I too, used college as an excuse to move away from a hometown community filled with white, conservative racists and misogynists. I met new people, expanded my horizons, built one career opportunity on another until I worked my way out of poverty. I also don’t subscribe to the bootstraps mentality, as I am a white woman who had people along the way give me a hand up, in terms of funding and opportunity. I don’t regret taking the loans, because I had to do what I needed to do, but I am weary after 15 years, if still having the entire principle balance left. If I decide to keep paying (which I’m wavering about), I won’t pay them off until I retire, which seems like such ridiculousness. To answer the person who questioned how could you have taken out $125,000 over four years, well that comes to only $30K per year to live on and go to school on. Even with supplementary jobs, as I worked, I was pretty close to poverty level for that time. Seems like a lot of money, but it’s not. So glad that you got out, got healthy and now have a solid foundation as a psychologist, for not only a better life for you, but also for your patients…