Let’s talk about money—and happiness. Yeah yeah, money doesn’t buy happiness. But it should buy food and rent, right? At 28, I’m lost. And I’m not alone. Sure, I have that degree and that job in my field. I’ve catapulted through the publishing ranks— freelance writer to editor, associate editor to managing editor. One rung on the ladder left. I’m exactly where I dreamed of being two years ago, so what went wrong?

I make $23,000 a year , $19,000 after taxes. My pay is half of what I made working as a bartender in college, one third of what I made as a stripper before that. Student loans eat up a week’s pay alone.

And it’s not just the money— bad pay just adds insult to injury. . On top of it, my job just isn’t as satisfying as I thought it would be. Part of it is the pay. Low pay is one way for your bosses to tell you that they don’t value your work, your expertise, your skills. After all, everyone can write, right? Or so they tell me…

The big thing that bothers me is that, in my office, all of the bosses are men. All of the low wage workers are women. The owner is a professed womanizer who boasted at a party that he loved having an office full of beautiful women. I never really believed in the Pink Collar Ghetto until I moved to Louisiana, where the good old boy's club is in full force. It's everywhere here.

I’ve also hit the ceiling. In this town, I'm in an enviable job, at least to ambitious journalism graduates. Of course, publishing doesn't pay because there is one company in town and if you don't like the salary, you just don't have any other place to work.

The last time I got a promotion in job duties and title, it came with a $2,000 pay cut. (My corporation was merged with a competitor whose pay scale wasn’t as good). At this rate, I’ll be lucky if I make what I made 3 years ago again by the time I’m 35. Every layoff and corporate merger equals a lower salary. And when all of your friends are out of work—or in worse jobs than you— I guess you're willing to take less because even a crappy job is better than no job.

And I don’t think I’m alone in this crisis. My peers and I can’t afford to take entry level jobs in our fields of study—jobs that lead to where we want to be in life—because we have too much debt. Thirty grand in student loans, plus ten on credit cards maxed out buying groceries during lean months. And that is on the low side. Grad school? That’ll set you back six figures. The penalty for education is a downward spiral of debt, fueled by optimism—the more educated I am, the more I’ll make, so the more likely I will be to pay off all of this debt, right?

Yet, degree in hand, I can hardly afford anything.

On the radio today, I heard that newspapers can’t find reporters because their salaries are too low to live on. Cities can’t find family lawyers or public defenders because recent grads are too far in debt to take a job that pays so low of a salary. Our generation is drowning in debt, fueled by higher education and the lack of decent-paying jobs. In the 80s, our parents said, "Go to college, honey. There won’t be any manufacturing jobs left when you get older."

But now, in waves of lay offs and job after job moving over-seas, there aren’t any jobs—period. And it seems we—the highly educated, late 20- and early 30-something skilled professionals— are the first to go. My sister, my friends have been downsized, some going a year or more without work.

On top of it, there are those of us who have decided to do what we love, believing the money will follow. I wrote my first book in the fourth grade, published my first magazine in the third. I knew publishing was a low-paying industry, but when that’s all you’ve ever wanted to do, what is the next step?

I think a lot of us are wondering what’s next. Grad school? A job change? I’m not sure. My mom says turn your lemons into lemonade. But have I forgotten how? Feels that way sometimes...