Why life after an elite college for a poor kid can suck

                      So you just graduated from your top 50 school fresh with optimism, a degree and tons of debt. Mom already knows your moving in and while it's a bummer, it's only temporary you tell yourself. The job hunt has been real and there's no way your [insert Alma Mater here]'s network will let you down. Then three months pass and you find yourself consistently temping at an office job that pays meh, but isn't so embarrassing that you wouldn't tell your friends about your city office. And one day you'll come home and wonder, " what the fuck did I do wrong? What was I supposed to do to keep this from happening? And more importantly are my friends going through this as well?" Well the answers to the first two questions are long and difficult, but the answer to the final question is quite simple: no. Most of your friends were probably middle-class or well off, meaning many of them are not in your situation. Many of them are doing one of two things: taking a gap year (i.e. an unearned vacation) or dicking around in grad school. Well since taking a gap year definitely costs tons of cash we can cross that off our list of things we'd suggest to our parents. My mother and father would laugh at a suggestion to cap off my 200,000 4 year slumber party with a slightly cheaper 1 year slumber party. So why didn't I pursue option 2? Oh yea, I can't actually pay for the University I attended. Everyone is quick to encourage people to go to college to get their undergraduate degree, but Masters are typically reserved for those who gain acceptance to incredibly competitive programs or to those who have the money. Sure that kid who gets into the master of business administration program at Wharton might not mind taking out debt in order to get a degree that will most likely give him great earning power. But your degree of Social Work at the University of Virginia isn't going to pay the bills or the tuition it cost to get it. Why not pay for it the same way I paid undergrad? Well undergrad left you in debt and jobless, so putting yourself in more debt and remaining jobless is not an option. Also, mom and dad reluctantly helped you through undergrad. Poor parents don't have time for a 22 year old who can't feed himself. But how are all my friends doing it? Simple, they either left college with 0 debt, allowing them to take a one to two year period of time to put themselves in debt or their parents have the money to send them through more schooling. Either way because of their socioeconomic status they'll be afforded far better job prospects later in life, while you will probably languish, your degree becoming more useless with each day passing, ultimately ending with you unhappy, unfulfilled and bitter. But what about when I pay my debt! Oh you mean the 30 to 40k of debt you accrued? You intend to pay that making close to 50k a year in a major city? That will take you 5 to 6 years, so yes you can then attend grad school at the ripe age of 28 to 29, while your friends are all starting families, careers, etc. So how am I supposed to rationalize this, it all seems unfair and I'm tired of this fetal position that you've put me in. Well, you can rationalize it in two ways: first, I should have been smarter so I could earn special benefits such as a scholarship or financial aid for graduate school or I have been plagued by an unfair system that is stacked against me, I must resign myself to my mediocrity. How do you deal with it Raymond? I write sarcastic blogposts with fictional characters talking to me.

On a real note: I'm currently attending grad school. I'm currently working as well. So I guess I took the fuck it, I'll do it live option. But not everyone has this option. Oh and please spare me the story of how your friend got a scholarship. So has all of our friends. If there were enough scholarships for every person accepted to a school, this post wouldn't have been written. I also don't think it's anything you should fall into despair about, there are real options out there, but I just wanted to write something that captures the struggle many poor students find themselves in after college.