The College Convo We Should Be Having

Image by @stepville.

By Marquita K. Harris

If you’ve ever grimaced after a well-meaning friend calls you resilient, you’re not alone. ​

“It’s such a complicated word. Ugh,” says author Stephanie Land over the phone. 

“Resilience as a virtue is assigned, especially to marginalized groups, when systemic structures have created countless invisible barriers to living what the privileged consider a normal life,” Land writes in her memoir Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education, which came out in November. 

Land’s first book, Maid, shared her journey cleaning the homes of the upper class while trying to survive as an impoverished single mother. The book debuted in 2019 to much fanfare and was turned into a critically acclaimed Netflix series two years later.

Class picks up where Maid left off, as the best-selling author peels back the layers of difficulty around getting a college degree in your mid-30s, the bureaucratic tomfoolery of government assistance, and the overwhelming isolation of poverty.

“This was the story I originally pitched for Maid. The fact that I moved away from Washington and graduated from college was the most important part, the meaty part of my story,” she says. “This was always what I really wanted to write about.”

Now, armed with the kind of accolades that most writers dream of, Land wants to remind everyone that she, like so many of us, is still hustling to get the next gig.

What was your motivation behind writing Class? 

I hadn't finished the story yet. In Maid, I ended on a literal high note: I was up on a mountain looking toward a new place. It was a shiny, happy ending. But in reality, it got so much harder after that. Just the story of getting through college at that time.

You dig into this in Class, but can you tell me more about the challenges of attending college in your 30s?

I had a child, first of all. I was a lot older than the other students, so the social aspect of school was something I missed out on. I didn't know that was a thing until much later. I didn't know how important that is to the trajectory of your success, and how college and the experience and the degree will kind of carry you after graduation. That was the hardest part for me, just not understanding the hidden stuff. There are a lot of things about academia that I had no idea existed. I didn't even know what “office hours” were. [laughs]

I remember reading that in the book. The culture of academia can feel so foreign! 

Totally. There are things in that world I know I missed out on because I still don't know they exist. This is unfortunately not uncommon. Not to mention I was always so hungry! Did you see the study which said 23 percent of undergrads are food insecure? It was horrible to be tired and stressed and constantly thinking about my budget and wondering, What am I going to eat? Can I eat? To be dealing with all of that as a mother especially… it was isolating. It immediately makes you feel like there's a shroud around you that makes you very different from everyone else. I wanted to hide.

But what about the flip side of that? What advantages did you have, that perhaps younger students lacked? 

Purpose. I knew exactly what I wanted to get out of everything. I knew the dollar amount that every class cost me. I knew that my time there was extremely valuable and to take advantage of everything that I could. When [professors] asked for 10 pages, I handed in 20. I instinctively knew that I wasn't going to have much more opportunity. So I took way more writing workshop classes than I needed to just to continue being immersed in the workshop environment.

Is a college degree still worth going into debt?

I have a hard time with the word worth. It means you're applying value and that usually means monetary. It shouldn't be a question of whether it’s reasonable to dump all of this money into education or go deeply into debt for it. It angers me that there are systems in place with higher education that are so inaccessible just because of money. It shouldn't be this way. If we want a healthy society, we should have an educated one. I hope that some people read the book and realize this and make college more accessible. But for now, it's such a personal thing, choosing whether or not to go to college. 

In the book, you recall your dynamic with your parents. Can you share more about the kind of support, or lack thereof, you had as a young adult?

I don't know what it's like to be able to call your mom when you need something. I’m estranged from my family. The book has the last conversation with my dad, which was in 2012. It's been like 11 years since I've talked to most of my family. 

It seems like there’s still a lot to unpack when it comes to your own family and upbringing. Would you ever write a book about that? 

In my early twenties, part of the reason why my mom and I had such a difficult relationship was first, she moved to Europe and, as she put it very nicely, acted out after the divorce from my father. It was a horrible period for me. I had a job, I was working 60 hours a week and had an abusive boyfriend. I was depressed and my mom was concerned about me. I was suicidal, and she encouraged me to check myself into a mental institution. I didn’t have insurance, so she offered to pay. When the hospital bills came, it was about $24,000. I asked, “Do you want me to just mail you the bill?” And she said, “What are you talking about?” She never paid and I had to declare bankruptcy. This was five years before I became a mom.

You’ve achieved so much success after your first memoir and we all know that making it as a writer isn’t easy. How do you feel about the future? Anxious? Inspired?

Oh, it's absolutely anxiety-producing. I'm still a freelancer. I'm still a gig worker. I get paid a lot more, but I mean that doesn't mean that it's still going to be there in two years…It's a lot of pressure. I'm a shy introvert in real life. This is not normal for me.

You mean all the fame and publicity?  

Yes! It's nerve-racking. I don't have any way to budget. I don't have any dependability. People tell me, “Oh, you're Stephanie fucking Land. You’ll be fine, you had a Netflix series!” but I’m still the one who picks up dog poop in my yard and I am not that famous. I am always going to be scraping along and scrambling to get the next job.