I have over $65,000 in student loan debt. It didn't start out at that amount, but built gradually over the years. I don't think about it daily, but I never forget it is there.

Throughout my time in public school, I was aimed toward college. I worked as hard as possible to achieve, to add extra curricular activities to my list, to prepare myself in every way I could to head to college. In my senior year, just before graduation, my mother came to me and told me there was no money to send me to college. I was angry. I felt cheated. I always knew we were poor, but there had never been a conversation about this, not during any of the time prior, not during all that work I was putting toward success. I insisted I was going to school, I didn't care how, but I would find a way.

A couple of years before that conversation with my mother, I'd competed in Science Fair and been offered a full scholarship to a lesser school and turned it down. I still kick myself for that. Part of that decision was the track I was on to excel, to attend the prestigious Purdue University. Part of it was due to the fact that, even as a smart and capable young woman, I was still a teenage girl, ignorant of the true cost of living in the real world

At graduation, I received several small scholarships which really took the burden off of my first year. I was able to secure my own loans for the balance. That year my debt seemed reasonable. A couple thousand dollars weighted against my future professional income. Not a problem. I signed the paperwork and focused on getting through my first year at university.

The second year, I moved out of the dorms. Suddenly I was faced with having to pay bills as a part of a household for the first time. I had never lived on my own. I didn't have a full time job. I had a maximum number of credit hours. I was beginning to experience stress like I'd never known was possible. The only way I could see to remain in school was to ask for more loan money.

Due to a series of unfortunate incidents in my life, I left school in the middle of my sophomore year. I felt terrific guilt at having abandoned my studies. I worked some menial jobs and paid back the first and smallest of the loans. Then I got my feet back under me and found a course catalog for a state school. I was excited, circling classes, considering a major shift in the direction of my life. But living on my own and working at low paying positions, I was not able to afford the tuition and expenses, let alone the time away from working that class would require. So it was back to the Financial Aid department.

During the last year of my studies, I was chosen as part of a group to travel to our sister universities in Asia. I couldn't turn down such a valuable opportunity, a possibly once in a lifetime chance. I was able to arrange to pay for my passage through the school with another loan. It took a few years, but I managed to get my degree. I walked away thrilled to be the first college graduate in my family. And I walked away with about $20,000 in debt from student loans.

I entered the job market and very quickly discovered that my degree was almost completely not helpful. I was still working my way up from the lowest level positions, still making minimum wage or slightly above. Even positions which took my diploma into account didn't offer much of a salary bump. This was a double blow as I wasn't making more money with a degree and I wasn't making enough money to be able to pay back the loans. I began the first in a long series of postponements.

The deferments and forbearances offered by the loan companies enabled me to continue on with my life without worrying too much about the payments I wasn't making. I watched as each envelope arrived from the first, then second, then third loan company to own my account. I watched the amounts climb and read the warnings about accrual of interest with a sense of resignation. There was no way I could cover any of those amounts, so why worry? I wasn't happy about it, but I couldn't change it. Short of winning the lottery, I didn't think there would be any way I'd ever get the loans serviced.

I went through a consolidation early in the life of the loans as the company was insistent and I felt at the time that this was a better way, to get everything in one place, to worry over one loan instead of several smaller loans. This locked me into what is now a ridiculous interest rate. And this especially is how my amount due began to climb out of sight.

A couple of times over the life of the loan, I was able to make payments for a short time. I felt badly about this. I wanted to be the kind of person who pays her debts. There was simply no way to buy gas and food, to pay my rent or mortgage, and make the loan payments. I inquired whether I could pay lower amounts and was always told no, so I again let it go and paid nothing.

Then, the worst possible news came. I finally ran out of time. There were no further extensions forthcoming, not in any category. No matter how I tried to negotiate with the company, I got no sympathy and no help. It wasn't that I expected they'd wait forever, but at the same time no one was saying you must begin to make payments on XX date until it was suddenly that date and they wanted payment NOW.