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Indian takes ₹40 lakh loan to pursue US dream. He now has no job, a debt, ailing family
TheTechPhilosopher, a Reddit user, shares his challenges after studying in the US, now in debt and struggling with making ends meet.
Many students in India dream of leaving the country and moving to the United States every year in search of better opportunities and living standards. Realising this American dream often comes at a huge cost, quite literally, as students take loans to support their studies abroad. However, the much-sought-after American dream could turn into a nightmare if things don’t go as planned, as is the case with a Reddit user.
The Reddit user, with the username theTechPhilosopher, shared his ordeal of how his leap of faith as he moved to the US to pursue a master's degree turned hostile when he couldn’t land a proper job, leaving him and his family in huge debt. To make matters worse, his father fell seriously ill as the family struggled to cope with financial pressures. The user took to social media to seek guidance on how to navigate the financial challenges.
The 27-year-old user said that he took an education loan of ₹40 lakh in 2022 to pursue a master's in the US. While he comes from a humble background, with his father running a small manufacturing business, the user said that his family put everything they had to make his dream come true.
All was going well until it wasn’t when the user couldn't land a job there due to several reasons as he listed out - an economic recession, visa limitations, and lack of internship opportunities for Indian students. He said he couldn’t earn enough to make ends meet in the US and had to borrow money from his parents to eat. He lost that support too when his father fell ill and their business collapsed, forcing him to come back “heartbroken”, “jobless”, and with a huge loan on his head.
He eventually landed a job in India, paying him ₹75,000, however, a large chunk of it, ₹66,000, went into paying his EMIs, leaving him with a mere sum of ₹9,000 in personal savings. While the family’s business is now running, keeping them afloat, the user said he is looking for freelance opportunities to earn an extra income. However, his father’s declining health and his day job have left him “emotionally and physically drained.”
Expressing his helplessness, he wrote, “I feel like my whole life will go into just surviving this crisis. We were a modest middle-class family… and now we’re on the edge.”
He said he contacted the bank for restructuring and is applying for side gigs, however, nothing has worked so far and is seeking guidance from the Reddit community.
Sharing his credentials, he wrote, “I did my MSc in Management Information Systems, Undergrad is in IT. I have 1.5 years of work experience before doing my MS from the US and I have unpaid internship experience in the US, and I can do Digital Product Management, Project Management, Strategy Consulting, UI-UX design, AI consulting, Marketing and Sales. Let me know if you have opportunities in these domains.”
Reddit users’ advice
Several users sympathized with him, lending him a helping hand through pieces of advice. “Hopping to higher-paying jobs on an aggressive schedule - like every 8 months or 1 year - is your best option. No NGO or HNI will handover money for cases like this,” said one user.
Another user asked him to not beat himself over it and said that his degree and experience would help him in the future. One of the users also suggested taking care of his mental health while trying to navigate this situation.
