Michelle Obama and Barack Obama’s combined net worth is estimated at around $70 million, so they are far from struggling. However, their reality before moving into the White House was a lot different. With about $1.3 million to their names in 2008, the Obamas were worth slightly more than the average American today. And like the average educated American, they accrued considerable student debt. Michelle, whose parents worked blue-collar jobs, went to great lengths to go to college.

Advertisement

Michelle’s late mother, Marian Robinson, instilled the value of education in her two children early on. “My mom wasn’t a teacher, or principal, or school board member, but she believed that our education was very much her business,” the former first lady said in a Mother’s Day message in 2014. The Robinsons even moved so Michelle and her brother, Craig Robinson, could access better schools. Marian, who quit her secretary job to raise her kids until they reached high school, volunteered at their school and was involved in any way she could. 

Michelle and Craig got the message. They dedicated themselves to their school obligations and even skipped the second grade. “If you aren’t challenged, you don’t make any progress,” Marian told O, The Oprah Magazine in 2007. Michelle continued to challenge herself, earning a sociology degree from Princeton before getting into Harvard Law School. Her law degree came at a steep literal price that took her and Barack years to pay off. And the debt also caused Michelle to undergo an identity crisis.

Advertisement

Michelle Obama spent her childhood working hard to get an education. But she didn’t put a lot of focus on what she wanted to do with it. She was used to the reality of her working parents and neighbors and had no idea what white-collar jobs entailed. “I picked law because it was the next thing to do,” she said in a March conversation with Keke Palmer on the “IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson” podcast.

Advertisement

She hated it, though. Michelle wanted to work with people, and corporate law involved more briefs and research than human interaction. She didn’t want to be a lawyer. That was a hard realization after all that education and the loans she and Barack Obama managed to pay off only shortly before he was elected president. “I mean, we were carrying debt for a very long time for me not to be a lawyer,” she told Palmer.

Michelle was determined to go in a different direction, but she had to plan what that would look like. “When I decided, at the stage after all that debt, ‘I don’t want to be a lawyer,’ now I have to do the hard work of figuring out, ‘Well, who do I want to be?'” she recalled. Michelle left the law firm where she met Barack to work in the public sector before delving into the nonprofit world, where she focused on community work. She had finally found her calling.

Advertisement