solution: No government loans for any students other than STEM majors who maintain at least a 3.0 average.
"Baby Talk" Christine Blasey Ford needs a new pair of shoes.
A take-off on "Baby needs a new pair of shoes".
It was worth 20k to get rid of him.
So, they didn’t have parents who could advise them that this was not a good investment? I really have a hard time blaming the lenders who saw a good opportunity since THE GOVERNMENT ITSELF MADE STUDENT LOAN DEBT UNABLE TO BE DISCHARGED VIA BANKRUPTCY! This is another case of “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
pursue a master’s degree in comparative literature
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Should have studied something that would get him a job.
It’s funny, when the Boomers went to college it was practically free,
Look at it this way, $20 G’s to permanently remove this idiot from our country is a good investment. I wish we could do this with every snowflake loser like him.
He married a professor.
College tuition has gone up more than 1000% in the past 40 years, all because government got involved in handing out student loans like candy.
...
That money actually subsidizes the liberals at the indoctrination centers.
There’s what a job pays, and there’s what a job after paying taxes pays. If it was his first full-time job he can be excused for having no experience in the matter.
That really jumped out at me.
I’ll take the average Indian emigre over this moron. We come out on the better end of the deal.
Almost certainly the case. The chances of him being a net tax producer rather than a net tax consumer were virtually nil.
Easy solution: No government loans for any students other than STEM majors who maintain at least a 3.0 average.
*********************************************************
If you add to that “no federal funding of ANY kind to schools for the purpose of supporting “education” for anything other than STEM or Business courses...you’ll be on to something. STARVE THE BEAST.
Yea. Philosophy jobs are hard to find, bro.
He shoulda taken up playing checkers at a black barber shop.
Or posting on Free Republic.
It don't pay much, but at least he coulda put that degree to work.
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