As a single mother who was running an office for four men who made $60k a year, and had me doing all their work at $6.50/hr I went back to school in 2000, I have a terminal degree in my field (MFA) and I am chronically underemployed, I work two jobs at two different community colleges as an exploited and underpaid adjunct professor, and though I have applied for over 100 full time teaching positions, I still don’t have one, sigh. I drive a truck that is 9 years old and has over 100k on it, gets horrifying gas mileage, but I can’t afford a better car and couldn’t get a loan for one if I could. I owe over 100,000.00 in student loans for seven years of school, all in state, state school tuition, my income included grants and graduate teaching assistant stipends however I still had to take out loans to make ends meet, and pay for daycare. I have had enough of scrimping and saving, and seeing my measly bit of retirement eaten away ever quarter by the corporate and banking shenanigans going on in our country, where major players get bailouts but I will be in debt for the rest of my life. My loans have been in deferment, except for one six month period since I graduated in 2007. I cannot possibly make payments when I am on unemployment four to five months a year because adjuncts don’t get paid for breaks, or hired for the summer semesters reliably. In five years of teaching at the college level, I have worked part of one summer.
Melanie Sinclair submitted this to 