I started attending the Illinois Institute of Art – Schaumburg in Fall 2004. I was 18, fresh out of High School.
My HS guidance counselor, when I suggested I wanted to go into a Graphic Design field with an emphasis on Marketing and Advertising, recommended the Art Institute based on its teachers being active in their respective fields. Right there I was sold. After meeting with an AI representative with my mother, we were then both sold, since the success rate of getting a job in your field was staggeringly high, I had no doubt that I would be working full time making $35K + a year starting right out of college based on their statistics and pamphlet I received during our meeting. AI also told me Student Loans wouldn't have to be paid back until 6 months after graduation, to allow finding a job to pay them back a non -issue. Little did I know that those stats include anything from Starbucks to Walmart, and any other minimum wage job. Anyone having a job out of college was included, any job, it did not have to relate to your degree. They just didn’t tell me that, because it was their selling point.
I went to school full time, while having full time and part time jobs for three years majoring in Advertising and Marketing with emphasis on Graphic Design . In 2007, they started offering a Photography program. Photography had always been my number one priority and passion, and I couldn’t wait to switch majors. The advertising and marketing classes were run by a nice gentleman, yet he was the sole teacher for every class related to my major, and it was repetitive at best. It was essentially paying for the same class over and over just with a slightly different name or number at the end of the title. I grew tired, frustrated, and bored, and officially switched majors to Digital Photography. I took 1.5 quarters with Digital Photography as my major and dropped out.
The teacher, who was the head of the Photography department, was out of touch, outdated, and irrelevant. I know those are repetitive words, but he needs emphasis on how horrible the program was as well as his teaching. My classes consisted of sitting by a computer why he showed you how to convert RAW images into jpegs for three classes. Something that should take 5 minutes would take three classes. Most classes were me sitting behind a computer called “lightroom” time where you worked on projects for other classes, kind of like a HS study hall, except I was paying for this…. Quite a lot of money for this, when I should have been taught how to use the program. It was supposed to be the basics of the Adobe program Lightroom, and I had to teach myself how to use it. The teacher was either not in the room, or when he was in the room he was working on his own work, not even teaching or going over anything related to the class description. I had countless classes with different names, which included me sitting behind a computer not being taught anything.
During my second quarter as a Digital Photography major, I was so frustrated I went to Columbia College’s open house to see their Photography Program. I wanted to see my options, and how I could transfer to a legitimate school, with an established legitimate photography program. This was one of my lowest days, because their school was amazing. The teachers were fantastic, the art I saw on the walls was inspiring, and just the overall environment was intoxicating. I was so excited about transferring, or even just the thought of transferring to a legitimate anything compared to where I was. Those thoughts were all crushed when I spoke to their representative and counselor. Basically only 5-10% of my classes were able to be transferred. I would have to start all over. After three years of hard work. I would have to start at the bottom, and create even more debt. This is why I dropped out. I was defeated.
I started getting Sallie Mae letters and calls almost immediately after I stopped attending AI. I was able to get my loans put in forbearance for the year I was not attending school. But, when that year passed, I called Sallie Mae to explain that I couldn’t afford to pay over $1K a month in student loan bills, and their response was along of the lines of “you are not a college graduate, therefore we cannot consolidate or lower your payment.” I spoke to multiple Sallie Mae representatives, and they all stated the same thing, without a degree, I wasn’t eligible to lower my loan payments. I was stuck. I couldn’t afford over $1K a month working as a waitress to cover student loans, so I had to go back to school and graduate. I had to go back and finish two years of schooling, at a school that shouldn’t even technically be called a school. I had to create two more years of student loan debt… to afford to pay back my loans at anything less than $1k a month.
When I returned, it was exactly what I thought it was going to be, in regards to my photography classes. I had graphic design classes and a movie lighting class, that weren’t related to my major that were sufficient and useful, yet every class related to my major was a joke. I remember at least 6 classes, where a petition was passed around the class to be sent to the school administration to state that we were fed up with the lack of teaching, and outdated material. I had more petitions sent my way during class than I had actual assignments. That’s not an exaggeration, that’s a fact. Nothing was ever done, no investigation, I wrote my name on the petition, I was never contacted. No one cared.
I had a location photography class, where the teacher told us to meet at a local junkyard. When we got there, we weren’t allowed in, due to having cameras, flip flops, and the teacher didn’t bring the three model “friends” he had promised to bring. He looked at me and asked me where the closest Starbucks was. So, a parade of around 10 cars of students followed me to a Starbucks 15 minutes away. That was our class. We talked about nothing related to location photography at a Starbucks.
Another class was a group of students meeting at a teacher’s “friends” bar and grill in Chicago. We were instructed to take photographs without any guidance while the teacher ate appetizers and drank beer and wine with his friends. I could go on with even more examples, but I think two are sufficient to get the idea. The teachers were amateur at best. No teacher was prepared, no teacher had guidelines, no teacher taught, except for one, her name was Maria, and she cared, but I only had her for two classes, out of my countless photography classes.
When I started at the Art Institute, they state that they prepare you for job interviews. I did not have this. I was told the basics of interviewing, and then put in a room, where I had to sell myself with a three minute speech while talking into a lonely video camera. I was never evaluated on the speech, I wasn’t told positives or negatives. I felt unprepared, and on my own.
We had a renting “cage” where you could rent cameras, lenses, etc. They rarely ever had a camera to rent, and I would have to spend my money to rent lenses at Calumet Rentals because Graphic Design students or other students had equipment rented out. Photography students should be priority with camera rentals, but they were not. It was first come, first served. I was also told that we had access to this cage for 6 months after graduating to rent equipment. That was false information given to me from AI as well. I was not allowed to rent anything after I graduated.
The photography studio, during an indoor studio lighting class was booked by a student or other class during a class that I was paying for majority of the time my studio classes were held. I think I went in the studio once or twice during the studio lighting class… I should have been living in that studio during that class. I even remember walking across the street to a Fire Station and having the teacher instruct us to photograph the trucks, and firefighters. It had nothing to do with Indoor Lighting. We were outside, and not using lights. For the amount of money each class cost, I should not have shared a studio with anyone other than my class, and I should have been provided a studio for a studio lighting class, not have it be placed in a classroom, or outside due to studio overbooking.
My entire experience with AI and their photography program is that it was understaffed, outdated, irrelevant to modern photography careers, unsupervised, full of false promises, and a debt trap.
Two months before I graduated, I started getting Sallie Mae bills in the mail. They were for $850-$900 a month. I was told I wouldn’t get them until 6 months after I graduated, which is what AI claimed time and time again to me. Sallie Mae said AI was misinformed and giving false information. I remember having $75 in my bank account, and Sallie Mae asking me for that $75. I remember crying hysterically on the phone with Sallie Mae feeling incredible stupid for going to College, broke, and still having two months left at school to worry about finishing. They had no sympathy.
After finally finishing my two years at the Art Institute, we had a portfolio show. A portfolio that I spent close to $400 making. One prospective employer came up to the entire group. One. A pin up photographer looking for a photographer to edit her images, unpaid. This portfolio show is glamorized so much during your time at AI, you think Walt Disney himself will rise from the dead and give you a $5 million dollar offer on the spot. I had one employer even look at my portfolio, and it was for an unpaid job. I took it, I had nothing, so I took it.
I worked for her for four months unpaid. Losing money daily, due to paying for public transit, gas for my car. She started paying me $10 an hour for roughly 3-4 days a week. I had gone through savings, and maxed out every credit card I had. I applied at my sister’s M-F office job, a place that I never wanted to work at, but I needed to because they offered me $30K a year, which was more than I was getting editing images for $10 an hour. And with $850-$900 in student loan debt per month, I had no choice. When I left the pin up job, I was owed around $100 that she never paid me. A Year later, I found out that my co-worker who had worked for her at the same time, had sued her in small claims court and won, because she owed her money in wages when she quit. She was a lead that was brought to the Portfolio Show… an unpaid internship, who skipped out on money owed to me and a fellow employee. This was the best AI could bring in?
A couple months into my regular 8-5 office job, I was able to call Sallie Mae, and somehow get my loans down to $550 a month. I called and called and called, until I finally reached someone who was part human, had compassion, and said that was the lowest they could bring them down.
Even bringing them down to $550 a month, I still was borrowing $200 a month from my bank, with a 10% interest rate each month. I was spending $20 a month in interest to take $200 a month out to pay bills. You can’t make this up. I spent months being angry, depressed, upset, suicidal, day dreams consisting of burning Sallie Mae documents, hiring a hacker to delete everyone’s debt being the student debt hero. I would go to Federal prison, but at least I would help countless students in the process. Coming to the realization that I would never be able to afford to have a child, get married, and own a house when I’m over $100K in debt. Living with my mom or a roommate for the rest of my adult life was my reality. It was so emotionally draining. It affected my mom as well, who was depressed, because she wished she had known how much debt I would be in, how much debt she would be in with Parent Plus loans. We felt ignorant, defeated, and alone.
It’s now five years since I graduated. I’ve come to terms with paying my student loans, I’ve never missed a payment, never been late once. The anger is what drives me daily to succeed. Even though I am paying a company that screwed me, and countless others over, and I would gladly trade in my warped piece of paper documenting my degree back to be free of loan debt, I won’t let them defeat me. I pay on time. I pay early. I pay what I owe.
I work three jobs. Typical week for me is Sunday working on my online headband shop, answering emails, printing orders, ordering supplies, etc. I opened it two years ago, because I was sick of being $200 in debt after bills each month. I spent $150 in supplies, and now sell on average 100 headbands a month. What this means is that on Monday, my alarm is set for 4am. I work from 4am – 6:45am. Take a shower, leave at 7:15am to get to my full time job to work 8am – 5pm. I sleep in my car on average 3-4 times a week during my lunch break when my shop has busy months. When I get home, I eat quickly, and then work until midnight or even 1am… and then I repeat this for the rest of the week. Saturdays and Sundays, I photograph anything from kid’s birthday parties to engagement sessions. I then try to find time to edit the photographs during the week. Typically I run on 3-4 hours of sleep a night on average, if I sleep in my car… make that 4-5 hours. I'm $68K in student loan debt, and my mom has $47k in parent plus loans. so, $115K total. At the start of each quarter, I was never allowed into my first class. I was always sent straight to the financial aid department, I was told to sign another loan or I wasn't allowed into class. It was rushed, nothing was ever explained, I wasn't told how much I was loaning, I was a kid who just thought it was part of the process. The amount of stress I'm under weekly due to finances is not healthy.
My diploma is in a box somewhere, I can’t manage to throw it out, simply because of the amount of debt I have from it, it would almost make it too real that it is just a piece of useless paper. I however can’t hang it up, because of the pain, frustration, lack of money, lack of sleep associated with that piece of paper.
You shouldn’t work as hard as I do, and be in the amount of debt I am. I can never catch a break, and I am grateful for my three jobs, as I wouldn’t be able to survive without them, but something needs to change. I can’t live my life working three jobs, on no sleep due to Student Loan debt. It will eventually kill me.
