08/26/2022
I am a private person and don’t often publicly air my views or opinions on current events, but this one hits very close to home. I feel like I have to say something. It would be life changing for me to have any amount of my school loans forgiven.
I grew up poor…I did not have indoor plumbing from the age of 11 to 17. Pictured is my entire world at the age of 13. I had to pay $20/month to buy him at the price of $300. My family was not able to help with the cost of my education. But I did not allow that to define my dreams. I knew I wanted to become an equine veterinarian, and I set about doing that however I could. It was not possible for me to “work my way” through undergrad and vet school. I worked summers, of course, but the course load was too rigorous for me to hold a regular job during the school year. You are expected to volunteer and intern to gain experience to qualify for vet school.
Meanwhile, I am paying rent in downtown Seattle for 5 years (undergrad), then 4 years in Pullman (vet school), buying textbooks at $100-400 a piece (this was before online learning) and new books were needed for every class, every quarter. That’s 24 quarters (last year of vet school is clinical where you pay in blood, sweat and tears rather than buy textbooks, a welcome change for me), 2-4 books per quarter. If you got to the school bookstore early, you could try to buy them used. I needed stethoscopes, microscopes, vaccines (and of course I didn’t have health insurance…too poor, so that all came out of pocket), scrubs, etc.
School loans couldn’t cover my tuition, supplies and living expenses, so the rest went on credit cards. I had over 10 credit cards when I graduated from vet school. I would pay one off using a cash advance check from another one, just to keep from defaulting. I never had a late payment. I graduated with my DVM after 9 years of school. Over $135,000 in debt. Keep in mind this is 22 years ago.
I couldn’t afford to apply for an internship post-graduation because they only paid $18,000/year. I had to immediately hit the workforce and find the best job that I could. I landed a job outside of Chicago at an equine sports medicine referral clinic. They had a surgeon and an internal medicine specialist, so I was able to garner the mentorship that a budding veterinarian needs, but still make somewhat of a salary. I worked 80+ hour weeks for $48,000/year. I had to put my student loans in forbearance because I couldn’t afford to pay for my move to the Midwest and living expenses and still cover the loan payments.
Meanwhile, the interest starts racking up because school loans acquired in graduate school are not subsidized and interest on subsidized loans begins when you leave undergraduate school. I consult with a debt consolidation company and eventually pay off all my credit card debt, but the student loans are a different story. The interest that accrued was added to the principle when the debt was consolidated. I start to pay. And pay. And pay.
As of now, I have paid $152,635.60 (NOT including the over $35,000 in credit card debt plus interest) and I am only at equal parts principle vs. interest. My last loan payment is scheduled for January 2035. Incidentally the same year that my son will hopefully start college. I hear “Pay it off early,” or “Make larger payments.” I would love to, if I could. The average equine veterinarian makes less than $120,000/year and works well over 60 hours/week. I made well below that for several years and certainly don’t make more than that now. (Compare this to a small animal veterinarian who can land a job out of school with $100,000+/year salary, chunky signing bonus and relegate emergencies to an afterhours clinic…don’t get me wrong, they still work very hard, but no one can argue that they aren’t compensated much fairly than their equine colleagues).
I still rent my house and my office. Hopefully I have paid down enough debt that I can finally qualify for a mortgage. My business is EXTREMELY well run (thank you, Tim!!) but my profit margin is at best 8-10% due to the cost of equipment, medications, insurance, licenses, continuing education requirements and more. It cost me over a quarter million dollars to launch Infinity Equine. Thank goodness I qualified for an SBA loan, but I did take a hard hit when I had to pull the majority out of my 401k to get started.
I would have been SO much better off choosing a career that provided a more balanced return on investment. However, that’s not where my heart was, or is. I don’t regret it because I love what I do every day that I walk out the door. However, I feel like I have paid my dues. I’m not asking for anything for free. But a little break would be amazing. Even just a little bit would allow me to get that much closer to buying a house. It's hard for me sometimes to go to a call and hear how expensive it is to own a horse...I 100% understand that, but often that is coming from someone who owns their own house or property. I don't even have that yet.
I would like to create something for myself in return for all the work, rather than just service my educational debt. I would breathe a little easier. If you got to the end of my dissertation, thank you for reading ❤️ I am not complaining, and I certainly don’t expect anything for free. I am just trying to offer a different perspective.
