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I'm 28, Have $100K In Student Loan Debt, & I Can't Find A Full-Time Job
Yahoo Finance News ^ | August 29, 2018 | Ludmila Leiva

Posted on 08/30/2018 9:12:49 AM PDT by 11th_VA

For Alexandria Butler-McDow, 28, going to university didn’t provide the freedom and financial security she'd hoped for. After graduating with an associate’s degree from the California Culinary Academy (CCA) in San Francisco, CA, in 2008, Butler-McDow struggled to find a job that would allow her to support herself and her disabled mother while also paying off her enormous student loan bill.

Hopeful that a more advanced degree would help her make more money and better manage her debt, Butler-McDow went on to pursue a bachelor’s degree in culinary nutrition, concentrating on clinical dietetics at Johnson and Wales University (JWU) in Providence, RI. By the time she had finished her second degree, Butler-McDow was even deeper in debt.

Now, nearly four years after graduating with her second degree, Butler-McDow (better known as Chef Alexandria at Better Taste Productions) is a Los Angeles-based chef and culinary consultant focusing on nutrition and education — and she is still six figures in debt. Though she has defaulted on her loans and deferred some of her payments, the end of this ordeal is still out of her reach. “We are sold the notion that getting an education is what will improve our socioeconomic standing,” Butler-McDow told Refinery29. “My degrees were supposed to bring me out of poverty but they’ve just anchored me.” ...

(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: debt; education; frauduniversity; governmentemployment; millennials; politicalclass; socialism; studentloans
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To: 11th_VA

What happened to pay as you go?


241 posted on 08/30/2018 1:45:08 PM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped)
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To: SamAdams76
You'd be better served reading the article. I normally don't but 90% of the posts on this thread are based on a completely incorrect understanding. The article is pretty brief. She want for an AA and BA. Her disabled mother took out a load to help her.

She's actively looking for work and was scooping ice cream at one point. Many of these stories are just a result of stupid left wing thinking (thinking? I'm being generous!), but this one struck me as a little more understandable, in a sad sort of way.

242 posted on 08/30/2018 1:45:17 PM PDT by Patriotic1 (Dic mihi solum facta, domina - Just the facts, ma'am)
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To: 11th_VA

Get some sponsors and start a cooking
show with a little different twist
than what the other shows have.
San Fran does have great seafood.
(or had when I was there in the
late 60’s).


243 posted on 08/30/2018 2:08:02 PM PDT by Lean-Right (Eat More Moose)
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To: 11th_VA
“We are sold the notion that getting an education is what will improve our socioeconomic standing,” Butler-McDow told Refinery29.

And now you know it doesn't. There's your education, sugar. Now, make me a sammich.

244 posted on 08/30/2018 2:30:19 PM PDT by TigersEye (This is the age of the death of reason.)
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To: Patriotic1
I just went back and read the entire article. So she now has a bachelors degree in Culinary Nutrition at Johnson & Wales University in Providence along with the associates degree from the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. Never even heard of those two schools. Looked up Johnson & Wales and they are a "non-profit" private university! Now that's irony for you. Looking up the California Culinary Academy, I found that it is no longer, as class-action lawsuits (for exaggerating job placement percentages) caused it to shut down.

So the poor girl is $100K poorer and is still apparently as unemployable as she was before.

I don't know the whole story and I probably never will but it seems odd she would go into debt for so much money in order to obtain obscure degrees that are "fringe" at best.

Our young people are sold a bill of goods with these college degrees. It is drummed into them that they must get a degree in order to get a job and that is just not so. It is much better to get into the workforce and learn your skills that way. If you want to go into night school to get a degree while you are working (as I did), then all the power to you.

So many people are going to college that degrees are not valued like they used to be. Seeing a college degree on a resume does not impress me at all unless it was at a respected university and/or pointed out that they were awarded scholarships based on academic performance.

It used to be that a college degree meant something and almost guaranteed employment as it was relatively rare back in the day. Now everybody's got one so it's nothing special anymore.

245 posted on 08/30/2018 3:13:58 PM PDT by SamAdams76 ( If you are offended by what I have to say here then you can blame your parents for raising a wuss)
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To: miss marmelstein
I thought most of you guys had gravitated towards the Q threads but here you are off-topic as always!

I would think that advising a young woman to get married rather than going $100K in debt for a degree she can't get a good paying job with, is entirely on topic.

246 posted on 08/30/2018 3:37:19 PM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("It rubs the rainbow on it's skin or it gets the diversity again!")
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To: 11th_VA

Her youtube vids tell you all you need to know.

VICTIM!

I understand that she was misled, Hold the misdoers to account, and stop blaming me.

Leave LA and stop smoking the liberal crack!


247 posted on 08/30/2018 4:31:21 PM PDT by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: Lean-Right

cioppino! yum!


248 posted on 08/30/2018 4:34:07 PM PDT by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: poinq
Ok, she got a culinary associates degree for 100K? Its hard to fix stupid. That degree should have cost her about $10 to $20K. This lady has a problem with spending money. I wonder if she is fat too.

Reading is fundamental:

"my total debt after CCA was about $20,000"

249 posted on 08/30/2018 4:39:03 PM PDT by 13foxtrot
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To: SamAdams76

A degree does hold sway with todays gate keepers.

About as much sway as 38 years of work experience.

She is whiny privileged thing, but was SOLD A BAG OF BS


250 posted on 08/30/2018 4:39:29 PM PDT by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: C19fan

Don’t forget the bottom tier private school Johnson and Wales University. 81% acceptance rate.


251 posted on 08/30/2018 4:41:49 PM PDT by PAR35
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To: 11th_VA

.
My 35 year old step daughter is in roughly the same boat, and she was warned, but “knew better.”
.


252 posted on 08/30/2018 4:44:08 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: PAR35

Guys running Vending machines make more money than she does, but you have to negotiate contracts to stick machines into the places where the educated folks can’t do math and are willing to but 5 Cokes a day at $1.50 ab pop.

Stick some snacks in the machine and label them “heart healthy” “fat free”

Heck sell them a bottle of tap water in a biodegradable bottle for $1.75

Book learning must work up a lot of thirst LOL.


253 posted on 08/30/2018 4:51:13 PM PDT by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: heights

A degree in Celtic studies? What did her parents think of that? Who is going to hire her with that kind of degree?


254 posted on 08/30/2018 6:19:37 PM PDT by ladyjane
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To: editor-surveyor

Hopefully she would be receptive to what Dave Ramsey teaches, it can change her life


255 posted on 08/30/2018 6:21:55 PM PDT by 11th_VA
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To: 11th_VA

Someone who can make a living on a single college degree majored in engineering, accounting or something with real world application, therefore they live and work in the real world.

Not that the food industry doesn’t have a real-world application but the reality is that cooking decent nutritious food isn’t that difficult.

Certainly, it doesn’t pay to the extent that you could pay off $100K in debt in a few years.

My niece got a Ph.D. in Physical therapy and is paying off $100k but she’s paid well in a deild that has real demand.


256 posted on 08/30/2018 7:15:12 PM PDT by Ouderkirk (Life is about ass, you're either covering, hauling, laughing, kicking, kissing, or behaving like one)
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To: 11th_VA

All that “schoolin”, and you are still stupid......


257 posted on 08/30/2018 7:18:02 PM PDT by Dandy (Drain the swamp baby!!!)
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To: 11th_VA

.
Dave is right about financial responsibility, but way wrong about eternity.


258 posted on 08/30/2018 9:48:28 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: PapaBear3625

Well, it’s not, dummy.


259 posted on 08/31/2018 3:42:27 AM PDT by miss marmelstein
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To: miss marmelstein
Well, it’s not, dummy.

Can't argue with that breathtaking example of logical reasoning.

Meanwhile, I still hold that the nation derives more benefit from middle-class women marrying young and debt-free, and raising three or more kids to be productive citizens, than from a woman going $100K into debt for a worthless degree.

260 posted on 08/31/2018 4:55:14 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 ("It rubs the rainbow on it's skin or it gets the diversity again!")
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