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  • Monday, September 03 2007 @ 07:31 MDT
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Chantelle Rants I remember a day, a specific moment in time, really. I was in my third year of uni and on my way to my instructor’s home studio with a couple of other students for a lesson. One of the other students was planning for his grad recital and asked me how much longer I had in my degree. I replied that I had three years left and spent the rest of the day feeling heavily oppressed that my walk across the stage at convocation was so far away.

That moment was twelve years ago. When the day that I crossed the stage finally did arrive (Accompanied by the theme from The X-Files played on bass trombone by my friend Mike. I was such a fan of the show that I had my hair cut and dyed to match Gillian Anderson’s through much of my university career.) I had another long journey ahead of me that seemed endless; repayment of my student loans.

I had two sets of student loans. I wasn’t initially eligible for government student loans because of my parent’s income so my first loan was through the Bank of Montreal. This was a lovely piece of work that required me to pay interest every month while I was in school. By the time I was eligible for government student loans, a big chunk of them actually went to pay the interest on my bank loan. Also, once out of school, I was not qualified for any kind of remission or relief because the government does not count student loans from banks when they factor a student’s total debt load. It was quite the little death spiral.

Once out of school, my government student loans remained at a relatively low monthly payment but my bank “student” loans increased every year. At one point mine were as high as $500 a month. Pre-incredibly amazing job market a few years after I left school I was working at a $7 per hour retail gig. When I called BMO’s loan department to see if there was anyway that I could get my monthly payment dropped to a more reasonable level for my income at the time, the “customer service rep” on the other end made a goaded little comment that I’d been out of school long enough to be making enough money to pay my loan every month. I really wanted to reply by saying “hey dumb bitch, did you happen to notice that I have a music degree? If I wasn’t married, I’d be living in my fucking car.” Realizing, though, that this was not going to further my cause I thanked her for her time. I was hardly in a position to argue. When I began at CP I rolled my mortgage to consolidate debt. I paid back the BMO loan and have never darkened their door since. I won’t even use one of their bank machines.

This year I was able to pay off the last of my student loans two years early. Thank you ridiculous housing market and whatever stroke of luck had us buy our house before the market went nuts. Student loans have been a painful and miserable part of my life but I can now see the benefit in my credit record. I also paid off my vehicle and my credit card this year (thanks Grandma and Grandpa). At least twice a day I get phone calls from banks wondering how they can delight me and help me with my investments. When BMO calls I tell them that by this time they should have enough students borrowing money that they don’t any of my money to invest.

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