By Nan Mooney Raya Golden thought she was handling college in a responsible way. She didn't apply until she felt ready to dedicate herself to her studies. She spread her schooling across five years so she could work part-time throughout. She checked that her school, the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, had a high post-graduate employment rate. But there were two things she hadn't counted on.
The first was the $75,000 in nonsubsidized federal student loans she'd have to take out for tuition and those living expenses her part-time jobs selling hotdogs and making lattes couldn't cover. The second was that she'd graduate into a workforce teetering on the edge of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
"All of a sudden the work just dried up," says Golden, who got her degree in traditional illustration. "I've sent out probably a hundred resumes from L.A. to Canada, but I haven't had a single response. Experienced people are getting laid off, so why would anyone take a chance on a college grad?"
Shortly after graduating this past January, Golden moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles hoping there would be more work available, only to find hiring freezes at most of the production studios and animation houses. She has looked into fields ranging from children's book publishing to T-shirt design, but no one is hiring. For now, she's doing her best to get by working part-time as a barista at Starbucks and sleeping on a friend's couch.
Golden has taken a three-month hardship deference on her student loans but is well aware that the longer she pushes off payments, the higher the interest will climb. She had hoped to consolidate her loans, which are now at $112,000, but every place she called either no longer handles consolidations or turned down Golden because she was not employed full-time. Since there's no way Golden could possibly make her $1,400-a-month payments on a part-time barista's salary, she brokered a temporarily reduced payment of $650.
"It doesn't even cover the interest," says Golden, "If I pay that for two years I'll wind up owing $150,000. But I can't see that I have any other choice." As for her career future, Golden admits things look bleak.
"I'll probably have to go back to school to learn computer illustration," she says, acknowledging that this means racking up even more debt with still no guarantee of a job. She is wary given that so far, despite her work ethic and excellent grades, the higher education path hasn't paid off at all.
"My timing couldn't have been worse," she says, voice brimming with frustration. "I'm doing the exact same thing I was doing before I went to school, only now I have all this debt to carry around, too."
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