student loans and debt slavery: is it worth it?

if you're anything like me, you need more than a flow chart to get through this mess called the student loan industry.  you need a financial aid expert, a compass, a seeing eye dog. whatever it takes. and yes, it is an industry. hard to believe -- astonishing, actually -- that education is free in much of europe and the rest of the world. it would be easy to have a beautiful life if you didn't have to live through most of it as a debt slave.

frankly, taking out a student loan sounds like modern day sharecropping to me. the real question: is the degree i'll earn worth the debt i may find myself in when i graduate?

graduate school post script

i got accepted to new york university's tisch school of the arts mfa program last year and delayed entry for one year to look for a way to pay for it without having to take out six figures in loans and turn myself and mpb into debt slaves for the rest of our adult lives. everyone else i know has no qualms about being up to their ears in debt forever. i can't. i don't want anyone to own me, certainly not any bank or corporation.  get out of debt is a chant that has been on a slow boil in my life for awhile. now that i'm close to that finish line, here comes a situation that would land me right back into the hole i'm about to crawl out of.

am i sisyphus or what.

graduate school has always felt inevitable, somehow. i never intended to leave new york city without an advanced degree.  i'll feel a lot better about getting out of here, once i get one.

needless to say, i'm still looking for money. the foundation center seems to be a solid place to start. if anyone has any other suggestions, get at me. i would love to hear them.

in the meantime, i found a 26 minute documentary called scholarslip about the student debt crisis that really sums up so much of  what's fundamentally wrong with the system.



and as if all of that weren't enough, here's a word from frugal dad -- college isn't cheap!

Great news, sports fans!

I just found out a few weeks ago that I got accepted to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts MFA program – dramatic writing for musical theater. It’s a two year program, it is intense and it would mean fully immersing myself in the creative collaborative process. If all goes well, I’ll start in the fall. It’s a real kick in the head, just knowing that I made the cut and I’m bright enough and talented enough to be a part of such an illustrious program. I feel especially grateful – and sweetly relieved.
The application process was harrowing, in a way. Once I completed all of the paperwork (which was as thick as a small town phone book, and no I’m not exaggerating), there was an applicant’s weekend where we were arbitrarily paired off, librettists with composers, and asked to write a five minute script to song in a day from a list of about 10 prompts. yes, that’s right – we had ONE day, more or less. we met on friday evening, worked on our idea saturday and presented on sunday at high noon.
The process was unexpected, for me at least, but I totally get it now. The faculty needed to see us work under pressure as strangers because that’s pretty much what we’ll be doing in the program. You can’t necessarily teach someone how to collaborate – and collaboration is the absolute backbone of what they do there. It’s a bigger part of what creating a musical is all about.
That was trippy – sitting in the lounge area that Friday evening, listening to everyone introduce themselves and unravel their stories: where they were from, how they got here from there, what their lives were like, their hopes and dreams. It felt like the first day of school. Or something.
It helped a great deal that I got really lucky with my random choice when I was paired with Benjamin Gammerman, a recent NYU graduate from Long Island. He was pretty much bubbling over with snippets of little ditties at all times. He’s the kind of guy that can turn anything into a song. Not only that but he was open, friendly and willing to start working right away. An added bonus was that we both have pianos (in case we got stuck and couldn’t get to the rehearsal studios) but the real kicker was that he lived four blocks away from me.
Actually, now that I think about it, it wasn’t luck at all. God threw me a bone.
I don’t mind putting my life on hold to pull this off, if I must. I’m already writing musicals. This week has me in Harlem’s iconic Apollo Theater for a performance residency that will culminate in 2 performances this weekend. One of them is already sold out. (No pressure…)
I have always believed in having something solid and meaningful to show for my time, especially in a place like New York City, where one can burn through time exponentially without even realizing it. Two years goes by in this city in a matter of months. I have friends who are already figuring out what their options are for retirement, and they’re in their 30s. (Egad.)
The real work with graduate school? Figuring out how to pay for it. Stay tuned.

See more progress on: Go to graduate school