1. For the six components, it is slightly tricky, as the narrative of student debt (at least for Molly) is not only a year-long process, but one in which she is in the middle of. The abstract consists of her first introduction, explaining how she is a current student at Suffolk University, with student loans, and one of three triplets who has, since high school, been facing this financial difficulty. As for orientation, Molly’s story is more concrete: She is Molly Powers, a current senior at Suffolk. She found Suffolk her junior year of high school, and applied when she was a senior; she started attending SU in 2016. The complicating action is not something that occurred at one moment, but an issue that has grown over time: in high school, Molly applied for financial aid. Being a triplet, she had two sisters applying to attend college at the same time – effectively, her family was responsible for paying for 3 schools’ tuitions over 4 years. Despite this, she got very little aide in return, and although she appealed, she was given $500 her first semester, and has heard nothing since. She knew she would need loans, and has now accrued 4 years worth of subsidized and unsubsidized loans from Suffolk – not uncommon for students across the country.

2. This discussion culminated into what turned into the evaluation – what did all of these loans mean? For starters, I asked Molly about what her general plans of addressing them were, and provided some loose numbers of what repayments cost per month, in consideration of how many years they take to pay off. A 10-year repayment plan could mean as much as $200 a month, or to be ambitious for a 7-year plan could be upwards of $300 a month. Interest alone accounts for more of the overall cost than an unsuspecting student would imagine. Molly then described her dream home: a farm-style house, with plenty of land to grow vegetables and gardens. The house could be modest, but would have to feel like a nice, warm home. I asked when she imagined that this home could become a reality; she answered that it would likely not be until she were around 30, and that she suspected she would be renting apartments (or houses) until that time. I also asked if she had plans to have children one day, as the financial situation in such a case becomes much more difficult; she said that while she grew up family oriented and imagines that she could have a family one day, that it isn’t in the cards for her foreseeable future. The result is that student loans were something that Molly anticipated, but that she felt she was not properly educated on; no one in high school or college offered comprehensive information on the types of loans, scholarships, and grants available, as well as plans on how to repay loans or how they even operate. There coda to this story ties back to the present day, in which Molly and I said our goodbyes, stating that we would see each other in class the following Monday.

3. As for complications with the Labovian narrative analysis, Patterson suggests that “within a strictly Labovian analysis, there is no allowance made for the inevitably partial and constructed nature of any account of personal experience.” Essentially, while attempting to offer an objective view of reality, with a singular interview/narrative, it is inherently partial and biased – thus its own unique construct of reality. This is especially true with my interview with Molly; while her narrative offers a personal look backed up by national statistics and government policies, every case of student debt is unique. Molly comes from a middle class family with triplets; some students may be fortunate enough to have no loans, or some students might attend college from a different background, qualifying for many grants and scholarships that offer a college degree at a reduced price/with few overall loans. Molly’s narrative is one of a modern student facing heavy loans, but it is not the only financial narrative for students in 2019. Patterson offers another critique, in which “non-Indo-European stories may be structured so that later actions, states, or events precede earlier ones. In addition, some narrative traditions organize stories around place, or around the hierarchy of ranks of the characters or their relationship to the speaker, rather than around time.” While I attempted to order the interview chronologically, to help keep details more organized, the interview followed more of a present-past-future order. To start, I had to establish that Molly is currently a senior at Suffolk, and that she does currently hold a lot of student loans. I then asked about how she got to Suffolk, and what that process was like. Following that, I skimmed through college now to then talk about how she views her future. Student debt is a complex issue that spans decades, and as such, I had to ask questions that made the most sense to follow in execution.

4. Molly created her cultural identity through narrative, detailing chronologically through her life (and future plans) what it is like to be a student with debt. I, the interviewer, helped create this narrative through conversation; I asked questions and provided information that helped Molly consider her opinions. For one thing, I detailed how the amount of scholarships (and their value) has generally stayed the same in recent years, while tuition prices have risen and the amount of loans taken out has subsequently increased. Molly found that surprising, but also agreed – adding to one of her great observations in that students are not well informed about the loan/scholarship/tuition payment process. Together, we discussed the financial burden that students face upon graduation, and how she expects to live with loans – renting apartments, searching for dream jobs, and hopefully living in a farmhouse with a great farm, despite the financial roadblocks or setbacks that student loans may pose.

5. A response to this narrative that a reader may have to this interview is to ask why students/Molly do not seek out information on loans/payments before attending school; they may say that it is short-sighted or perhaps even foolish to sign away large amounts of money before knowing what that even means. With imaginative participation, however, the reader would have to imagine what it is like to be a student: the pressure of achieving good grades, how to apply for schools and the stress of the results, how to enroll and prepare to live away from home. Many elements constitute being a student, with financials taking a back seat. To use imaginative participation, or empathy, to view this situation, a viewer can better understand why loans are so confusing or mysterious to many. Perhaps loans are purposefully left confusing to students, so that more of them take them out and have to pay interest; perhaps it is a failure on the education system for not preparing students. In any case, empathy can show that between the logistics of getting into school and being a student (attending classes, getting good grades, building a new social life, living on a campus) that there is a lot more immediate and present things to deal with in the day-to-day actions of being a student than the loan statements that are sent yearly. Common sense also offers a great answer to the reader’s response. In general terms, many students go to college to get a degree, to hopefully pursue a career they are passionate about. To get said degree, they need to go to college; where some careers require that degree, there is no way around paying inordinate amounts of money to obtain the degree. Many students dislike the current loan situation, but without paying a lot of money for a degree, the alternative situation – jobs without a degree – may not be the most desirable choice for some people. Common sense dictates that students are aware of loan debt, but aren’t granted many (or any) other options.

This narrative analysis offers a concrete narrative to provide a personable and relatable experience of student loan debt to the statistics and analytics provided by government policies and archival materials. In conjunction with data like a $1.5 trillion student loan debt, and a stagnation of scholarship/grant opportunities with tuition prices accelerating rapidly, the personal narrative provides the issues of these statistics that people face. Not only do people face loan debt to pay off, but it hinders their perceived future: dream houses and homeownership are delayed for likely at least a decade, and the idea of having a family becomes much more complicated with the expenses that come with a child and debt repayments. Molly’s narrative provides a look into the issues that families face with siblings attending universities at the same time, and one of many accounts of how student debt is affecting young adults achieve life goals for many years to come.