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This is what happens when a person with no generational wealth does a PhD. I am 2.5 years out and have been paying as much debt as I can every month. This month 59% of my expenses was paying my various student debts. So more than housing, food, and everything else COMBINED.
I refer to all my debts as student debt because frankly, they are. I had no credit cards until 2 years into my PhD when my options were 1. drop out of my PhD or 2. take out a credit card. Third-year of my PhD I was faced with the same dilemma so I took out a second credit card.
I HAD funding. But PhD funding is a trap. They will fund you for a certain amount of time and tell you to finish your PhD in that amount of time even though it can't be done. Then when you run out of funding your options are drop out or make it work by taking on outside debt.
I will NEVER EVER say "don't do a PhD if you have to take on debt" because that is classist as fuck. The direct translation of that is "Unless you have existing wealth you don't get to become a professor." Student debt is a fucking scam and universities are evil corporations.
I don't want to regret doing my PhD. I want to say that even though if I'm not working as a professor and I don't need the PhD that it was "worth it" but of fucking course I regret it! How could I not? I have no job, no money, and tons of debt that will take forever to pay off.
I have an elaborate budget I hold myself to every month where I scrutinize every single cent I spent on food making sure I only spend a very small amount on groceries and then I pay thousands to my debts. That isn't any way to live! I should have dropped out that first time.
All I can do now is budget and pay those debts and I hope I can find a job that pays me an amount that allows me to pay debts faster. But the worst part is not the money the PhD took from me but the ambition. The energy and optimism I once had that doesn't seem to ever replenish.
A smart mentor of mine told me in the first year of my PhD that you don't have an unlimited amount of energy and ambition. That one day you would look back at this time and see that. I didn't believe her because it seemed impossible. Now I think about that conversation every day.
I'm not running completely dry yet. I'm still trying to write a book. I'm still trying. But that seemingly unlimited fountain of words and thoughts and ideas I once was? I fucking blew it on the PhD. On conference presentations at conferences that I couldn't afford to attend.
This is as close as I'll ever get to a "don't do a PhD" rant because I'm not going to ever tell poor ppl they shouldn't do PhDs or buy houses or do anything else because I believe education and housing are things everyone should have access to. It's more a "PhDs are a scam" rant.
SO... yeah capitalism eh? Don't universities love to act like they are not participating in it? Good times.
I literally tweeted this rant and then got an email from my bank offering me a $4000 credit limit increase. What the fuck. Maybe because for the past two years I don't use my credit cards I only pay them? Or maybe because they are stalking me on twitter? lol
