The Payoff: Student debt and working within your major

By milliganstampede | March 22, 2013 at 12:37 pm | 2 comments | COMMUNITY

By: Syd Bickers Photo supplied by: Syd Bickers

Over half of Milligan students take out federal student loans, and in order to payoff their loans after graduation many of those students may have to take a job that has nothing to do with their major.

Chase Boyer, a 2011 graduate, was a Bible major with an emphasis in youth ministry. When Boyer could not find a ministry position, he began working at a call center and managing a vending machine company North of Baltimore, Md.

“I had to find something to do,” said Boyer. “You never know where God is going to lead you.”

Boyer graduated with just under $24,000 in student loans. He said the six-month grace period between his graduation in May and when the payment deferment expired in November went by quickly. Boyer said he needed to find a job because at the end of the day, his payments were going to be due whether or not he found a job in his major.

“Worst case scenario, you may have to take a job at a call center,” said Boyer.

Boyer did have experience in his major, however. Directly after graduating, he filled a one-year youth ministry internship at Mountain Christian Church in Joppa, Md. The internship didn’t lead to a job and Boyer quickly realized he would have to pursue other career options.

While working at the call center, he was offered a position as the manager of Five Star Vending owned by Ken Moss, a member of Mountain Christian Church.

In two years Boyer has paid off roughly $4,000 on his debt. The current amount he owes is about the equivalent to the total debt of an average Milligan graduate who takes out a federal loan each year.

Sixty percent of undergraduates at Milligan received federal student aid this year, according to Vice President of Finance Jacqui Steadman. The average amount of federal aid taken out in a year is $6,930.

If a student took out the average amount of debt each year for four years, they would graduate $27,720 in debt – almost $4,000 more than Boyer.

Many of these students may have to look for a job outside their field of study in order to pay back their student loans. According to a Millennium Branding study called The Student Career Development Study, “students are not aggressively preparing for their post-college careers, one of several reasons that many struggle to find jobs upon graduation.”

Millennium Branding is a research organization that focuses its study on Generation Y, which is the human population that was born from the late 1970s to the early 2000s. The company’s study concluded that students needed to do a better job of branding themselves, meaning creating a name for themselves in their area of study.  Students can do this by doing internships, developing relationships with people working in their field, blogging on matters in their field and other forms of communication.

Though Boyer prepared for going into the workforce by filling a one-year internship, his attempt at self-branding did not result in position in his field. This is not always the case, however.

Marsh Allen, a 2010 Milligan graduate, who studied public leadership and service found a job in her major after graduating and paid off her $18,000 of student debt in two years.

Allen currently lives in Newport New, Va. and works as public relations marketing manager for a business called ThermalTech, a company that works on creating new energy efficient buildings and building reconstructions.

“I would say I am doing exactly what I want to do,” said Allen.

Allen said she always knew she wanted to do public relations for an energy efficient construction company. She was worked for AmeriCorps environmental service program based in Knoxville, Tenn. for two years.

AmeriCorps is a sister program to the Peace Corps that offers full-time and part-time positions in nonprofit field of public service in the United States. The federal program was created in 1993. One benefit of joining for college graduates is the federal student loan deferment offered to workers.

Since AmeriCorps is a federal program that helps to further train graduates, members can apply for education awards that will defer the interest increment on their student loans.

Allen received the educational award, and was able two pay of her $18,000 debt interest free in two years. Now, three years after she graduated, she has paid her student debts in full.

“My advice is to be very aggressive and very assertive,” said Allen. “I came from a mindset that said when you are in debt you are a slave…I want to be a freed man.”