Tuesday, January 24, 2012

While attending college on the GI Bill, I applied for, and during my junior year, received VA Vocational Rehabilitation. The program paid my tuition, books, fees, and a subsistence allowance, and because my major upon the award of Vocational Rehabilitation was in Psychology, it did so through the completion of a Master’s degree in Counseling. The program pays up to the minimum occupational level of your chosen field. In my case, that equated to a Master’s degree. I also worked 25 hours a week at the college but for the VA on a work-study program earning minimum wage (non-taxable). All in all, I got many more times the $1,200 that I paid for my education. I cannot complain for what the program provided for me and my family, but there were times when I wasn’t able to pay all of the bills. To protect my credit and my ego, I used credit cards to pay utility bills, and from time to time, other credit card minimum payments. More debt!

Around the time that I was graduating in 1999 with a Master’s degree, I couldn’t find a job in counseling that would pay more than what I owed each month. My highest job offer in the field was about $26,000 annual pay as a residential counselor. That meant that I would be living at the facility most days. I couldn’t do that to my family. I missed so much of them while attending school.

They say that it isn’t what you know but who you know, and sometimes they are right. A friend that I had met in school set me up with an interview for a defense contractor position as an instructor. I got the job—which then paid about $35,000 annually. That would pay the bills—just barely (that’s how much debt I had).