Biden's student loan forgiveness has helped in many ways | Opinion
Colleen Kelly Mellor, a former monthly columnist for The Providence Journal and author of three books, is working on her fourth: “Az and Me: A Partner’s Journey with Alzheimer’s," due out in late spring.
I was a public school teacher in Rhode Island for 30 years. When I retired in 1997, I left at a top salary of $43,000. Actuarial experts assured me I would have enough to live on, if I lived frugally. (I had always done that, since I was widowed twice by 43 and I’d raised two daughters alone.)
At the time, I couldn’t know how the loss in 2011 of the Cost of Living Adjustment for public employees would adversely affect me, freezing my income from that point on. The COLA had been contractually assured by the state to those of us who taught at that time. No matter — we lost it. The state reneged on its promise and we were never compensated in any other way.
Because of my widow status, I had taken on many extra jobs beyond teaching (waitressing, tutoring, working at the polls) and paid taxes on that income, making me eligible, eventually, for Social Security benefits. (I’d been married to the father of my daughters under 10 years so I didn’t qualify for widow benefits.) I’d learn only after retiring that the federal Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) denied me rightful benefits there, too; instead of the $450 per month Social Security payment I was owed, I’d get $130.
More: New report says 2011 pension reform has led to high public employee turnover rates in RI
The only real financial perk I enjoyed as a teacher in Rhode Island? My student loans were forgiven. Why? I taught in a school with a high percentage of families of low socio-economic status. Ironically, the students in that school were some of the best behaved I’d ever taught and those 19 years in that school were the best of my career.
Two years following my retirement from teaching, I became a professional realtor. I had taken the required courses. I’d gotten my license and joined a real estate company, acquiring the skill and knowledge over the next several years. From the fourth year on, I was making a six-figure salary. I enjoyed another perk, too, previously unavailable to me: the all-important tax write-offs. I could now claim any number of things as necessities of doing business: rent for my office; the gas I used; meals (with clients); business costs, of course; insurance; licensing fees, etc.
So, the same person who left a 30-year teaching career at $43,000 was now making $150,000 a year. I would continue in that career for nine years.
What’s my point? The people who are truly vested in teaching — the ones who wish to make a difference in the lives of the young — do so when they might have the potential to earn so much more in the private sector.
The groups who are in President Joe Biden’s loan forgiveness program are the population willing to enter careers that pay far less but improve the lives of others: teachers, social workers, municipal employees. They should be encouraged to enter those fields, even more so, today, when municipalities struggle to fill these positions.
More: From loan forgiveness to funding fixes, how this group would fix RI's education system
Finally, I will never regret my teaching career, for it gave me the most satisfaction of any of my earlier professional lives (I am now a writer). But I wholeheartedly agree in allowing loan forgiveness for the young who go into teaching and the aforementioned careers who will never compete with the business world in financial compensation.
This loan forgiveness is really not much different from soldiers who were given free schooling from the GI Bill for their much-appreciated service in defense of our country.
The “service” from all these entities, though different, is just as essential.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: This loan forgiveness is not much different from soldiers who were given free schooling from the GI Bill.
