After over a decade of late afternoon classes, consolidations, and deferrals, Thornton Melon made his first student loan payment today, and if all goes to plan, the recent grad should be debt free in 2114. “It’s a long journey to zero,” Melon admitted. “But I packed a suitcase full of knowledge.”
The journey began in 2002 at NYU, where Melon enrolled pre-law. “College was a bit of a blur,” Melon said. After graduation, the 1980’s Cinema major dipped his toes into the job market. “But I wasn’t about to work 40 hours a week,” he said. Instead, he obtained a generous new loan from the the federal government and returned to school for an MFA in Interpretive Haiku. “Before I knew it, I was a quarter mil in the hole.”
When Chubby Rain, his book of prose and poetry, failed to find a publisher, Melon briefly considered declaring bankruptcy, before learning that his student loans would be unaffected. “That’s when I decided to double down and go PhD,” Melon continued. “You gotta spend money to make money.” He earned a doctorate in Star Trek Literature Post-Shatner and then looked for a job with the help of his old high school guidance counselor. “Mr. Terguson really cares,” he said. “About what I have no idea.”
Still, Melon is confident that investing in his education will pay off. “Sure I could have started a business with the 500K, or bought the Batmobile, but who was gonna give a guy like me a loan for that? Besides, work experience is overrated. Now I’ve got the tools to think outside the box, like living in a cardboard one.”
On Monday Melon wrote Uncle Sam a check for $417 dollars, which he says, “probably won’t bounce.” He now has 1,199 monthly payments remaining and insists he’s good for it. “With advances in cyborg technology, I could easily go another century.”
Informed that interest over 100 years would bring the loan balance to approximately 1.2 million dollars, Melon dusted off an old LSAT study guide and shrugged. “I always wanted to try law school.”
News Breakage 