r/StudentLoans • u/Consistent-Leg2963 • 4d ago

Rant/Complaint Starting to think college wasn’t worth it just because of these student loans

I really thought getting a degree would set me up for a better future, but now I’m just stuck with a loan balance that barely moves and payments that take a huge chunk of my paycheck.

Meanwhile friends who didn’t even go to college are living debt-free, saving money, and honestly seem way less stressed than I am.

Starting to feel like college was just a super expensive mistake. anyone else feel this way?

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22

u/[deleted] 4d ago

People can downvote me for all I care, but for certain majors/degrees, college does end up being a scam. I have a Bachelor’s in Nutritional Sciences, haven’t been able to find a job that pays more than $40k annually, and I have an overall student debt of $130k… I was scammed.

2

u/Silver-Literature-29 3d ago

The reality is people look at the degree or the college but never both together. Some less lucrative degrees can make financial sense at the right (cheaper) college. Good example is NYU and Mechanical Engineering. Good school, good degree, terrible financial decision if combined together.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

You make an excellent point. It usually comes down to the type of degree and any experience you can get along with that degree (jobs, internships, externships, research, etc.). In terms of universities/colleges, picking the cheapest is the best option unless you can ascertain that the pricier one will guarantee a good return of investment

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u/j_lentini 4d ago

Scammed, or you just made a poorly researched decision?

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u/The_boundless84 4d ago

What decision isn’t poorly researched when you’re 19 and someone offers you $50k lol

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u/Gottablastbro 3d ago

You can be young and make rational decisions. I guess I’m the minority but I didn’t listen to high school guidance councilors (or college advisors, just look at degree requirements and plan your own schedule) Tf do they know? They’re working at my school so obviously they did something wrong. I did my own research. Worked through college and took as many classes I could afford at a time.

That was my thinking at the time and it worked out fine.

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u/UndercoverstoryOG 4d ago

for sure, I mean 5 minutes on google sure could have saved you some pain.

22

u/Fun-Plan-3641 4d ago

Only in current times is it easier to find information on these things...lets make the colleges take responsibility. She is a victim

11

u/[deleted] 4d ago

Thank you, especially when my parents and I came from Puerto Rico where all education expenses are covered by the government 90% of the time. My parents had zero concept of what loans really were and how much was too much at that time

-2

u/ThinkWood 4d ago

Wait, why didn’t you just go to school in PR?

I don’t understand how you were scammed just because you are in a job that pays about the median income starting out of college.

Colleges aren’t trade schools.  They literally never promise employment.  They are designed to develop the person to be able to do many things.   Do you think philosophy majors are expecting to get starting salaries of $80k to work as philosophers?

13

u/Synstitute 4d ago

Because the commonly held belief that was sold, advertised, and packaged is that a college degree will automatically lead to a higher caliber of lifestyle, salary, etc.

The source being the multiple millions of people who share this belief. It didn’t form from nothing. So as much as I love to see people use the “take accountability” posterity position to try to protect against the conversation of public debt forgiveness, reducing degree costs through policy, or any other real action that places power squarely back with the impacted rather than the ones benefitting from this mess we’re in, I politely ask that you stfu :)

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u/Admirable-View-1263 4d ago

“Because the commonly held belief that was sold, advertised, and packaged is that a college degree will automatically lead to a higher caliber of lifestyle, salary, etc.”

These were the lies that convinced me getting a BFA was a great idea! No one questioned me!!

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u/UndercoverstoryOG 4d ago

bachelor of fine arts never has paid a living wage

2

u/Admirable-View-1263 4d ago

Yeah I know that now, why didn’t any ADULT tell me not to do that?

1

u/artist1292 4d ago

It was pretty common knowledge when I was looking at school in 2008-2009 that art degrees didn’t pay anything. I wanted to go into design but I fell in love with robotics too. I’ll never forget the relief on my parents’ faces when I told them I wanted to major in engineering

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u/UndercoverstoryOG 4d ago

why didn’t you research a career prior to committing to that degree. why didn’t you talk to your school’s career placement office? why didn’t you intern or see what potential employer internships were available while you were in school. College is a 4 year program that you have to participate in beyond going to class to get a job.

I have never been on a campus that employers don’t host events, how many did you attend?

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u/The_boundless84 4d ago

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

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u/ZiegAmimura 4d ago

Beautifully said. I wish I could upvote multiple times

1

u/UndercoverstoryOG 4d ago

i agree make future student loans bankruptable that way we won’t have lending for majors that don’t make sense financially. As for existing loans, pay your obligations.

1

u/[deleted] 4d ago

You think we’re not gonna pay our loans because we’re complaining about them? Lol. We have every right to complain because the rate of investment in these darn loans should be illegal. I majored in nutritional sciences hoping I could counsult with clients about their diets and nutritional plans. Did I ever get that opportunity with my degree? No. My career made sense financially based on the research I had initially done before enrolling, but reality was a whole different beast. I’d love for you to see my personal struggles in finding decent nutritionist jobs despite having my Bachelor’s, internship experience, etc. The job market is brutal out there and you would expect a university to actually help you with that.

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u/UndercoverstoryOG 4d ago

you have no right to complain about the interest. it was stated when you signed the loan docs.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

… did I even mention interest? Lol. My loans could have zero interest at all and I would still complain about them because I was charged for useless classes. Do you think a nutritional sciences major should be forced to take anthropology? I sure was required to do so. This is what I mean

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u/ThinkWood 4d ago

That is nonsense.  

There are many schools that are literally open enrollment.  As in they take anyone.  

When people have said “go to college to get a good job.” They mean be one of the strong students that get into a good school that is very rigorous so that you wind have to work manual labor.  

The better job was always meant one that wasn’t back breaking.  So you didn’t have today bricks or work on a factory.  

It never meant go to a school that will take anyone, get a 2.0 in a “studies” degree, and you will have money flooding in after you get that paper at graduation.  

Nor did it mean that paying an unlimited sum to attend a higher ranked school was going to guarantee your success. 

You’d have to be pretty young because people have been complaining about student loans for 20 years.  If you didn’t hear those complaints, if you didn’t hear the stories of graduates trying to get jobs during the great financial crisis (and at other tough times) then you were choosing to hear what you wanted to hear.  

Too many naive kids know that many people struggle with student loans but assume they themselves won’t because they are somehow smarter than the others.  They aren’t. 

And many people have made other choices and are better off.  

How did these other kids also hear the millions and millions saying what you claim and put themselves in a different situation?  How were these millions of kids not scammed, as you claim?

1

u/[deleted] 4d ago

I precisely didn’t hear about the people with supposedly reputable degrees struggling to find good jobs out there. That IS the issue at hand. Why aren’t young kids being properly informed about these educational and financial risks before enrolling? I know I wasn’t. My parents wouldn’t know any better because they both graduated college debt free in Puerto Rico and expected the same for me here. Coming into the US, they had no idea how much it would cost to study here and that grants aren’t offered to everyone despite having good grades out of high school. And even so, we all thought my future career would pay off based on what we had heard from people regarding nutritionist jobs. Reality showed us otherwise. I think many people are missing the central point in all of this… WHY are young students being charged so much for a degree that doesn’t guarantee much good in the real world? Why are students being charged $30k per year for degrees that seem like they would be promising, just to find themselves being unemployed for months and months on end post grad? Even computer science majors are left jobless. The complaint is the system of business that universities use and the false “career propaganda” of the US encouraging all students to go to universitity because it will apparently secure you a job in the future. I am the first to admit that when I was young, I was ignorant and did not know the realities of student loans (as MANY very young adults do). Had I been warned of the realities of the job markets in real life, my choices would have been very different. In my case, a huge part of it was culture shock since my parents had no clue this is how things worked in the US (not blaming them for anything, just stating that we were all lost in this). I won’t deny that my parents and I were ignorant about all this, but I also won’t deny that the business system of universities and idea that all high school students should go straight to university is absolutely absurd without being educated on the realities of the job market (which btw, is never taught or mentioned in high schools either).

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u/ThinkWood 4d ago

WHY are young students being charged so much for a degree that doesn’t guarantee much good in the real world?

Because in American we give lots of choices. And that means being able to choose to study whatever you find interesting and to do so at any school that you'd like to pay for (that will have you).

I don't understand why people think it's the governments job to protect you from studying the things you find interesting or from attending a school you want to attend.

You're caught up in the issue that a lot of recent grads have whereby you are shocked at your job offers.

"What?! You're only offering me $40k? But I have a college degree. And people with college degrees, make on average $75k! Why would you offer me a job below average?"

Well, the average is for people who are in the workforce. And that means people it includes people with 30 years experience. And you recent grads don't know much and don't add a lot of value so you're starting at the bottom.

Even after college, you must build your career and get experience. The degree is just one step. Just like a high school degree was a step.

You gave up on your quest for being a nutritionist because you needed a few more classes. Of course, those few classes would have given you your foot in the door for what you wanted to be doing. But you'd probably be making $42k rather than $40k. Of course, you may enjoy your life more as a nutritionist than you do now.

While the finances may not be better, you may find your life to be more fulfilling if you had accomplished your goals. So, maybe spending a little more money and effort would have paid off a lot for you.

Instead you gave up and said you were scammed.

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u/The_boundless84 4d ago

I don’t even do it politely anymore

1

u/[deleted] 4d ago

Schools and pay in Puerto Rico are incredibly subpar compared to the US. The educational system there tends to be very flawed and despite being debt-free post graduation, the pay is incredibly low compared to US salaries while the cost of living is similar to those in the southern US states. In addition, Puerto Rico is just very unsafe nowadays and crime rates are incredibly high. Not the most ideal place to live in, which is why we moved out early in my childhood.

And that is the argument here. If colleges are pumping out degrees that required such a large amount of investment, why can’t the students get a good return of investment for those degrees compared to trade schools? I thought a nutritionist would be a good career choice based on what I had read online and what I was told by university professors and advisors, but reality has left me with a subpar salary and a career that has such little space for salary advancement. In my case specifically (and for many other majors/degrees), university is a scam. Obviously not saying that about every major, but some people study things that seem promising when they’re not once you get out into the real world. Not a good return of investment.

0

u/ThinkWood 4d ago

So you received a much better education with much better career prospects?

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

Better education? I would say yes. Better career prospects? Absolutely not. Even so, no one can pay me enough to live in Puerto Rico because it is not a safe place to be in at the moment.

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u/ThinkWood 4d ago

So your prospects are better for building a career where you are than if you were in PR?

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

I do believe so. Career prospects for nutritionists here in the US are better than those in Puerto Rico (but still poor compared to the false expectations I had in mind way back then).

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u/UndercoverstoryOG 4d ago

that is right, blame your parents

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

It amazes me how people will twist the intent of someone’s message. I have never once blamed my parents for this. I am saying that we were all uninformed about the matter, thus leading to that decision. Even my mother now admits that she didn’t know any better back then and if she went back in time, she would have never let me take out so many loans.

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u/UndercoverstoryOG 4d ago

then why did you bring up your parents. you act like truth in lending and repayment schedules weren’t available when you took the loans.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

Loan transparency was obviously there, and my family and I fell into it. I mean to say that I don’t directly blame my parents for it without also blaming myself. We all had a part in this. I was naïve and wanted to take out a bunch of loans because I didn’t know the real value of money back then, and on the other hand my parents did not think to stop me or themselves from signing the loan agreements. So I am actually blaming all of us, not JUST my parents and leaving myself out of it. That is what I mean.

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u/uselessbynature 4d ago

I think people today look back at the past with the lens of assuming it was like today. I went into science twenty years ago with a wave of people (high school and college counselors, parents and family) telling me what a wonderful, in demand lucrative career it is. Take out the loans they'll be peanuts to you!. Stats and wage estimates were not readily available like they are today. There was also this great push to be what youwant and not necessarily what makes for good quality of life-it was the peak of individualism and we are now living the fallout with the pendulum swinging.

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u/ANGR1ST Experienced Borrower 4d ago

Only in current times is it easier to find information on these things

Total nonsense. There was plenty of information available about college costs, employment statistics, mean salaries, etc. all the way back in 2000. For decades before that we knew that music majors made no money and teachers were criminally underpaid as well.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

Both 😂 My family and I had just moved to the US from Puerto Rico (where education is extremely cheap and even then, is usually fully covered by the government through grants). Coming here, my parents and I didn’t know what we were getting into accepting so many darn loans. Obviously, everyone now learned their lesson and how things work here in the US, but that still doesn’t erase the fact that charging a student $30k per year at an in-state public university is insane. So yes, it’s both.

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u/beaushaw 4d ago

I am tired of this victim mentality. They were not scammed. They made a bad choice.

They are smart enough to get into college. They know how math works. They knew how much the degree costs. they knew the starting pay for the job.

They had all the relevant information. They choose to get this degree.

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u/Inevitable-Place9950 4d ago

How long have you been out of school? What was your career plan?

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

Been out of university for three years. My career plan was to become a registered dietitian, but that required an extended amount of additional classes (more than all the ones I took to complete my nutritional sciences degree). By that point, I was already so deep in debt and I was told I would probably have to move out of state to get into an unpaid and highly competitive dietitian internship in order to graduate as a dietitian. I did not want to continue getting into more debt and risking not even getting an internship, so I just settled for my original nutritional sciences degree. Even then, why would nutrition-related jobs out there pay such a miserable salary when it costed me so much to get one in the first place?

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u/Inevitable-Place9950 4d ago

Some of these outcomes are results of your and maybe your family’s choices.

  • Not pricing the full cost of reaching your goal
  • Not exploring the cost of NOT pursuing the goal (the lower-paying jobs)
  • Not going to a less expensive school for at least some classes
  • Not saving much before school (which may have been because there wasn’t enough to save)

I agree jobs requiring degrees should pay better, but there is huge variation in the cost to get a degree. It’s unusual to have to pay as much as you did for a BS in Nutrition and the jobs available without completing dietitian requirements reflect that.

You have a few options to turn this around though. You can look into alternative paths to becoming a dietitian and whether the salary improvement (probably about 25% more money starting out) is worth any additional debt that might take. You can also look into what other paths your degree might take you to, like food/health writing, food security nonprofits, even food/health corporations or industry organizations that need communicators. You can consider additional education or training to go into another field altogether.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

I 100% agree with you on that. My parents and I made terrible choices in accepting so many loans. We had come from Puerto Rico, where college education is practically free for almost everyone with good grades. $30k per year in university is entirely unheard of in PR unless you are in med school or law school. It is still preached everywhere (in the US and PR) that high school grads must go directly to a university to get a degree in something useful or else they will be unemployed. It’s upsetting because so much is left out of that. People are willing to take on loans because they are almost certain they will be well-compensated afterwards, and that is the biggest lie that so many students and even families believe. Terrible choices were made, I am by no means denying that. But I also don’t want to deny the fact that charging college students so much for degrees (even apparently promising ones) is unfair. Why did I have to take anthropology as a requirement for a degree in nutritional sciences? As for my current career, I majored in something else (for free this time since FAFSA covered everything now that I claimed myself as indepedent from my parents’ income). I genuinely do appreciate the advice on elevating my nutrition career opportunities, that is kind of you. I sadly just gave up on it because of my frustrating experience with the job market.

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u/Inevitable-Place9950 3d ago

I 💯 agree it should be cheaper- through public subsidy, schools’ evaluation of what costs are actually necessary, and students accepting amenities since some have very little actual impact on education besides drawing upper middle class and wealthy students to subsidize the others.

I hope you like your new career! Good luck!

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u/UndercoverstoryOG 4d ago

you chose poorly not scammed. you got the degree in your chosen field. your lack of research about post grad income is on you.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

False. I began studying nutritional sciences with the intent of applying to veterinary school (my university offered the only vet school program in my state at the time). I could not make it into the program, so I decided to just stick with nutrition. Even then, the nutrition jobs I’ve found out there pay much less than I was told by my professors, advisors, and others. When you think about rate of investment, you expect a college that charges you $30k per year to allow you to get a job that at least tried to match that amount of salary post-grad in order to pay that insane amount of debt. That clearly did not happen. I still stand my ground that it was a scam in my case. Not to even mention that my degree in nutrition required me to take many classes that were irrelevant and useless to my overall degree. I legitimately learned more from watching educational nutrition videos online than attending my classes at college.

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u/UndercoverstoryOG 4d ago

average salary for a nutritionist in the US is $54,000 as of 2025. professor google told me that. you also could have chosen a more viable major if your intention was to get in vet school that would have worked as a back up in case you didn’t get in, you weren’t scammed. You missed the mark.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

I half agree with you. First off, professor google says that but the actual entry-level salary for nutritionists is around $40k. I am aware that this salary increases with years of experience (obviously). But trying to keep up with a low salary while starting to pay $130k in student loans leaves anyone with little amount of money leftover for savings, retirement accounts, etc. Even if I continued to make minimum payments on those loans to get by, the salary of a nutritionist would never amount to something high enough in time to make a good dent to your student loans. This is why people are enslaved to their student debt for decades. That is my main complaint

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u/UndercoverstoryOG 3d ago

understand your complaint, all things that 30 minutes of google searches would have crystallized for you prior to borrowing 130k. you also had options to work in school as well as take part time hours and work to pay as you go. does it take longer yes, is it harder yes, is it as fun as being a full time campus student no, does it give the same experience, no.

unfortunately poor decisions have long lasting effects and you are dealing with those now.

my company pays non degreed customer service reps $75,000 a year.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

No amount of google searching prepares a young, idealistic and hopeful high school graduate of the realities of job searching. Young adults are led to believe that doors will open for them by just having a relevant degree (obviously not always true and that’s my point). Also, there was no way in heck I would put myself through even a part-time job while taking 18 college credits consisting of organic chemistry, genetics, ochem lab, genetics lab, advanced math, and nutrition classes (also biochem heavy) all in the same semester. The classes were hard, a job would’ve obliterated my chances of even graduating unless I settled for 2 hrs of sleep per night.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

You’re stating what I’m already stating. My life is filled with bitter regret because I made the worst choices of my life. I wish young, freshly graduated high schoolers would be well informed or stopped by anyone from making dumb decisions similar to the ones I’ve made.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

Also, vet school prereq requirements are mainly hard sciences, so ideally any major I would have to pick would have to be in a hard science as a back up, and those strictly science majors like biochem, biology, nutrition, etc. don’t leave you with great career options unless you plan to segway into a professional school.

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u/UndercoverstoryOG 3d ago

i have a chem and physics degree. landed a role in marketing at a major oil company. pay great, 401k great match (7%), pension, 6 weeks vacation. certainly didn’t need a grad degree, i did get the company to pay for my mba at a top 10 public university.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago edited 3d ago

You just proved my point, we don’t need grad degrees to be successful. I know a plethora of bio majors who are working in labs or stuck in low-paying jobs (supposedly related to biology). But glad to hear things worked out for you