You will not be able to get either one of these types of jobs with out a Masters degree. I remember getting my masters in school counseling (worked a full time job, went to school full time and parented a child). I also teach graduate courses in school counseling where most of my students are working paid jobs along with doing their practicums/internships and attending classes.
It seems that people are offering you solutions and you are coming up with reasons as to why you can’t do these things. Unfortunately there is no easy out going around your situation. You are going to have to roll up your sleeves and work a full time and a part time job. it doesn’t matter what the job is. right now you are doing anything and interest is still racking up on your debt. You need a part time job where you are doing nothing with that money but use it to pay off your debt. Even if you make $200 a week, you can have it paid off in 13 months. Yes, it sounds painful and yes, it is going to be painful. A year is going to pass any way and with your list of excuses, you are still going to be in the same situation an year from now, unless you do something about it now.
I have high school students who are attending school and working full time jobs because they have children to support or are self supporting, not living with parents. One of their challenges is that the min wage in NYC is $15/hr and the appeal of making more money can get in the way of them being in school.
I know my nephew took a part time job working for the airlines as part of the ground crew (where he also travels for free and is in the union) in addition to his full time job (where he became a custodian for one of the city agencies where he is in the union and gets tuition benefits). Took the money from the part time job and used it to paying off his debt (over 10K). 1 year later, he debt free, the airlines hired him full time and got 2 promotions since he started working full time (he took the job because he likes the travel benefits and was able to make a schedule around his regular full time job), banks money, purchased a new car and uses the second job money to pay off the car with the goal of having it paid off in a year.
It’s close to $10K. I’d have to call them tomorrow to check the exact balance. Obviously, knowing the exact payoff amount can help you plan to pay it off more efficiently.
At my current rate several, several years. I don’t have a high monthly payment because at the time I arranged it, I was only making like $8.67/hour. While increasing the payment to pay it off quicker helps, reducing my payoff timeline from 6 years to 2-3 years still does not solve the issue of if my credits expire after 5-7 years.
Like I said, reducing the payoff timeline helps, but it won’t help if these credits expire in 2021 or sooner.
Did she need a referral from a social worker or religious leader to get the loan?
I’ve definitely thought about that & getting a car that’s even better on gas than my car, which is already fairly fuel-efficient but not amazingly so, but isn’t it kind of hard to sell a car when you don’t have a title & you’re financing it? Because you’d pretty much have to convince someone else to take on the payments.
Great idea. I’ll look into it.
Well, to be fair, I didn’t start making this much until several months ago. I made $10/hour last year, & less than $9/hour the previous 2-3 years. Also, between my car payment & car insurance payment (because I got 2 forsaken speeding tickets in speed trap towns), I pay $550/month combined for both. That’s like over half of 1 of my 2 paychecks every 2 weeks. Then add other expenses like rent, utilities, Wi-Fi, cable, phone bill, food, gas, etc., it adds up quickly.
I know, but like I said, I’m just worried that I won’t have time before my credits expire. I wish I had known about credits expiring a lot sooner; otherwise, I would have been focusing on getting this paid off in a timely manner 2 years ago. I need to speak with my school registrar’s office. But it’s kind of hard to go see them because the school is like 2 hours away. I have to go on one of my days off, but, for example, I was asked to work overtime tomorrow & I accepted it because I need the extra money but now I will have to wait until next week to go. And if I get a second job, my free time to do stuff like that will be even less.
He does. He also helps with Wi-Fi, but not with cable, since he never uses it.
In order to come up with another $800/month, I would need to work at least another 25 hours a week. I’d pretty much have to work 7 days a week, 4 10-hour days with the Amazon courier job, then 3 8-hour days with a second part-time job.
I understand that. But in order to even get into a Master’s program, you first need a BA or BS. It’s one step at a time here. I was asked what I plan to do with a psych. degree later in the future, & I answered. I wasn’t referring to my bachelor’s degree, I was referring to a Master’s degree (or possibly PhD) later on down the road.
As I told blossom, this was more or less something I was thinking about later down the road after getting the graduate degree.
If I have more than 2 years before my credits expire, than yeah, I can definitely listen to the advice given on here. But as I mentioned before in this thread, if I go down to my school’s registrar’s office & they tell me that my credits expire within 5 years, like I’ve heard before, then I need something that will help me pay off that debt in less than a year. Only a job where I can make over $25/hour (like that census job someone pointed out earlier) will get me anywhere close to that timeline.
It does matter what kind of job it is, because it needs to be high paying enough to be worth my time. 13 months might be too long, so if it is, then I would need to bring in like $320/month extra minimum or more.
That’s with the 13 month timeline someone gave earlier, but like I said, I may have less time than that. If that’s the case, then I would need to bring in like $1,200/month. With 25 extra hours a week, I would need to make at least $12/hour for my part-time job; otherwise, I’d need to work even more hours.
I don’t mind the 25 hours as much as the fact that I’d want that time split into 2 days rather than 3 days so that I can have at least 1 day off a week.
OP- so the key to all of this is finding out if your credits expire in the next year, correct?
Take the overtime.
Tonight- write an email to the registrar of your old university with a cc to the Dean of Students AND the Dean of Financial Aid AND the provost (all of these folks should have their full names and email addresses on the university website) with the following information.
1- Your full name (the one you used to enroll)
2- A very brief summary (three lines) of what happened- you were enrolled from X date to Y date, you had to withdraw for financial reasons, you have Z credits completed towards a degree in psychology.
3- Your plan as of today- finish paying off the loans which went to collections and then enroll to complete your degree.
Ask how much time you have to do this, and ask if they could make an exception to whatever university policy is on the books in order to give you enough time to complete paying down your loan AND come up with enough money to enroll again.
Unless this is a for-profit institution, you will likely find that Deans and Provosts and folks like that have pretty much devoted their careers to helping students get a college education, despite the obstacles.
If you want to post a draft of your email here, the experienced and savvy posters can help you edit it.
If the only obstacle right now is your belief that the credits are going to expire- well, let’s have the CC community help you make that obstacle go away. Once you’ve gotten- in writing- a commitment from the university to keep your transcript and credits alive until you can pay down the debt, you can focus on the best way to quickly get back to college.
No? You are basing this entire emergency on “something you heard”, correct? Did you hear it from the Provost or Dean of students? If not- go to them and clarify. This is a problem with a solution…
@SlicedHumblePie You can do a year of 65-80 hours per week. Many do it to make ends meet. Many do it because their careers require it. You do what you have you do.
SlicedHumblePie, from the first post you mentioned that your credits “expire,” I’ve been thinking that you absolutely must find out if that is accurate, and if it is when the credits expire. You don’t need to take two hours to travel to the school to ask the right questions. Get on the phone, or send an email. You’re good at making excuses, but it’s really hard to make any excuses about getting answers to these critical questions. Just do it.
how long has it been since you have been out of school/ For the most part, credits do not expire; there may be courses that are no longer offered and have been replaced with another course going forward. Even then at many universities, schools will grandfather in the credits.
I have friends and family members who have finished their degrees over a period from 10-20 years and none of them had “expired credits.” There may be slight changes in the degree requirement where they had to take some extra courses, but it is highly unlikely there is an expiration on freshman comp.
As others have stated, unless you are going to a for profit school it is highly unlikely that all of your credits will “expire.”
Some colleges do not accept credits for courses after a certain amount of time. I know several students who came across that issue, specifically in the Denver , Colorado area. 10 years, though one school had a 7 year shelf life.
But none of this matters with regard to the OP except specifically what the school involved has as policy. Imperative to find out exactly what the situation is.