"College Ruined My Life." - Kid Who Couldn't Get A Job And Make His Loan Payments Packs His Shit And Peaces Out To China
NY POST - A Pennsylvania man who was saddled with crippling student debt after graduating from college — but with no job in sight after four years – bought a one-way ticket to China to leave his financial woes behind, according to a report.
“I had to escape this debtors’ prison. It felt like there was no other choice,” Chad Albright told the York Daily Record. “That’s what America became to me, a prison. So I left.”
…“I was expected to make a $400 loan payment every month, but I had no money, no sustainable income. College ruined my life,” he said.
…“I’ve accepted that this is my life now,” Albright said. “College ruined my life to the fullest extent, and my life is a constant reminder of that.”
Listen everybody reading this, and the person writing this, knows firsthand how much student debt fucking sucks. Watching your paychecks – from a job you probably didn’t even study for in college – get cut down every month to pay off loans is the worst thing ever. The rates are insane, tuition is out of control in the first place, and I’m glad it’s finally become a priority with politicians to try and rein it in. It’s easy to say “well if you didn’t wanna pay it you shouldn’t have gone blah blah blah” but it was pretty much guaranteed you had to go to college and have some sort of degree to even get a job interview in the first place. Hindsight is 20/20 but if you were graduating high school in the early 2000s you really didn’t have a choice but to go to college.
So it’s not like I’m going to bash this guy for going to college at 25 and trying to make something of himself. I’m sure he worked his ass off and studied hard and had his heart in the right place. I will just say that at some point you kind of have to take at least a little responsibility for yourself, and getting a degree in PR literally at the start of the Recession is not really a recipe for huge success.
Albright began delivering pizzas right after high school to save up for college tuition before enrolling in Millersville University at age 25 as the oldest student in his classes.
He said it was tough to continue working full time as he balanced his course load while being ostracized by his classmates.
“I wanted that diploma, and I was willing to work for it,” Albright told the newspaper. “Everyone always told me it would be worth it.”
After graduating with a degree in public relations in 2007, at the start of the Great Recession, he found to his dismay that job offers were not exactly pouring in.
During interviews, he said he heard the same line from prospective employers: “Sorry, there’s someone who’s been doing this for 10 years and just lost their job. I have to go with someone who has 10 years’ experience.”
Yeah man, balancing work and your course load is kind of what literally every single person without rich parents has done since the invention of college. Having a lot of homework and working night shifts while not having a ton of friends at first is kind of what any person with a brain knows to expect when going to college. Did you not have any human contact whatsoever in your life? Nobody to tell you that A) college is a lot of work, B) work is a lot of work, C) college costs a lot of money, D) jobs are hard to get when you’re 28 years old with a Public Relations degree from a small Pennsylvania college?
But, having said all that…
College, and the massive debt he racked up from it, ended up indirectly teaching him the most valuable lesson you can learn in life: you can always, ALWAYS just run away from your problems.
…Finally, while he was at the gym one day, he saw a woman on CNN talking about her job teaching English to kids in Hong Kong and a light clicked.
“She said, ‘I have no desire to return back home,’” Albright recalled. “That’s when I started looking into teaching overseas.”
With his parents’ blessing, Albright decided to make the big move in 2011, when he was $30,000 in debt, and began teaching English in the city of Zhongshan.
He only earned about $1,000 a month, he said, but it was enough to cover his rent and he was still able to enjoy his income because the cost of living in China is so low compared to back home.
“Things I never got the chance to do in America because of my student debt,” Albright said. “My life was so much better once I left. Why would I ever go back?”
…As far as that nagging debt, Albright said he hasn’t checked his student loan account in almost eight years.
Brilliant! Blowin dodge. Gettin outta town. Whatever you call it, I am running away from my responsibilities. Feels good!
I didn’t even know you could do that. Just pack your shit and move out of the country and just…never open your account ever again. Does that work for credit card debt too? Any sort of debt? How much are flights to China? Are there any flash sales going on? Let me know, money’s tight, because of the credit card debt.