28-year-old paid off over $75,000 in law school loans selling her art
28-year-old pays off law school loans by selling coloring books and stickers
28-year-old pays off student loans a year after graduating law school without working as a lawyer
This 28-year-old’s art gig helped her pay off her law school loans in just over a year
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Elyse Burns says she enrolled in law school at Duke University in 2019 and took out federal student loans to cover $63,000 in tuition plus living expenses. A career in law seemed like a practical move, but he knew he wouldn’t work as a lawyer before graduating.
“I think everyone knows that you can make a good living as a lawyer, but not as an artist, and that’s kind of like the stereotype and the idea,” the 28-year-old actor says.
Burns began selling hand-painted canvases on Etsy in 2015. She says she opened a bank account on her 18th birthday, linked it to an Etsy seller account, and sold two pieces within a week. By 2020, the company Elyse Breanne DesignHe says he reached six figures in sales and earned $360,000 in revenue that year.
After completing law school, she was able to go all-in with her business, which now sells a variety of products such as stickers, coloring books, stationery and home goods. By September 2023, he had paid off all of the student debt he paid to get his law degree before he even took the bar.
Burns founded Elyse Breanne Design as an Etsy shop when she was 18
Elyse Burns
Although he is not pursuing a law career, Burns does not regret going to law school and sees it as part of his journey to success for himself and his business.
“I was very lucky and getting here included going to law school,” he says. “Sharing that I was in law school and running a business on TikTok was part of what initially destroyed my business.”
Why did Burns choose art work over a law career?
Burns’ art work remained a side hustle when he entered law school. She worked at Duke’s First Amendment clinic over the summer, but couldn’t fight the urge to focus on her art.
“I was doing exactly what I wanted to do legally, and I was still like, ‘Man, I want to call it a day so I can paint,'” he says.
She joined TikTok and began publishing her creations on the platform in 2020 and began selling her designs wholesale through it. FairA platform that connects brands to retailers. That’s when things really started to take off, he says. Talking about running an art business while studying law seemed to resonate with viewers on TikTok.
Having made a livable income from his art business, Burns began to rethink his legal career. None of the various ways he had previously considered to pay off his loans – either working in corporate law and demanding a high salary to pay them off quickly, or going into public interest law and pursuing Public Service Loan Forgiveness for 10 years – appealed to him all that much.
Burns pitched the idea of skipping a law career to her now-husband. He says he would become depressed while working as a lawyer and felt like working so hard “was going to take away his whole life.” He fully supported the idea of pursuing the career he felt more passionate about and was confident in his ability to repay his loans. Still, he says he’s “motivated” to finish the law degree he started.
“Even though I knew it wasn’t going to be necessary—the degree wasn’t going to do me much good—I think it was something I was so convinced I needed to do,” Burns says.
All of Burns’ loans were federal loans, meaning they were still in the pandemic-era interest-free forbearance when he graduated in 2022. This motivated him to pay off his debt quickly before interest started accruing.
He completed more than $75,000 in outstanding loan payments in 2023, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Burns isn’t sure of the total amount he borrowed and paid back, but he estimates the cost of care was $63,000 a year, plus about $20,000 for living expenses. He says he receives a $25,000 scholarship each year and pays out of pocket his junior year.
Business is still booming
Elyse Breanne Design generated approximately $4.6 million in sales across various outlets in 2025 online And Mill and MeadowIn 2022, he opened a stationery store in Durham, North Carolina. Elyse says she is the sole owner of Brianne Design and is constantly reinvesting the company’s profits to expand the business. The company has 18 full-time employees.
Burns has had his share of challenges as a small business owner; He first learned how to run a company as his own company developed. A growing business comes with ever-changing and expanding needs, “which is a big problem,” he says.
He says the company has outgrown all the commercial space it has occupied since Burns began leasing warehouse space in 2021. Burns says the next big goal is to get more products from more department stores. For now, he says, shoppers can find his designs at Blick Art Materials stores and about 40 Hallmark stores.
There are times when Burns gets tired and overwhelmed and wishes another firm would take his. But if the opportunity to sell his business arose, he says, “I don’t think I actually feel that way, because I don’t know what else I would do.”
Taking the bar exam probably won’t be on his agenda.
“What else am I really going to do? It’s got my name on it. If I were to sell it, I’d want to start another business like that,” he says. “So I think the path ahead is pretty much the same and I’ll see what kind of it happens.”
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