Running but going nowhere.
 

I've had my car for about six months now and this is my first manual car so I'm still learning to drive it but the last few times while driving my engine would rev higher than normal when applying a small amount of gas and yesterday when driving home from work on 101 North it was going up to 4k at 65 until the speed started to slowly decrease and I had to pull over on the side of the freeway after which I couldn't get it moving again.

Any thoughts on what the problem might be?

You sir have burned up your clutch.

Yep! The symptoms are bang on!

Well done. You fried a clutch in six months.

Bet you wish you bought an automatic now don't you? lol

You must be doing something terribly wrong. Hard to believe you actually fried a clutch in just 6 mos.

Really not hard to burn up a clutch if you've never driven a manual. I'm sure we've all brought a clutch to a very premature end when we started driving manual.

Should of bought an automatic.

I don't understand why some of you guys are saying he should have bought an automatic, I'm sure none of you were born out of your mothers womb clutch dumping and going WOT outta there. Everyone has to learn at some point. OP, the other comments here seem correct that you seemed to have exhausted your clutch. I'd recommend on revising your whole approach to MT, watch some youtube videos, get a friend who is confident in driving a stick, search/ask for some tips here. I'm with you as well, with this being my first stick car. Hope you learn from your mistakes.

What RPM do you usually shift at?

I had a car that when shifting low in rpms (2.5k or under) the clutch would slip like crazy. Shifting at 3.5 or 4k solved the problem.

fried chicken is what you have.. did you notice a funny fart like smell? time to upgrade to act stage 2.. that should hold you.

Just a lack of skill, or inexperience, is not likely to cause that kind of premature failure. He had to be doing something really wrong

I taught 3 high school age daughters to drive in manual tranny cars (2 in 914's and 1 in an MR2). I taught my wife at age 45 to drive a manual in a Nissan Hardbody. None of them ever did any noticeable damage to any of those vehicles.

Unless you repeatedly pull off in a gear other than 1st, or continously ride the clutch, it would be difficult to wear out a clutch in such a short period of time.

He may not have anyone to teach him to drive stick. My previous car (2001 Mazda 626 with the v6) was an MT and I learned to drive it without anyone teaching me, although I was continually reading and watching videos to help me learn how to drive stick. It's possible that he's riding the clutch, although that would be a fairly obvious, noticeable thing and unless he's oblivious to funny smells, I don't know how likely that is.