I just paid off all my student loans

some backstory

I never wanted to go to college—which, I know, is a cliché—but with some of my friends from governors school in Virginia getting 6 figure jobs doing React development straight out of high school, why the hell would I throw myself in debt for nothing? Regardless, there was no chance I could get that logic through my mom. She doesn’t normally act like a stereotypical immigrant parent except when it comes to academics. In protest, I applied to only 1 (one) university.

Virginia Commonwealth University was 1) in Virginia and thus in-state and 2) not in a college town and thus when I inevitably got bored of school (exempli gratia), there were other things to do. I started college in 2017 and managed to get out by 2021 during COVID with both a bachelors and masters in computer science. I’m fortunate also to have had a guaranteed job lined up at Capital One after graduation that started me off at 6 figures. Ironically doing Vue (as well as other fun things) instead of React so things almost come full circle. I’m a firm believer that college is worthless for most people but whatever, my 20s were off to a good start.

Fast forward a few of years and, like many people my age, the time comes to start making payments on student loans. While I was very fortunate to have gotten a considerable amount of help from the Military, Veterans Affairs, duel enrollment credits from governors school, as well as many many other places, I nonetheless had loans that needed repaying. At first my mom agreed to pay (I’m a child, I can’t pay student loans. wtf is interest??). I couldn’t play the child-card forever though and after a couple years I agreed to take on the loans. That’s all fine and good but for folks who’ve been close with me know, I’ve had a very…tumultuous financial situation the past few years going between tech start ups. To the point, the biggest stressor I had while founding and running Tapped Ai was those damn student loan payments.

now

This brings us to this past weekend. If finance is about booms and busts, peaks and troughs, I’d say I’m at a peak. With that, I made the decision to pull trig and pay off all my student loans in one big payment. I could’ve bought a house with cash, I could’ve bought my friends and I new cars, I could’ve fucked off to somewhere warm for a few years. Instead, I paid off my student loans. As of now (or whenever the payments clear) I am debt free.

He’s a picture of my mom and I on FaceTime paying off the loans.