Damia: Hello everyone! Welcome back to the Self Reliant Steward Podcast. I’m Damia. And those of you watching the video recording, you can see that I have a guest with me. This is my cousin Kayla. I just wanted to bring her on and interview her about graduating college debt free.
But, first we’re going to start with our trivia question. So I’m going to give Kayla the opportunity to answer and everyone else, you know, you can pause it, think about as long as you want and then answer.
So the question for today is, what is the average number of years it takes someone to pay off student loan debt?
Kayla: Hmm. I really don’t know the answer to this, but I’ll take a guess. Um, I’d say like 15 years.
Damia: 15? It’s 20. The average amount is 20 years. Who wants to be paying off debt for 20 years? I know I don’t.
Kayla: Yeah, that sounds awful. No, thank you.
Damia: Being in bondage to debt for that long. And you know me, I’m like completely anti debt except for a house. So anyways, so let’s dive in Kayla.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Kayla: Yeah. So, I’ve grown up in California. I graduated high school in 2017 and I went to California State University Bakersfield for college. I majored in anthropology and in public history. I just graduated this past semester and I’m trying to figure out what I want to do now; I’m kind of thinking about working in museum studies or something like that, so.
Damia: That sounds really cool, working in a museum. I think you would love that. Okay, so you just mentioned what you went to college for, so you double majored. Yes, it is. Remind us what those two were.
Kayla: Anthropology and Public History.
Damia: Cool. And how did you pay for school, like tuition, books, all the things? In order to graduate debt free.
Kayla: Yeah, so I, at first I just applied to FAFSA and I was able to get some of the grant money that’s rewarded, or that’s given to undergraduate students, usually for, I think up to six years, they give it to you, depending on your parents [income] over the years.
But I was able to get some money from that, which was awesome. And then, I applied to all the scholarships I could through the school that I went to. They [the university] had a pretty easy system of applying. You kind of just had to do one general application to scholarships and they would send it to ones that you would be eligible to. And so that, kind of, paid for my school for the first, maybe, year and a half of schooling.
And then I also, I was also a collegiate athlete, so I competed in the hammer throw for the track and field team on campus. And because of that, and because I had high grades. I think at that time I was like a 3.9 GPA. Because of those two things, I was able to get a scholarship, through the Kern Schools. Every year, they look at athletes who succeed in schooling and the give scholarships to that. So, I was able to get a scholarship through them, I think twice. And then I also got another scholarship, also because I was an athlete and I have high grades.
And then, I was a walk on to track, so I didn’t get a scholarship initially, but because I was doing fairly well in track the last two years I was able to get a thousand dollar scholarship. And so that definitely helped. So that paid through most of my four years or five years of school.
So, I was just doing anthropology for those first four years and, as I was reaching my time to graduate, I decided that I wanted to add another major on because I kind of felt like I needed a little bit more education in the field I was in.
Because of COVID, I had another year of eligibility to compete and so I decided to add this other major. But because of that, I was no longer considered an undergraduate, but kind of a graduate student, even though it was still a bachelor’s degree I was getting. And so I was no longer eligible for the Pell Grant and other grants through the FAFSA.
And the scholarship application changed. I couldn’t apply to one in general, and it would send them all. I had to apply to each one individually. So, I applied to as many as I could, but I didn’t really get the scholarships, and I didn’t get the athletic scholarships like I had in the past, so I was kind of like, well, how am I going to pay for this?
A little bit before that, I had gotten an opportunity to get a job on Campus through the anthropology program. They have the office of historic preservation on campus. And anthropology students can get part-time jobs there. And so, it had just kind of popped up in my email. I’m like, that’s probably a good idea to get a job, you know; I don’t know how long the scholarships are gonna work for me and how many I’m gonna get this coming year.
So I got the job and thank goodness I did because I really needed the money from that to be able to pay for my last year of school. I had to pay for that, other than the $1,000 scholarship I got through my track team, I had to pay for schooling basically all on my own for that last year. So that was about $7,000.
There was this really great thing through the through the student aid on campus. They had a program that you could apply to, so instead of paying all your tuition up front, you could pay it in three installments throughout each semester. And so that really helped me because I didn’t have all the money up front because I had just kind of recently started the job. I had also recently bought a car with some of the money I did have. And so I really didn’t have a lot of money. And so I was able to work as many hours as I possibly could, and I was able to pay for my tuition in installments.
I didn’t say this earlier, but I originally, I decided to go to school in the town that I lived in. My parents let me stay with them so I didn’t have to pay for out of state tuition, I didn’t have to pay for housing. And that was able to help me, you know, save up money and not have to pay a lot of money for my tuition.
Damia: And did you have to pay for food as well? Or did your parents pay for food?
Kayla: My parents paid for food in general, like, most of the day-to-day food.
Damia: And then you still had car expenses and gas and stuff?
Kayla: Yeah, that I paid for on my own. I paid for gas by myself for my car. And about half of school, my own phone bill.
Damia: Wow, well that is amazing. I think it’s amazing everyone who is able to graduate debt free and has that goal.
Looking back, is there anything that you would have done differently?
Kayla: That last school year, I wish I had really applied to more of the scholarships. I was really busy with other things, so I didn’t prioritize applying to all the scholarships that I should have. And so that, you know, I ended up having to pay for a lot of stuff out of pocket, for my tuition, mostly out of pocket.
And another thing I think I had, I was almost about to graduate with anthropology before I decided to add on public history. I kind of impulsively decided to add [public history] and I, I did enjoy it, but, and. I like public history. It like definitely added the layer of depth that I needed than just anthropology, but I wish I had gone into college, kind of with a plan, like what, what I wanted to do with my life.
I mean, I didn’t have to have a full plan, but at least an idea. I kind of just graduated high school and I was like, okay, the next step is college. Which it doesn’t have to be, you know, I have definitely, over the years, I’ve grown more passionate, not passionate, but like the idea that college, is it necessarily the step that you have to take?
Like there’s so many other options out there. You could get a job automatically and save up money before you go to school. You could, you know, do trade schools, apprenticeships. There’s so many opportunities out there that I wish I had spent more time thinking about and planning what I wanted my future to look like before I just jumped into college with little to no plan.
Damia: I love that because that’s what I want to share on this podcast is there are other options, there are other avenues. College in general is not for everybody, not everybody likes school, not everybody needs school. So, I love that you brought that up.
Did you apply for any scholarships while you were in high school or did you only start applying after you jumped into college?
Kayla: I applied to some, but I didn’t spend a lot of time on it. And a lot of the things I went to were online scholarships at like scholarship websites, which you can do. I mean, if you, if you’re really consistent and you do it like starting in junior year and apply as much as you can, I’m sure you’ll get scholarships. But I didn’t start thinking about that till like halfway through my senior year and I applied to some, but not a lot. So I wish I had started earlier, applied to a lot more.
And also a lot of, like, businesses and groups and universities and, like, the places you grow up in. There’s been several that I’ve heard of that have scholarship opportunities, like, if you volunteer there in high school, they’ll help provide.
I had a friend in high school who did a lot of volunteering throughout her community, throughout Bakersfield. And because of that, A lot of them gave her scholarships for school. And I thought that was so cool. So, I kind of wish I had been more involved in my community, in service, and helping people, and joining in groups and clubs, and that would have, I think, helped.
Damia: Yeah, I love that. I didn’t know that was a thing when I was in high school either, so that’s great.
Is there any other advice that you would give teenagers who are looking forward to college?
Kayla: Yeah, it’s, it’s such a great opportunity. You know, you get to meet really good people, professors who love what they’re doing and are really knowledgeable on the things that they study. You know, they spent years and years, themselves going to school and getting masters and PhDs, those degrees, it takes so much work and effort to get and studying to get those degrees and so they have to be passionate about, you know, what they’re studying. And so it’s really cool to interact with them and, you know, pick up on their passion and you get to meet other students and people around you who are also really interested in what you’re studying.
And what’s really great about college compared to high school is the fact that you get to pick majors that you’re interested in, and that you can become passionate about. It’s very different to learn about subjects that you don’t really care much about compared to ones that you’re really interested in. It becomes really fun and engaging.
Damia: I love that. I definitely think it’s very important to study something that you are interested in. I think it’s so sad when people go to school thinking that they’ll get a job from whatever they study, but they don’t enjoy it, and then they don’t get a job half the time. So that’s great advice.
Over the next eight episodes, we’re going to go over mistakes that teens make with money and how to help them avoid or overcome these mistakes.
So, thank you, Kayla, for joining us, and I’ll see everyone next week.