Is it "Not so well educated" or "Not as well educated"?

Note: I originally posited this on Writing, but someone told me to post it here because the question is grammatical in nature and not about the writing itself.

I am writing a scholarship essay and one of my sentences is "Although both of my parents have bachelor’s degrees now, they were not as well educated or stably employed when I was growing up." There are probably other things wrong with this sentence, but when I asked someone to read it over she suggested that I use "so" instead of "as". I looked it up, and I found that generally negative comparisons use "so" (but maybe can use as?), so it would be correct in this context, but one does not necessarily sound better than the other and I do not know which is more grammatically correct.

Bonus: she also suggested replacing "or stably employed" with "with stable employment". What about "and not stably employed." Thoughts?