American Theatre – July 2014: Freddy Arsenault is living the dream. He’s appeared on Broadway; his nonprofit credits include shows at the San Diego’s Old Globe, Virginia’s American Shakespeare Center and Manhattan Theatre Club. But he is also $165,000 in debt, a holdover from having to borrow to attend the graduate acting program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Over iced tea in midtown Manhattan in April, Arsenault recalls receiving his first bill from Citibank, his private loan lender, shortly after graduation. “I owed about $1,200 that month. I panicked. I went into a cold sweat. I started thinking, ‘How am I going to maintain a career like this?’”
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Student loan debt is becoming a huge issue in our country today. Not just in our industry, but in every industry. It is setting our generation back even further when they get out of college. Many people will continue to pay off their student loan debt until they are 50. This is causing so many problems. The price of college just continues to increase. One can only hope that at some point it will burst. However, this article is about managing student debt not the problems with having it. Because you cannot ignore your student loan debt by declaring bankruptcy you are not really left with a lot of choices other than to just pay it off. At the same time you are worrying about all your other bills that you have to pay in order to keep your credit clean. It is tricky, especially when you are on a sporadic income. Many artists who are paying off their student debt will have to get second jobs just to make ends meet on a weekly basis. This is a growing problem but if you know how to tackle and deal with debt, you can get through it as an artist.
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