Anyone who’s lived in New York City for any amount of time knows making it there requires a good amount of hustle, creativity and maybe a little luck.
That’s been the case for Ashley Alicea, who grew up in the city until her early teen years and returned in 2020.
Since then, Alicea has gone from earning about $50,000 as a preschool teacher unable to afford her own apartment to now earning $90,000 a year at a charter school, plus $55 an hour for her side hustle in mental health counseling. She’s also enjoying the stability of her own place won through the New York City housing lottery.
Now, the 33-year-old is focused on paying off her remaining $61,000 in student loans from grad school. Roughly 60% of teachers took out student loans for their education and nearly 40% have outstanding balances, on which they pay an average of $342 per month, according to a 2025 Learning Policy Institute analysis of the National Teacher and Principal Survey.
Meanwhile, about 17% of public and private school teachers reported having a second job during the school year, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
Here’s how Alicea is supercharging her debt payoff journey.
Alicea started teaching in 2016 when she moved to Shanghai, China, and worked as an English language teacher. The pay wasn’t very good, she says, but the cost of living was low enough that she could live comfortably in a nice part of town.
In 2020, Alicea moved back to the U.S. and says she got a job teaching at a preschool in New York City that paid just $50,000 per year. A typical New Yorker living alone or with roommates earns a median of $53,817 a year, per Census data.
Getting an apartment on her own felt out of reach, Alicea says: “It was a really rude awakening coming to New York and not being able to live on a teacher salary.”
For the next few years, Alicea says she struggled to square the importance and impact of her work with the low wages. Despite record-level increases in some states, teacher salaries have failed to keep up with inflation over the past decade, according to a 2025 report from the National Education Association.
New York City public school teachers typically earn more than the national average ($69,000 a year for bachelor’s degree-holders just starting out) but also face high costs of living.
Alicea spent time at a few different schools until she joined Brilla Public Charter Schools in the Bronx in 2024. She now works with students who come from multilingual households as a multilingual learner specialist and earns about $90,000 per year.
“It’s in a predominantly Hispanic community, so it’s a good opportunity for me to advocate for families and work with them in their native language,” says Alicea, who grew up speaking Spanish and whose parents are from Ecuador. “Right now I I find a lot of purpose in it, and I feel like I am making a difference in these kids’ lives.”
A ‘really expensive’ side hustle
In 2021, Alicea began going to grad school for mental health counseling with the goal of using it in her career to increase her salary potential. She graduated with her Master of Science in education and mental health counseling in June 2025.
A few months later, in September, she began working part-time as a therapy associate with online mental health provider Cerebral, where she earns $55 per hour.
Ashley Alicea works up to eight hours a week as an online therapy associate; she earns $55 per hour.
Zachary Green | CNBC Make It
By working with Cerebral after school hours, Alicea can work toward completing the 3,000 clinical hours she needs in order to become a licensed mental health counselor.
Alicea says she sees her mental health counseling job as a “side hustle” (a “really expensive” one at that, given it requires the degree she went into debt for) on top of her full-time teaching job.
She sees between six to eight clients a week and works on her side hustle up to eight hours per week on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. She typically earns around $1,500 per month from mental health counseling.
Alicea says limiting the time she spends on her side hustle has been instrumental to her own happiness so she can still work full-time (her school days run from 7:15 a.m. to 3:50 p.m.), cook, go to the gym, walk her dogs and take care of her personal well-being.
A 4-year plan to financial freedom
Alicea says she uses a lot of her side hustle earnings to pay down her student loans from grad school. All told, she took out about $92,000 to cover her tuition and living costs for four years while she continued working full-time as a teacher.
A few years ago, Alicea says a bad breakup prompted her to get serious about her money, and she began reading books, listening to podcasts and getting more familiar with financial literacy concepts. Once she started earning more money, she says she was able to save about $10,000 in a high-yield savings account and create an emergency fund with $5,000 in it. She also started supercharging her debt payments.
As a teacher, Alicea could qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness after dedicating 10 years to public service; however, she says she doesn’t want to be “tied to public service” for the time required for PSLF and would rather “keep my options open for the future.”
“I really just want to get it out of the way so I can really start investing and building my own wealth,” she says. Alicea puts about $1,500 toward her debt each month. She has about $61,000 left to go and estimates she’ll pay off her debt in four years.
Ashley Alicea was able to move into an apartment on her own after winning the NYC housing lottery.
Zachary Green | CNBC Make It
One thing that’s helped Alicea’s budget immensely is keeping her rent low. She’s a two-time winner of the NYC housing lottery, a program that helps residents find affordable housing.
Alicea checked for new units daily until she got approved for a unit in 2023 and another in 2025. Her rent is now $1,954 per month.
Alicea says she tells everyone she knows to give it a shot: “It’s worth it to leave an apartment for a stabilized apartment that’s more affordable, especially people living with roommates.”
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