This 28-year-old paid off her law school loans selling stickers and coloring books

28-year-old paid off her law school loans selling coloring books and stickers 28-year-old paid off her student loans a year after law school without ever working as a lawyer This 28-year-old's art business helped her pay off her law school loans in just over a year -- Elyse Burns enrolled in law school at Duke University in 2019, taking out federal student loans to cover the $63,000 in tuition plus her living expenses, she says. A law career seemed like the practical move, but before she graduated she knew she wouldn't work as a lawyer. "I feel like everybody knows you can make a good living as a lawyer, and you can't as an artist, and that's sort of like the stereotype and the thought," the 28-year-old says. Back in 2015, Burns started selling hand-painted canvases on Etsy. She opened a bank account and linked it to an Etsy seller account on her 18th birthday, she says, and sold two pieces within a week. By 2020, her company, Elyse Breanne Design, was raking in six figures in sales, bringing in $360,000 that year, she says. After finishing law school, she was able to go all-in on her business, which now sells a range of products including stickers, coloring books, stationery and home goods. By September 2023, she'd paid off the entirety of the student debt she took out to earn her law degree, without even taking the bar. Though she didn't wind up pursuing a law career, Burns doesn't regret going to law school, seeing it as part of her and her business' journey to success. "I got super lucky, and how I got here also included going to law school," she says. "Sharing about being in law school and running a business on TikTok was part of what blew up my business to begin with." Why Burns chose her art business over a law career Burns' art business remained a side hustle as she started law school. She worked at Duke's First Amendment clinic over the summer, but couldn't fight the itch to focus on her art. "I was doing exactly what I wanted to do legally, and I was still kind of like, 'man, I just want to get this done with for the day so I can paint,'" she says. She joined TikTok and started posting her creations on the platform in 2020 and began selling her designs wholesale through Faire, a platform that connects brands to retailers. That's when things really started picking up steam, she says. Talking about running her art business while studying law seemed to resonate with viewers on TikTok. As she built a livable income from her art business, Burns started re-thinking her law career. None of the various routes she had previously considered to pay off her loans — either working in corporate law and commanding a high salary to pay them off quickly or going into public interest law and pursuing Public Service Loan Forgiveness over 10 years — seemed that attractive to her. Burns pitched the idea of skipping a law career to her now-husband. She felt she would get depressed working in law and that working so hard would "take all the life out" of her, she says. He fully supported the idea of her pursuing the career she felt more passionately about and trusted her ability to pay off her loans. Still, she "felt driven" to finish the law degree she started, she says. "Even though I knew this wasn't going to be necessary — the degree wasn't going to do much for me — I think it was something that I was so convinced I needed to do," Burns says. All of Burns' loans were federal, which meant they were still in the pandemic-era interest-free forbearance period when she graduated in 2022. That motivated her to pay them off quickly, before they started accruing interest. In 2023, she finished paying off more than $75,000 in outstanding loans, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Burns is unsure of the total amount she wound up borrowing and paying back, but she estimates her cost of attendance at $63,000 a year plus around $20,000 for living expenses. She had a $25,000 scholarship each year and paid for her third year out of pocket, she says. Business still booming In 2025, Elyse Breanne Design brought in about $4.6 million in sales across various outlets online and at Mill and Meadow, a stationery store she opened in Durham, North Carolina in 2022. She's the sole owner of Elyse Brianne Design, and has consistently reinvested the company's profits with the aim of expanding the business, she says. The company has 18 full-time employees. Burns has had her fair share of challenges as a small business owner, primarily learning how to run a company as hers has evolved. A growing business comes with constantly changing and expanding needs, "which is a great problem to have," she says. The company has outgrown each commercial space it's occupied since Burns began renting warehouse space in 2021, she says. The next big goal, Burns says, is getting more products in more big box stores. For now, shoppers can find her designs in Blick Art Materials stores and about 40 Hallmark locations, she says. There are times Burns gets exhausted and overwhelmed and wishes another firm would acquire hers. But if the opportunity arose for her to sell her business, "I don't think that's how I really feel, because I'm like, I don't know what else I would do," she says. Taking the bar exam would not likely be on her agenda. "What am I really gonna do other than this? It has my name on it. I would just want to start another business just like this, if I were to sell," she says. "So I think the road ahead is pretty much exactly the same, and I'll just see what kind of happens." Want to get ahead at work? Then you need to learn how to make effective small talk. In CNBC's new online course, How To Talk To People At Work, expert instructors share practical strategies to help you use everyday conversations to gain visibility, build meaningful relationships and accelerate your career growth. Sign up today!