Need Help Clearing A Student Loan

I just got dropped from my MFA program because of an old student loan from UCSC.

I just found out I have to pay this loan in order to qualify for NEW student loans. 

I just paid 350 dollars but The loan is close to 2k.

This is the awkward part where I pimp my story and convince you that I am deserving while begging for help:

I work at a bookstore and while I have a GREAT title and a LOAD of responsibility, I do not get paid a lot.

Like lots of people, my rent is more than 50 percent of my income. 

I have child support payments taken out of my already modest paychecks even though one has been living with me full time since April. If you need a back story on how Family Court as institution fucks over poor women please see my posts from 2014-2018.  

But I digress.

The paper work is in play at DCCS to request the payments to my ex husband be ceased BUT courts are closed because COVID.

I have always maintained that I have been grateful for the struggle that the past ten years has brought me.

That has not changed.

Two years ago I got serious about owning my shit and realized that I had a lot of culpability in my story.

I was victimized but I also participated, you feel me?

I did a shit ton of inner self work-the uncomfortable kind.

I got a sponsor, worked the steps, owned my shit. 

Anyway, I'm at a perfect part of my life right now-stable job, beloved middle child back in my life full time, and am finally becoming a literary citizen of the world.

And yet still...Capitalism, predatory student loans, and me burying my head in the sand hoping it all would go away.

Just keeping it real.

This degree would prepare me to both teach and write better.

The plan is to walk away with a manuscript to shop to agents AND a teaching career.

If I graduate at age 53, I can still work for twenty years, you feel me?

I need a more stable income, retirement benefits, health insurance, etc.

All money raised will go towards my Federal Perkins Loan.

Ok.

That's it- that's the ask.

What I know about y'all is that you always come through.

What I learned in rehab is to ask for help when you need it, and to surrender.

So this is me doing both.

Thanks for reading.  Thanks in advance for helping.