And that’s the end of my student loans.

And not only is there nothing due on the loan, but it looks like MOHELA actually owes me 15 cents! Ha ha!

In July 2006 I began repaying $120,603.31 in student loan debt. This debt was comprised of $106,070.00 in loan principal, $12,434.58 in capitalized interest, and $2,098.73 in closing and refinancing fees. I made the final payment on this debt in August 2013. My lenders included the United States Department of Education’s (USED) Perkins loan program, the USED’s subsidized and unsubsidized Direct Loan programs, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority’s NJCLASS program, CitiBank, and the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (the USED sold my loan to MOHELA in April 2012). In total, I paid $149,455.12 to these lenders including $120,603.31 in consolidated principal and $28,851.81 in interest. You can read my entire student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Before I started an aggressive repayment plan in December 2009 it seemed like today would be impossible to realize. Think about the situation that I was faced with (and remember that many current large dollar student loan borrowers are still in similar situations): How could a guy manage to repay approximately $121 thousand in student loan debt with a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in Public Policy? Further, how could a guy repay such an astronomical figure much quicker than the 25 and 30 year repayment plans his lenders put him on? Worse yet, how could anyone who worked at a nonprofit organization, did not rely on outside financial support, did not live at home, paid all of their own bills (on-time), lived in the most expensive state in the union, and who felt a moral obligation to annually donate at least 10% of his income achieve this goal? To say that the odds were against this day coming as soon as it did is an understatement! This goal was nearly impossible for anyone to achieve.

It's over!

During my last “major announcement” post back in December 2010 I happily reported that I was done repaying the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA). The NJHESAA’s series of smaller NJCLASS loans were – after consolidation – one of the two major student loans that I was obligated to repay after graduating from a master’s degree program at Rutgers back in 2006. The other major series of smaller loans – also consolidated into a single loan – were from the United States Department of Education (USED) and their Direct Loans program. Ultimately, the USED sold my loan to the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA) – the lender that received my final payment earlier today.

I also had loans from two smaller sources including $1,400 from the USED’s federal Perkins loan program through Monmouth University and $7,000 (plus an additional $1,071.52 in interest) from Citibank’s student loan program.

Just as I reported after paying off my NJHESAA loan, here are the stats as they pertain to repaying my USED/MOHELA loan (these figures include both the amount of the loan and the capitalized interest; also, these are my figures and may be a few pennies or a dollar or two off from what the USED/MOHELA keeps on file).

The list above shows the various USED loans that I consolidated into the final $59,020.15 loan that I began repaying in 2006. If you study that list above, there are three lines that will probably bounce out and hit you – my summer session in 2002, my part-time graduate semester in 2004, and my first year in graduate school as a full-time student in 2004 – 2005. The first two of these line items probably stand out because I did not incur any USED loans during those semesters. Why didn’t I take out any loans, you ask? Simple. As an undergraduate, the USED would not advance me any loans if I was a part-time student – that eliminated me from potentially getting a loan during the summer of 2002 (I made up the difference from NJHESAA that summer). And in the spring of 2004 I was still deciding if I wanted to apply to the Rutgers graduate program where I was a non matriculated student. Again, being a part-time student didn’t allow me to take out any loans from the USED.

Of course, I did wind up applying to the Rutgers program on a full-time basis and that first full-time year of graduate school is the other line item that stands out in the list above. This line item stands out because it is so much higher than the rest of the line items at a whopping $19,156.45. What in the world could I need that much money for in a student loan?! Again, the answer is somewhat simple: somewhere along the line I figured out that the USED would advance loan funds to pay for my “living expenses” while I was going to school full-time.

If there is one thing that I can point to that inflated my total student loan debt more than anything else it would be the ability to add my “living expenses” to my student loan requests. Even though I worked part-time at two different jobs during my undergraduate years and full-time during my graduate years (in addition to owning and operating a small business), I still included my living expenses in my student loan requests. Those living expenses including my monthly rent payments, cell phone payments, food money, automobile payments, and Lord knows what else. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you the exact amount of my student loans were allocated to these living expenses, but let me put it in perspective this way…

Pretty much all of the tuition I was charged during graduate school was paid either by me, my family, or scholarships. You read that correctly – I did not need to take out student loans to pay for my tuition at Rutgers. In other words, if you look at the list above and add up the line items titled Graduate Year One (2004 – 2005), Summer Session (2005), and Graduate Year Two (2005 – 2006), then you’ll have the total dollar amount of student loans that I requested for reasons other than tuition. After doing the math, you can see that this amount equals $32,043.37. Just to be clear, of the $120,720 that I took out in student loans, at least $32,043.37 were for expenses other than tuition. I won’t set this number in stone as the definitive total amount of loan funds that I received for non-tuition expenses because I also applied for and received living expenses (primarily rent costs) from the NJHESAA’s NJCLASS program, too.

However, to estimate that approximately a third ($40,420) of my total student loan debt was for living expenses and not tuition would be a pretty good guess. Pretty frightening, I know.

And yet today still arrived. From an above-the-fold cover story in USA Today in June 2006 to fully repaying my NJHESAA loan in December 2010, to a nice mention in an online story on USA Today in May 2011, to the milestone of having repaid $100,000 in principal, to today – it’s been an incredible ride. If you’ve been following my student loan story from the beginning, then I offer my heartfelt thanks for your patronage and willingness to read my repayment story to the end. For those of you who have added comments to these blog entries from time to time, I thank you for being a part of the conversation. If you’re one of the many folks who’ve e-mailed me saying that I inspired you to take a more aggressive stance in your own student loan repayment, then I wish you luck.

Quickly and efficiently repaying a student loan is possible; even if that student loan is $120,603.31 on day one and you wind up paying an additional $28,851.81 in interest over the life of your repayment. The great truth that I learned over these past few years is that if you want to do something, then you will find a way to achieve it. In other words, no one can stop you – except you.

And if you’re trying to repay an enormous student loan, then contact me and share your story. Good luck!

In July 2006 I began repaying $120,603.31 in student loan debt. This debt was comprised of $106,070.00 in loan principal, $12,434.58 in capitalized interest, and $2,098.73 in closing and refinancing fees. I made the final payment on this debt in August 2013. My lenders included the United States Department of Education’s (USED) Perkins loan program, the USED’s subsidized and unsubsidized Direct Loan programs, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority’s NJCLASS program, CitiBank, and the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (the USED sold my loan to MOHELA in April 2012). In total, I paid $149,455.12 to these lenders including $120,603.31 in consolidated principal and $28,851.81 in interest. You can read my entire student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

A screenshot of the confirmation page from my last student loan payment ever!

Setting up that payment for August 19th felt pretty good. Granted, I probably won’t be able to make any big announcement about my loans being fully repaid until a few days after August 19th, but now I know that this repayment is really just days away from being over. And it feels pretty good!

It reminds me of when I sent the last check to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority. Of course that feeling of relief was intertwined with the joy of no longer having to deal with rude, arrogant people at NJHESAA. I’ve never had a problem with MOHELA or the USED before they sold my loan. It was a pleasant experience. You know, “pleasant” in that the people were good to work with and responsive on the phone and via e-mail. I mean I could use all of that money that I paid in student loans if the government wants to give it back!

Only $1 thousand remains...

But that wasn’t part of the plan.

My plan was to make a series of calculated payments that I charted out on a custom-made spreadsheet (a version of which you can download here) and to revisit that spreadsheet as well as my personal financial accounting on a daily basis. That was the plan and that’s what I did. And now here I am with just $1 thousand left to pay on my student loans. Regardless of the funds that I have sitting in any number of savings or checking accounts, the plan dictates that the final payment will be made slightly after the middle of August – and that’s when I’m going to make it.

Researching the situation, creating a plan, and sticking to the plan is what brought me here. I’m not going to change that plan just because I’m steps away from the finish line.

I know I don’t even have to tease the next student loan update, but why not? Stick around, everyone… The next student loan update will be coming in August just after the middle of the month and it’s going to be a pretty big one!

In July 2006 I began repaying $120,603.31 in student loan debt. This debt is comprised of $106,070.00 in loan principal, $12,434.58 in capitalized interest, and $2,098.73 in closing and refinancing fees. To date, I’ve repaid a total of $120 thousand in principal and more than $28 thousand in interest. My lenders include the United States Department of Education’s (USED) Perkins loan program, the USED’s subsidized and unsubsidized Direct Loan programs, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority’s NJCLASS program, and CitiBank. The USED sold my student loan to the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA) in April 2012. I currently owe about $1 thousand in principal to MOHELA. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Just $3 thousand left

The other somewhat exciting thing that my spreadsheets show is that almost immediately after this repayment plan is over, I’ll be able to finally reap the financial rewards that my many jobs should have been providing me over the years. For example, after this repayment plan ends in the middle of August, I’ll be just two weeks away from a new semester starting. And when the new semester starts, I’ll be teaching again at the local college which means I’ll begin earning the few bucks that they pay adjuncts; in the past I’ve always used that income to repay the loans. Then, two weeks after that job starts, I’m scheduled to receive the next payment from the online college where I mentor students. That’s all the while my regular pay continues to come in and the biweekly adjunct income continues through the week before Christmas.

Since I began teaching part-time in the Fall of 2007, I’ve never really held on to any of that money. Just about all of it has gone towards repaying these student loans. It’ll be a nice change to be able to take some of that money and bolster my savings, investments, and retirement accounts to the levels that they should be for a 32 year old. And that’s an important point to make: I’m not going to squander any excess income that may come from these secondary employment positions. Instead, I’m going to use that extra income to increase my investments and retirement accounts.

The next few weeks should be fun leading into the end of this repayment plan. And the few months following the end of the plan should be fun to say the least!

On May 14, 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a master’s degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. In July 2006 I made my first payment on these student loans and, so far, I’ve repaid a total of $118 thousand in principal. My lenders include the United States Department of Education’s (USED) Perkins loan program, the USED’s subsidized and unsubsidized Direct Loan programs, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority’s NJCLASS program, and CitiBank. The USED sold my student loan to the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA) on April 16, 2012. I currently owe about $3 thousand in principal to MOHELA. To date, I’ve repaid over $35 thousand in interest to these lenders. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Only $7 thousand left

The reason for this decision is that I need to do a better job preparing this blog to showcase the journey that I had to take to get from about $121 thousand in student loan debt all the way down to $0 in a matter of a little under 7 years. Not to toot my own horn, but I believe that in the pages upon pages of student loan updates that I’ve provided over the years there are a lot of great tips and pointers for people struggling with seemingly insurmountable levels of debt. If you’ve been reading these updates for a while, then you’ll remember that I used to constantly remind everyone that my accelerated payment was possible even though I do my best to meet or exceed donating 7% to 10% of my gross income each year to charity. Also, in some of my early student loan entries I was big on reminding folks that not only was I paying off my student loans at an accelerated pace, but I was also paying for all of my own expenses without any help from any government institutions or individuals. In addition, I mentioned in more than one of these updates that I was able to do all of this while working for a nonprofit organization – not some big, investment bank that was dominating Wall Street or a hedge fund that was kicking off a 7 or 8 figure salary. Nothing along those lines is going on here. And I think I even may have written in some of these updates that I’ve even managed to continue my education over the last seven years by completing a Graduate Certificate program and enrolling in a Post-Master’s Certificate program.

The quick lesson from all of this? Don’t believe that an incredible amount of student loan debt will automatically stifle your ability to earn money and make significant repayments! Remember, YOU are the one in control of your life and decisions – and that includes your financial life and decisions.

As I’ve been telling people who I am close with that I’m on the verge of completely repaying my student loans, they’ve been asking me how such an accomplishment is possible given the circumstances noted above. Well, I think a variety of the answers to the “How?” question are found within my past updates and I’m working on finalizing a separate page on the blog to catalog those answers.

But stay tuned, everyone. Once that separate page is created I fully intend on repaying the balance of this student loan and kissing the whole thing goodbye forever. The end is drawing near for these student loans…

On May 14, 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a master’s degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. In July 2006 I made my first payment on these student loans and, so far, I’ve repaid a total of $114 thousand in principal. My lenders include the United States Department of Education’s (USED) Perkins loan program, the USED’s subsidized and unsubsidized Direct Loan programs, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority’s NJCLASS program, and CitiBank. The USED sold my student loan to the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA) on April 16, 2012. I currently owe about $7 thousand in principal to MOHELA. To date, I’ve repaid over $35 thousand in interest to these lenders. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

Down to $9 thousand!

Amazing, right?

I want to take a little bit of space during this happy post to write something similar to what I wrote a few months ago when I hit $17 thousand in student loan debt. If you remember that entry, I wrote about what was going on in my life when I had accumulated my first $17 thousand in student loan debt. Well, I’d like to do that again, but this time I’d like to recall what was going on in my life as I built up my first $9 thousand in debt.

In order to do this correctly, we have to take a short trip back in time. All the way back to the year… 2000!

Unlike the post a few months ago, I was not yet a Sophomore in college when I accumulated my first $9 thousand in student loan debt. Instead, I was a second semester college Freshman. This was Spring 2000 and the major event in my life back then was joining my fraternity. The pledge process lasted 6 weeks (7 if you count spring break) and was pretty entertaining. While I won’t go into the details of what my pledge brothers and I did to join the fraternity, it’s nothing that I wouldn’t do again (and probably keel over in laughter at in the process).

I was also doing pretty well in school during the Spring 2000 semester. In fact, during Spring 2000 I was just coming off of a pretty powerful first semester of college in Fall 1999. During that first semester, I scored a 3.8 GPA and was on the Dean’s List. I racked up straight As or A- grades in all of my courses except for Western Civilization where I took home a B+. Truth be told, the instructor of the Western Civilization class did not put together a very good syllabus and was pretty confused with the honors cohort of students that I was in. I remember that very clearly. He wanted to teach what he typically taught, but because my class was an honors section of the course and because our honors section was part of this honors cohort, the poor guy was just confused and didn’t do a good job explaining the otherwise fascinating history of Western Civilization.

I scored a 3.3 GPA in Spring 2000 with mostly As and Bs in my classes. My lowest grades that semester we straight Bs in Elementary Italian and Discovery in Natural Science. I was (and am) totally fine with those grades. I tried to learn Italian as a language, but I found that it really only reinforced my existing knowledge of Spanish. And that’s not an entirely bad outcome in the long run since I have a pretty good working usage of the Spanish language. Also, I didn’t actually go to the Discovery in Natural Science classes. I had an agreement in this class (and in my Fall 1999 College Algebra class) that I would just show up for tests because I earned As in my high school classes that were more advanced than these courses – both of which were general education requirements at Monmouth University. During Fall 1999, I scored an A in College Algebra (obviously, I scored an A in Advanced Calculus in high school) and during Spring 2000, I scored a B in Discovery in Natural Science (which was fine with me considering there were only two tests and those were the only two times I went to class).

I know these grades because I can still access my student profile online. So no, I didn’t memorize them!

Spring 2000 was a busy semester for me between pledging, working for the school’s information technology department, and school. I wouldn’t go back and change anything, but I would probably have spent less time concerned with academics than I used to back then. You always hear people say that if they knew then what they know now, they would have changed this or that in their lives. Well, if I knew then what I know now – that hyper-focusing on general education classes doesn’t really do much to increase your job preparedness or overall learning – then I wouldn’t have spent so much time studying that semester.

Although, it wasn’t all just studying. Joining the fraternity came with its benefits. Back then (and somewhat still today), the campus was absolutely dead when it came to fun student social activities. Sure, there were university-sponsored events, but those events were inundated with university minders and were generally cheesy. After I was initiated into the fraternity, the social aspects of college picked up considerably. Along with the social part of college kicking it up, I was given more opportunities to express my leadership abilities. And I continue to do that to this day, though I’ve personally decided to pull back on playing the leader of the pack in the national fraternity and instead have opted to focus on developing the leadership and professional potential in our undergraduates.

But back in Spring 2000, life was good. I don’t have many complaints or aggravations about that time in my life. Here’s a picture of me hanging out with one of my lady friends (she’s the awkward smiley face – it’s my blog, not hers, so I don’t know if she wants to be put out there in public).

Those of you who know me aren’t surprised at seeing the SoBe bottle… or at the fact that the liquid in that Power SoBe (fruit punch) is clear!

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. Since I started repaying my student loans in July 2006, I’ve repaid a total of $112 thousand in principal to various lenders including the federal Perkins loan program, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, and CitiBank. I currently owe $9 thousand in principal to the United States Department of Education’s federal Direct Loans program. This loan is serviced by the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority. To date, I’ve repaid over $35 thousand in interest to these lenders. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.

The update from the other day was based on the premise that my roommate was leaving to take a job in another state and that I needed to find a new place to live. That update also noted that I’ve been holding back the excessive additional student loan payments so I can use those funds to purchase a home in the next few weeks.

Could this all be over soon?

It turns out that the organization that was going to hire my roommate has decided to cancel all hirings for the time being. The next possible time that they’ll be bringing in new hires is this October… maybe. This is another topic entirely, but I’ve been telling my roommate for a few years that he needs to diversify his career prospects. He’s in the process of doing so right now, but let’s not digress from the purpose of this entry.

With the change in my roommate’s career switch I’ve been presented with a unique opportunity. Clearly, I’m going to push back my plans to purchase a home for a few more months. It just makes sense to rent the townhouse that I’m in through at least October, if not through next spring (I would stay through next spring in the event that my roommate doesn’t make/isn’t offered the career change in October). The unique opportunity that I now find myself in is that through saving to increase the size of my down payment, I’ve been able to put away more than the $17 thousand that I need to eliminate the remaining balance of my student loans. Most folks would make the quick decision that since I’ll be staying in my rental for a few more months, if not longer, then I should some of these funds that I’ve saved up to retire the student loan debt once and for all.

After all the aggravation that I’ve been through with my student loans, that’s an extremely appealing option!

However, as a guy who tries to be reasonable and thoughtful on issues of money and personal finance I can’t help but think that I should just save this money and use it to increase the amount of my down payment when I do eventually purchase a home. Retire the remaining balance of my student loan debt or keep hording money for an eventual down payment? It’s an interesting dilemma to consider.

Trust me, I’ve been giving this issue some deep consideration.

I think the benefits of saving the money for a future down payment are obvious. The total amount of the mortgage is reduced and since I didn’t plan on putting 20% down for the new home, by increasing my eventual down payment I’ll be able to put down 20% and avoid having to pay private mortgage insurance. Further, the more you put down, the better rate you can demand (even in a world of low rates). As a guy with near-perfect credit, increasing the amount of my down payment would be an ideal use of these funds.

And yet… I can’t shake the idea from my head that if I decide to use these funds to retire my loans, then I’m literally about two weeks away from having absolutely no student loan debt, period. Gone. Done. Eliminated. Game over.

The benefit of repaying my student loan debt? In financial terms I’d be retiring debt that is currently accruing interest at 4.25% and (when I purchase a home) replacing it with a mortgage at a lower interest rate. That’s good for my financial health over the long-term. The bigger benefit to retiring my student loans, though, isn’t something that you can easily quantify. The bigger benefit is the combination of financial freedom and the incredible feeling of accomplishment that comes with repaying such an immense amount of debt. The benefits of saving this money aside, I just can’t shake the idea of how awesome it would feel to know that I repaid $121 thousand in student loan principal and another $30 something thousand in interest in under 7 years.

For those of you who are analyzing whether or not I would suffer from using $17 thousand to retire my student loans, here’s some information for you. If I wait until November or December to buy a home, I can pretty much replace that entire $17 thousand with new income from the summer months. In essence, I’d net out even and wind up in a state of stasis, but with one less bill each month. My minimum student loan repayment is $333.50 per month – so that amount would be put towards my future down payment, too.

What to do… decision, decisions… What do you think? If you were in this situation – what would you do?

I’ve paid SO much more than this in student loans over the last six and a half years!

Sometime towards the end of January/early February, my roommate told me that he finally received a call back for a job that he’s been waiting to hear from for several years. He said that if he passed the different qualification rounds (he did and there was never a question on whether he would) and the agency offered him a position (which was and remains likely), then he would have to move out at some point in the middle of May.

Just like any sane person, I reacted to this news by weighing my future housing options. Through this process, I realized very quickly that my options for selecting a living situation in 2013 are much different than they were 5 or 10 years ago. Today, I don’t really need a roommate to pay for the too-high rent required for the three bedroom, two and a half bath townhouse that I currently live in. However, only having to pay half of the rent and half of the utilities obviously makes my financial life easier and I can’t complain about the roommates that I’ve had over the years – they’ve all been great with paying their share of the costs. And they’ve been good guys, too.

However, I’ve gotten a bit older and what I’ll accept for living space today is different than what I would have accepted 5 or 10 years ago. For example, I could very easily continue life as a renter and move into a less expensive condo or apartment that is much closer to the beaches and the bars that I go to (on those rare occasions when I actually go out to the beach or bar). But not only would continuing to be a single renter be a poor use of my income, living in those areas is not really where I want to be at this point in my life. Granted, “those areas” are only minutes from where I live now, but as a guy with an aggravating commute I’d rather be as close to the main highways as possible. The area that I live in right now is less than a mile from the Garden State Parkway and less than 5 minutes to other major highways in the area. It’s nice to have that type of access to main highways.

I’ve quickly gotten off topic here. The point of this entry is to provide a brief student loan update! I’m in an awkward position right now with my students loans. For the first time in years, I haven’t made any extra, excessive payments to the USED / MOHELA loan because I’ve been saving my money to buy a new home. Of course, as you might imagine there are two aggravating items that I have to report on about this situation.

First, I have $17 thousand still outstanding on my student loans. What is aggravating about the outstanding balance is that I have the entire amount (and then some) sitting in a savings account right now. Why not use the money in the savings account to pay off the balance of the loans, you ask? Simple. I’m saving those funds to buy a house. Just like the detour I had to take last year when my Honda Civic crapped out and I bought a brand new Ford Escape, I’ve been presented with a situation that requires me to change my financial goals.

Second, between principal payments and interest over the last nearly 7 years that I’ve been repaying my students loans, I’ve given private entities like NJHESAA and MOHELA and government agencies like the USED some $104 thousand in principal payments and some $35 thousand in interest payments for a combined nearly $140 thousand no longer in my possession. Just to give you a perspective on how that type of repayment has had a lasting, real impact on my life – the $140 thousand from the repayment could have easily combined with the $17 thousand that I’m sitting on to allow me to buy the condo that I’m considering purchasing – with absolutely no mortgage.

No mortgage.

Of course, that’s not the situation that I’m in and that’s not the way my financial life has progressed. And I’m not mad… Am I aggravated about it all sometimes? Yes. But definitely not mad. In fact, I’m grateful that I’ve been able to position myself such that I can buy a home at 32 years old when there are so many people in my generation that just aren’t able to do so yet. And the path that I’ve taken to get here will allow me to decorate the walls in my soon-to-exist-home-office with various degrees and professional commendations. Not such a bad outcome, really. Does buying a home mean that my plan to retire my student loan debt by this summer is going to change? Yes. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to push that repayment plan out a little bit longer. But pushing the repayment plan out a little bit longer because I’m buying a home isn’t so bad!

So instead of reading about how I retired my student loan debt in the summer of 2013 you’re probably going to have to wait a few extra months – possibly a full year – to read that update. In any event… stay tuned!

Just about one month after my last student loan update, I am back again with an update that I’m sure you were already expecting. And that update is that my total student loan debt has dropped another thousand bucks to $17 thousand. It’s nice to have these frequent drops in the total amount that I have left outstanding – especially considering that I’m coming down from a peak total of $121 thousand no longer than just six and a half years ago. Pretty amazing.

Just $17 thousand left to go

If you do the math (and I have), then right now I’m in the process of repaying the student loans that I took out to pay for the first semester of my sophomore year in college (and, of course, my freshman year before then). The first semester of my sophomore year of college began in September 2000…

That’s a long time ago!

Let’s see what I remember from way back during the fall semester of college in the year 2000…

Back during the Fall 2000 semester, I lived on campus in a dorm named Laurel Hall. My room was A1 in the A Suite (our joke was that we lived in A1, like the steak sauce – not sure if it was funny then… or now). My roommate, who I called “Roommate,” was a pitcher on the Monmouth baseball team. I remember that he was pretty good, but I don’t recall ever going to see him play in a game (looking back, I wish I had gone to at least one game). Watching the college’s sports teams wasn’t a big thing back when I was a sophomore mainly because the school’s facilities were pretty sad. The football field looked worse than most big-time high school programs (it still only has one set of bleachers) and the basketball “arena” was a glorified high school gym. Things were much, much different than the beautiful, high-end Multipurpose Activity Center that sits on campus now. I wish that arena was there when I was an undergraduate. My friends and I could have had a lot of fun times in that place!

Academically, I was just coming off being on Dean’s List and this would be the last time that I ever made Dean’s List, but not because of academic reasons. As I progressed through college and wore my fraternity letters to my classes (by Fall 2000 I was already an initiated member of my fraternity), I found that some of the older professors stereotyped me and my work. I would turn in A level work (I’m an adjunct professor now – trust me, my work was that good) and some professors just wouldn’t give me a grade higher than a C. Hey, some people are just miserable bastards and many of those miserable bastards were my humanities professors. More on that in a future entry on the blog, I’m sure.

Speaking of the fraternity, in Fall 2000 I was the chapter’s Community Service Chairman and Social Chairman. Those were two big jobs since we performed 2 – 3 community service events each weekend (that’s not even an exaggeration – we won awards for all of the service that we performed). Plus, we’d hold at least one mixer (i.e. a closed party with a sorority) each week and one open party (i.e. a party for non-Greek students) each week. It was intense and a lot of fun.

But the memories aren’t all rosy and happy.

In fact, towards the end of Fall 2000 I distinctly remember a not so pleasant thought that I had while sitting at my on-campus job in the library (I was the IT assistant for the library and getting paid a few bucks through the Federal Work-Study program). Even though I liked “Roommate” and I enjoyed interacting with my fraternity brothers, I distinctly remember thinking that I really should transfer out of Monmouth over the winter break. I’m not sure if I can put a single reason on why I thought that I should transfer, but I remember getting the Rutgers University application, filling it out, getting the required supporting documentation from the Registrar’s Office, and putting the application package together. The only thing that I didn’t do with the application package is actually send it out.

If I had to name a few reasons why I thought it would be a good idea to transfer, I’d suggest that it had to do with the Monmouth social scene, the postgraduate prospects for professional-level networking as a member of my fraternity, the growing bias I was seeing in my academic scores, and the overall cost of attending college. I’ll tackle these quickly and in order:

Monmouth Social Scene. You don’t have to go to Monmouth for more than a few weeks to quickly find out that the social scene gets real ugly, real quick. It’s not that your fellow students aren’t fun to hang out with (they are) and it’s not that the university doesn’t try to host a variety of different events to keep students engaged (to their great credit, they do). The biggest “social” problem at Monmouth is the ultra-zealotry with which the local police officers choose to enforce their personal interpretations of the law. I can tell you stories about police officers entering the home that I rented off-campus at 2:30am when it was just me and one of my roommates awake watching television or playing a video game. No alcohol, never any drugs, no party going on, no noise, and no neighbors – the local police just thought that they had a right to enter our rental home at will. And if you think that’s bad, then imagine what those same overzealous officers acted like when there WAS a party going on… not fun.

For the money I was paying and the way I was being treated with a bias in my classes for wearing fraternity letters, I didn’t think that I should keep myself on a campus where, at the time, you couldn’t really have a lot of fun without being abused (sometimes physically) by the local police.

Postgraduate Fraternity Prospects for Professional-Level Networking. I didn’t just join a fraternity to hang out with the same group of guys, go to parties, and wear the same t-shirt as my fraternity brothers. One of the major reasons why I joined a fraternity is because of the professional-level networking that you should be able to receive as an older undergraduate member and as an alumnus of the organization. Back in Fall 2000, my fraternity didn’t have a lot of that going on – if any. In fact, we didn’t interact much with our larger alumni base other than hearing about one or two of the “older guys” who happened to have jobs in the area. Not really my idea of impressive professional-level networking. As an aside (and, again, a longer discussion for a different entry), since I graduated in Spring 2003 I’ve worked my butt off to make sure that there is a more fluid understanding of our chapter alumni and that our undergraduates and graduating seniors have a greater possibility of getting a job or at least an internship from one of our own.

Anyway, back in Fall 2000 I wasn’t very impressed with the larger organizational structure of the fraternity. More on that to come…

Bias in Academic Courses. I’ve already written about this above, but probably the biggest concern that I had back during the first semester of my sophomore year was the blatant bias that some of my older, stodgy professors (I was an English major – had a bunch of old codgers teaching me) had towards me and my work. After paying all of that money to attend college and having worked my ass off in high school (I graduated with above a 4.0 GPA) and during my freshman year of college, I didn’t want some stupid, asshole professors telling me that I was only an “average” writer because I wore Greek letters on my chest. Screw that. People like that have no place in academia and should be thrown out of colleges and universities around the nation. I guaranty that the money I’ve made off of my writing on this blog FAR surpasses the money that those old buzzards EVER made writing for the masses (i.e. not writing bullshit academic texts). Those miserable sons of bitches are what I keep in mind when I teach my classes – I go out of my way to NOT act like any of them.

Back in Fall 2000, this bias was just about enough to get me to leave Monmouth.

Cost of Attending College. Believe it or not, the total cost of college wasn’t really a big concern for me back in Fall 2000. Every once in a while my Mom would say something about my student loans and how expensive this whole thing was going to be. In truth, though, I don’t think anyone in my family (myself included) realized back then that I was going to be facing a $121 thousand dollar mountain of student loan debt when all was said and done. No one could have imagined that my postgraduate life would be put on hold in so many different ways for nearly seven years while I repaid my student loans. How can you predict something like that happening when you have no experience working with these types of loans?

Still, though, back in Fall 2000 I knew that I was attending an expensive school when compared to Rutgers University, which was just up the road.

I can’t really put my finger on the catalyst that made me stay at Monmouth. From the fraternity standpoint, there were two distinct events that helped change my mind. The first one happened in October or November 2000 when my car broke down right in the middle of Route 36 late on a Sunday night (could have been 10:30pm or so). I knew that most of the chapter was at the weekly chapter meeting at the time, but after my car was pushed off the highway by a local police officer I still called the landline in one of the houses where a bunch of the older guys lived. The guy who answered the phone had to be in his mid-20’s (just like now, back then a lot of the guys who graduated wound up sticking around in the area and living with each other to save money). I don’t think I ever shared more than 10 or 11 words with the guy. Without thinking twice, he jumped in his car, drove to the local Pathmark, picked me up, and took me back to the dorms. It was incredible. That openness and willingness to help someone out when they really needed some help changed some of my postgraduate thoughts about the fraternity.

The second event that helped change my mind was a month or so later during December 2000 when the then-President of the chapter was driving me to one of our events and spoke directly about me becoming the next President of the chapter. He said that he would tell everyone that he was running for re-election, but that he would resign from the election before the vote took place because he wanted someone like me to be the President of the chapter. That meant a lot to me for two reasons. First, it was nice to see that someone at Monmouth could recognize the innate leadership potential that I have in group settings (not being arrogant, just being accurate). Second, it helped to further change my mind on some of my postgraduate thoughts about the fraternity.

Once I was elected the President of the fraternity (the then-President did, indeed, drop out of the race before the vote and I won by forfeit and accepted the position with a voice vote of acclimation) I still thought that I might leave Monmouth. I told myself that I would give it one semester as President and see what happened. If I didn’t like leading the chapter, then I would transfer out of Monmouth and spend the second half of my college career having some fun at a college that didn’t cost an arm and a leg and wasn’t biased against me. If I enjoyed being the President, though, I’d have to seriously consider staying at Monmouth and finishing my academic career there.

Well, the rest is history. After a few months of being President and getting my hands dirty in reshaping some aspects of the fraternity, I never thought about transferring out of Monmouth again. Then, one of my good friends from high school joined the fraternity and I had someone to hang out with and lead the chapter with me. But it’s interesting to think back about what type of life-changing decisions I was considering – and what life-changing decision I ultimately made – way back in Fall 2000!

In May 2006, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Masters Degree and $120,720 in student loan debt. Since I started repaying my student loans in July 2006, I’ve repaid a total of $104 thousand in principal to various lenders including the federal Perkins loan program, the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, and CitiBank. I currently owe $17 thousand in principal to the United States Department of Education’s federal Direct Loans program. This loan is serviced by the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority. To date, I’ve repaid over $35 thousand in interest to these lenders. Follow my student loan repayment story on JerseySmarts.com.