Tina Erickson
- When I earned my master's degree, I struggled to pay my student loans.
- In my 20s, I saw ads for egg donors and was curious to check it out.
- Seven egg donations later, I'm still struggling to pay off my student loans.
As a new college graduate trying to break into the competitive job market, a master's seemed like the best way in — maybe the only way in.
Thanks to my parents, I was free of undergraduate student loans, so I thought taking on student loans for my master's degree wouldn't be the worst decision. I enrolled in a program at the London School of Economics and Political Science as an international student.
Now, a decade later, I'm still weighed down by my student loans and no longer work in my field of study. While my master's degree from a well-respected university still holds a lot of weight, I wonder whether it's worth the debt burden I continue to face.
Over the years, I've had to get creative and be resourceful to make a dent in the debt that comes with being a student.
Looking for alternative ways to pay off my student loans, I decided to explore egg donation
As an early-career professional working in international development and political conflict, the lucrative options were slim. I struggled to make student-loan payments to minimize the rising interest rates. For a few years, I eyed the flyers around the university campus and the Craigslist ads online looking for egg donors. Mystified by the concept and eager to supplement my income, I explored the option more in depth.
While I was initially hesitant at the thought of donating my eggs — from the intensive process to the idea of someone else using my eggs to create life — I eventually found a fantastic fertility clinic that helped answer my questions and assuage my concerns.
The process involved a series of health screenings, interviews, and questionnaires to ensure that I was physically, mentally, and emotionally fit to be a donor. I then created a detailed donor profile, complete with pictures, family history, hobbies, and grades — all to help match me to prospective parents. Once I was matched with a couple, the process took a few weeks.
I had several doctor appointments for blood draws and ultrasounds, gave myself daily injections of hormones, and was put under a mild anesthetic on the day of the retrieval. I then needed a few days of rest to recover.
Despite many donations and thousands of dollars later, I'm still in debt from my student loans
As a first-time donor with the clinic, I made $5,000 for my time. While I was initially wary of the process, I got over my fear of giving myself shots and the uncertainty around the temporary changes in my body.
Though the process is not comfortable and takes over my life for a few weeks, I felt empowered with new knowledge about my health, my fertility history, and my ability to help hopeful families, while receiving sizable amounts of money for my debt.
So I continued to donate again and again — and now have donated seven times.
Have my student loans been paid off? No. Despite the money I've received after each donation — rising to a total of about $50,000 — I still haven't been able to pay my student loans off.
For many years, I put my body through physically and mentally exhausting processes and donated hundreds of eggs to pay off a loan for my education. Yet I am still in debt.
I now think there is something fundamentally broken with a system that forces people to choose between pursuing an education and a career, and living free from debt — and to go to extreme lengths such as selling parts of their body to try and erase their debt.