Back in my naive days, when I actually thought having a degree meant something, I managed to accrue a significant student loan debt, mostly from the out-of-state graduate school (that I did not even graduate from).
The plan always was to get a good enough job via the degree that would eventually help me repay the student loan. Fast forward 12 years: I am near-broke with a below-average salary job and a couple extra grand built up in interest on the loan. The loan agency will not make any deals with me to reduce the monthly payments, so basically I can either make my loan payment _or_ have food and a roof above my head.
Today I received a call from the agency (Aspire Resources) telling me I'm about to go into default, even though I made a nominal payment to try to reset the 270-day rule (turns out they only accept the monthly payment in full as criteria for "payment" -- I'm not sure if this is legal or not). So I quickly do some research and find out that not only can student loan collection agencies garnish your wages with a court order, but they can also freeze/empty your bank account and take back any tax refund money you might have.
So my question is, how feasible is it to use cryptocurrency should I have to hide money from these debt collectors? I can't pay my bills in bitcoin, and if bitcoin should drop down to $20 per BTC, then I might as well just have handed over the money to these weasels in the first place... Don't think the property manager will accept BTC either for rent - he's at least 70 years old.
My boss on the other hand is quite tech savvy and I'm sure I could request to be paid in bitcoin. The problem then becomes, can wages denominated in BTC also be garnished? Hard to say since its currently classified as "property" by the IRS. I live in a remote area which hardly even knows or much less understands bitcoin.
Has anyone here been in this situation before? Your thoughts on the matter are appreciated.
Thanks from a broke ex-neuroscientist.
So you said a degree isn't worth anything, but then you say 12 years later you aren't making much money??? So it sounds like you graduated with a bachelors in something, but dropped out of a Masters program? I gotta tell ya, you have to do your own due diligence on everything. I specifically chose my degree of Information Systems because the world is turning to analysis on everything with someone smart enough to make good decisions to save businesses money(Example would be to produce more of something at once to drive the cost down and figure seasonality of the item and how much volume it will realistically have).
If I didn't have a degree I would be fucked. I would not have a job, my girlfriend probably would have left me for not having a job that is better than working at Staples as a sleazy tech. My life would be stupid, I wouldn't be able to afford almost anything, probably have to live with my parents(unless I worked 2 jobs). If I worked 2 jobs then I have no life/no hobby/no fun. If you really want to get the most out of life you have to look into where the demand on something is, like degrees. You can't trust almost anyone who has an older way of thinking "just get a degree in some science thing that sounds good, people love science n stuff you will get a job". You need real data, and the government provides forecasts and growth estimates if you go to bls.gov or something like that.
And how is being a neuroscientist not higher than average paying??? I am pretty sure that field is EXPLODING as more and more money is being thrown at figuring out things in that field.
