Student Loan Debt is “Good” Debt, No Matter What the Haters Say

I was in the middle of a free consultation with financial advisors when I could feel a long-coiled tightness in me start to uncoil. I was talking to a mother-daughter team whose mission was to empower women to invest and save for the lives they wanted. But what I found out on the call was that some of the things I had figured out through trial and error were actually right. Or at least: they were right according to these two women I respected. For instance: I was told that really to pay loans and save for retirement all I need to do is make more money. Score! I had been telling people that for awhile. (To be clear, I don’t think we should all be having to hustle this hard to make a ton of money to live, thrive, and pleasantly retire.)

I just want to be Nicki Minaj in the Beez in the Trap video. Image source.

Realizing that I wasn’t a total screw up at my finances caused something to simply unbuckle inside of me, and that very something was (drumroll) shame.

If you’re shouldering a lot of debt, you’re also shouldering other people’s judgments, misconceptions, hot takes on twitter, and just general lack of empathy. You did this to yourself, after all, the messages seem to say. And you made this bed, so you gotta lie in it. Tough it out!

But student loan debt is good debt.

“Listen, you do need to pay your loans,” the advisor I spoke to said, “but don’t forget. Student loan debt is good debt. You invested in yourself.”

Hear that, jerks? I care about myself, and I’m worth *calculates* six figures with interest.

Now, there’s very little debt out there that I think requires people to be ashamed of themselves (though I’m not going to rule out some shame, like if you’re a President who has millions in debt and didn’t pay hardly any taxes). Capitalism makes it hard for people to survive, which means we’ve enabled economies where it’s easy to go into debt of all kinds. I hesitate to even classify student loan debt as “good debt,” but I am going to do so because I almost started crying when I was told that. I needed a reminder that I value my education.

This is important because mockery is afoot.

As we shift into the Biden administration we’re getting more talks floating around about cancelling student loan debt. Being a millennial with student loan debt is like being treated like a ghost who keeps getting accused of killing everything. Our debts and financial obstacles are not acknowledged, but we’re held accountable for not buying houses or starting families early— if at all. Like if it’s so bad, just throw some holy water on us, and call it a day!

But in all seriousness, now that we’re going to be talking about student loan debt cancellation more seriously, those of us with debt need to steel ourselves. The hot takes are coming, and they’re quite often unkind, founded in baseless assumptions, and carry the full weight of judgment from verified blue checks (I would give my pinkie finger to get a verified blue check if it mean I could quiet Matthew Yglesias from having a student loan hot take.)

Like, yikes. When did this guy become the arbiter of who gets “sympathy”?

But this is just the beginning. And I want you who are reading this, no matter the debt you have, to remember you invested in yourself. You took a risk, maybe when you were 18, maybe when you were 30, and I want to say I believe in you and that I believe you deserve relief. The hot takes are coming, but I want you to ignore them and remember that your debt is good, even if the world is sometimes not.

So, now I leave you with the greatest inspiration I have to hold your head high when people start talking shit: