“I have $235,000 of student debt.”
Your are Dumb
“I make just under $4,000 per month”
I did too, 30 years ago, but I was not saddled with a college degree.
My daughter makes about $4,000 a month too. She just got her Masters. Combined with her undergrad loan, she has to pay about $500.
She is married and her husband was deployed. She did the Masters in about 14 months; mostly while he was gone. She is now qualified to be an emergency management manager for a city, hospital, or large corporation.
Next fall he starts his, hoping to get finished before his next deployment. He has no student debt. And he is a state trooper, who can get almost unlimited OT.
Neither of them is going to be outrageously rich, but at under 30 they are both on their way to respectable careers that will contribute to the safety and well-being of the public.
My other daughter has an Art Degree and is starting her Masters—full boat scholarship—this fall. The artist has never had to ask for money of any kind and finds enough gigs teaching and working to pay her bills.
There are people doing it. And I am proud of both of them.