Uploaded to Flickr on September 11, 2007 by nathangibbs
As many of you know, last year I decided to apply to psychology doctoral programs for the fall of ‘09. This post is going to be about psychology debt specifically, but if you are now or have ever been a grad student, there might be some food for thought here for you too. Basically, I’m having a hell of a time deciding whether to take on serious grad school debt. Also, I asked a bunch of people about their debt, and I discovered something interesting.
First let’s get an obvious question out of the way. I applied to four programs. Two of them are unfunded, private, and expensive. Why would I apply to unfunded programs? Well, it turns out there are many ways to become a psychologist, but the most practice-centered programs are unfunded. I spent many, many hours researching psych programs, and I can tell you all about that if you’re interested. For now, suffice it to say that I have my reasons, but they would fill up another blog post entirely. The important bit for the topic at hand is this: I didn’t get into either funded program, the unfunded programs fit me better anyway, but they both cost around $200,000+ with tuition and estimated living expenses. Oy.
We knew this going in, but we did some hand-waving at the time. We thought, if my husband Michael gets full funding plus a stipend at his program, we’ll just get loans for my program and suck it up. Michael said from the beginning that the Bay Area was the worst option financially. But now that rejection letters have rolled in, the Bay Area is the only possibility left standing. We’ll know for sure by April 15th, which I’ve started to think of as doomsday. So we’re really starting to consider what it would mean to sell our house and move to the Bay Area for school. What if Michael doesn’t get full funding, let alone a stipend? We decided to run some scenarios using a mortgage calculator.
Holy crap. Holy crap. What we found was overwhelming. I can mitigate my debt by working, but only by about $30-40k over the course of my program (probably). But even if I do that, before we add in any debt that Michael might accrue, we’d still be paying about $12-1500 a month toward student loans until we’re about 70 years old. As John Stewart would say, “This can’t be right.” But it is right! Wow.
So, um, yeah. I sat with that for a little while, and I spoke with a few people who are in unfunded programs or who are otherwise accruing serious school debt. Here’s an interesting finding: The overwhelming response was some variation of “I don’t know what else I would do with my life, and so it’s worth it to me.” Most people I asked said something like “I try not to think about it.” I was surprised by this. I have been poor in my lifetime, and I can attest that there is no amount of job satisfaction that would really make up for it (for me). I want job satisfaction plus the ability to travel for fun and family visits, buy consumer electronics once in a while, buy people gifts, eat out sometimes, and generally not worry about money. I don’t want to go to school for the better part of a decade only to come out unable to have all of that. In other words, I am seriously and profoundly overwhelmed by the prospect of that much long-term debt! I can’t stop thinking about it.
I don’t have any real preexisting debt hanging above my head, and I never have. That being said, when faced with the prospect of what amounts to an extra mortgage payment chasing me around for the rest of my life, I do not feel idealistic about my career. I can stand the idea of being poor for the next bunch of years while I’m in school, but yeesh, I don’t want to be strapped until I’m 70. That sounds like a sentence, not a happy mid-life career change! Then again, every time I think about not becoming a psychologist, I start feeling depressed. I’ve been mentally on this track for almost a year now. There is absolutely no question that this is what I want to do. Do I veer away from it because of money? Will there be some unknown factors between now and my obtaining a doctorate that will mitigate the debt? And what really is my income potential with a Psy.D.?
People keep assuring me that I will have all that I want with a Psy.D., and yet the numbers that I’m looking at suggest that I only might have it by the age of 45-ish (I’m currently 33). That is, by that time, I might or should be making enough money in my career that paying a HUGE loan payment each month will not bother me too much. As long as nothing goes wrong. Like, oh, I don’t know, a debilitating spine illness that requires surgery and could take me out of commission for months. Ahem.
As of yesterday, I had basically decided to throw in the doctoral towel regardless of whether I got into a Psy.D. program or not. I figured, fine, I’ll just get a masters in psych or counseling and live with its limitations. I won’t get to be Dr. B., and I will have to refer severely impaired clients to better-credentialed professionals. I won’t be doing a dissertation and I won’t be teaching at any doctoral degree granting institutions and I won’t be administering any assessments. Sigh. Sad, but practical. But wait! I decided to have one last conversation about the whole thing with someone who is currently 3/4 of the way through a Psy.D. at one of the schools I interviewed at.
Uploaded to Flickr on January 6, 2007 by Freakazoid!
She had a master’s in family therapy before beginning her Psy.D. and had a lot of great input about working in mental health with or without a doctorate. We talked for about an hour, and for the first time in this process, I came away from that conversation feeling like maybe I can do this without as much pain as we thought. First and foremost, she had direct knowledge of people participating in a federal loan repayment program wherein doctors and mental health professionals work with underserved populations in exchange for a modest salary and tens of thousands of dollars in loan repayment (depending on how long you participate in the program). Nice. This is the type of thing I would totally enjoy, and it would help pull my debt out of the stratosphere. I had already heard of this program, but it sounded very pie-in-the-sky. But in her experience, it’s not prohibitively competitive or otherwise limited. I’m sure it’s not garaunteed, but at her post-master’s internship site, six people were working off their debt under this program! Heartening.
Secondly, she assured me that the process of getting a Psy.D. involves so many practica and internships that you end up making a boatload of contacts. These contacts come in handy in many ways, not the least of which is getting assessment contracts with mental health institutions. I’m not all that familiar with the world of assessments, but the gist is that doctoral-level psychologists are qualified to administer tests that help evaluate mental health patients for necessary care, medication, etc. And, the important bit for the topic of this post is that assessment contracts are lucrative but not terribly time-consuming. So between assessments, supervising other budding psychologists, teaching, writing, and private practice, there are many opportunities to make enough cashola to pay off those overwhelming bills before too very long.
So, um, wish me luck. Doomsday approaches. Also, if you told me your debt story, I want to thank you very much. Everyone has a different perspective on this subject, and it was extremely helpful to hear a variety of different people tell their stories. As Pitseleh said to me at one point, school debt is something people don’t talk about and think about enough.
