Woman Gets Raise And Pays Off Student Loans By Asking The ‘Over/Under Question’

It's a simple question, but one that will definitely change the way you look at how much you're worth in the world of capitalism.

After a master’s in social psychology and two undergraduate degrees in anthropology and American studies, that cash adds up, my friend.

"My family is super working class," she explained to Buzzfeed News, "My dad was a police officer in Baltimore and my mom was a homemaker... We always had money for food, and there were always some new clothes for school."

"100% wish I had learned about money in high school," she continued, "I wish I understood what debt meant. I didn’t even understand what interest meant. I wish they’d sat me down before any of us signed any papers to just be like, 'This is how much money you’ll have to make to pay this off'— at a minimum."

"Almost two years into the job, I was making pretty high five figures, so not a small amount of money, but with that level of debt, it’s still not enough to really be making a ton of headway on what I still owed," she explained.

"So I go up for my biannual review and I was like, 'Listen, I just helped to bring in a $5 million piece of business, here are all of the other things I’ve done, and I think I deserve a raise.' And my boss just said that I just wasn’t ready for a raise yet."

She asked one of her white male co-workers how much money he was making. Naturally, he didn't want to disclose, so she changed the wording of the question.

She only had to ask the question using two different numbers, one high and one around 10 grand lower, to figure out that her co-worker with the same qualifications was making at least $20,000 more than her per year.

She asked them all the Under/Over Question, and after the interviews, she was able to determine how much money she was worth as a worker vs. how much she was actually getting paid.

"Even though I was super happy in my job, I kept on thinking that if I’m being paid literally tens of thousands of dollars less than what I should be making, and I’m working this hard, I might as well be making the money that men in my industry are," she explained, "I’m not going to work for a place that doesn’t respect my value."

After switching between jobs and finally starting to make what she deserved, Caitlin was able to pay off all of her student loans.

"I still ask the over/under question," she reveals, "I’ve also flat-out told some of my junior teammates what I make. I’m here to tell them what they should be shooting for.

"There’s a burden that we carry by not sharing what we’re making with each other. It perpetuates this idea that it’s all up to you to figure out how much you should be making, when really you are working for a series of employers who have pay bands, or salary caps, or freelance amounts set by what people are willing to work for."

To celebrate her last loan payment, Caitlin filmed a Youtube video with her friends.

"When I made my final payment and made the video, I said 'I’m going to wear this traditional Korean crown that’s primarily associated with weddings at this point. I can wear it to celebrate myself and my accomplishments. I’m doing this for myself.'

"I don’t know if my degrees in and of themselves were worth it or if I could have gotten the same education for a much cheaper price tag," she says, "But what I do know is that because of where I went to grad school, I no longer doubt my value or my worth."

h/t: Buzzfeed News