I am 100,000 McChickens in Debt

I'm just going to come out here and say it: I am 100k in debt because of student loans. You would think that I went to school to be a doctor or something with that kind of debt. Guess. Guess what I got my Bachelor's and Master's in.

A Bachelor's in Creative Writing.

A Master's in Literature.

When you stop laughing, I'll still be here.

I thought it would be easy to get a job, or, at least, not as difficult as it has been. I thought that I could teach if worse came to worse. But alas! I have discovered that you need to get certified to teach, which means going back to school. Which means more debt. If I do all that and become a teacher, I can try to do the program that removes some of your debt if you teach a certain number of years. However, it is only a small amount (compared to my $100,000), you have to teach five or ten years (I can't remember which because there are a couple of options, and each one has a different length of time) in a terrible school district. Also, you still have to be paying off your loans during those years in order to qualify.

Bankruptcy won't work.

I have to either be a vegetable and unable to do anything for myself and/or dead for these suckers to go away. And I'm not that great of an actress, nor do I have any idea how to fake my death, so those aren't options for me.

I thought about becoming a librarian, but you need a Master's in library science to do that.

So, what am I supposed to do? Around here, the jobs are especially thin. I finally found a job at a department store, but my hours are not guaranteed, and I'm making about $7.14 an hour. And my loan payments are about $1,000 a month.

On top of all of this, I want to get a place with my boyfriend. Unfortunately, he cannot afford to pay for both of us (considering he graduated from college about two years ago), so we can't live together until I can help with the bills and whatnot. I wouldn't want him to pay for all of it anyway because I hate being a mooch. I want to be able to support myself.

I'm probably not going to be able to get deferment or forbearance on all of them because some are private education loans. I simply do not make enough to pay the monthly bill. I'd love to be able to start paying them off because I know I'm going to be in debt for the rest of my life, and I'd like the get the ball rolling. But even if my entire paycheck goes to paying off loans, I'll still have plenty left that needs to be paid.

I keep thinking about things that are equivalent to $100,000 because that amount seems so unrealistic to me. When I realized that some people could get a house for that much, it made me incredibly sick. Do you know how many McChickens I could buy with $100,000? I could order about one hundred thousand McChickens for one hundred thousand people. Yes, I know that's not including tax. BUT HOLY CRAP.

For some reason, saying I owe 100,000 McChickens seems less threatening and intimidating to me.

I know a lot of people out there will say that this is my own fault, and I should have known better. But, I was a stupid kid who had silly dreams about going to amazing colleges and then landing my dream job. They do not educate kids enough about the debt they are getting into. I wish someone had been there for me before this whole mess was started to tell me the mistake I was making, or at least someone to educate me on better options for paying for school. And I wish there were more scholarships out there. I remember being told of these magical scholarships that would pay for my education, but they were hard to come by, and the qualifications were very particular. I had to be part of X denomination or background, my parents had to make X amount of money, I had to be studying X subject, etc. For those who are English majors or Master's students studying literature, they know how little money there is out there for that field.

And I know some people will say that my cosigners should be able to help me. One of the reason why I had difficulties qualifying for grants and so forth was because of my father's salary. FAFSA claimed that my parents should be able to pay for a decent chunk of my schooling, but it was completely untrue. My parents were my cosigners, and they had to get a Parent PLUS loan at the last minute my Freshman year because I underestimated the cost of tuition, but other than that, my parents didn't pay for my education. I know plenty of people who are in this same situation.

The amount of debt I'm in is staggering, and I've cried almost daily about it. I haven't been eating much, either. This debt is ruining every part of my life like some sort of cancer. It's been especially hard on my relationships with people. I've been hesitant about hanging out with friends because I can't afford it, my parents are freaking out about how it'll affect their credit, my boyfriend and I have no idea when we are going to be able to get our own place, etc.

I'm so desperate that I've even considered selling my eggs. But, if you are lucky, you can only get about $15k for that, and it's a very selective and long process.

So tell me, Internet, what is a person to do in this situation?