I spent my entire college fund and I have no regrets

[Road Guy]

there are 24 hours in the day, leaves lots of room for college, a job, and some fun...

However I think we really should be asking ourselves, why in the hell should it cost $20K a year to go to a state school? Hell even $10K?

Why do they force meal plans on freshman and force them to live in their dorms.. So they can make revenue obviously..

Lots of things wrong with the system, lots of people want to say it should be free, college loans are too big(easy to get) but I think the real question is why they hell does it cost what it does...and why has it quadrupled in cost the last decade?

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

Someone has to pay for the football/basketball arenas & player scholarships, because obviously the ticket revenue is spent on coaches.

http://deadspin.com/infographic-is-your-states-highest-paid-employee-a-co-489635228

 

[SNAPE/SMOTT PE]

I find a lot of people have an entitled attitude...a lot of people that I enteract with on a daily basis. They wouldn't say they do, but I have a different perspective than the majority.

I came from a home where my father didn't graduate HS, much less go to college. English was not his native language, and so he was passed from grade to grade because no one would deal with him. He dropped out in HS. My mom only graduated HS.

So obviously we didn't grow up with much, and anyone paying for my college education was unthinkable to expect.

There are a lot of things I am grateful for, that many would not even think about because they have had these things around them as long as they can remember.

 

[engineergurl]

At 17, when applying for colleges, my parents had a very frank discussion with me about what they could afford to spend on college. It meant the out-of-state schools I had wanted to attend were out of the question. I have said it before and I'll say it again- I'm grateful my parents were able to pay for my college. I left school with a $1500 loan. I'm also forever grateful that, when I tried to drop out after my freshman fall semester, my dad told me that it would just be harder the longer I waited. They had a number of open discussions with me about money and seeing things through and it paid off.

I've got the feeling this girl never got that discussion. She just heard $90K for "education." I put that in quotes because she felt her trip to Europe was part of that. Any fun I had, I paid for. Food, I paid for. I think even paying for that gives you a much different perspective than someone who has it all paid for.

My boss didn't pay for his kids' college. He instead took all the money he would have spent and put it in an account, which he gifted to each child after they graduated. They could use it to pay off the loans, put a down payment on a house, travel, whatever. He said student loans are easy to get. Cash is not.

This was well stated. I feel like I may have gotten off on the wrong foot when I first started school, but I didn't want to go to college in the first place so it meant much less to me. I honestly had the attitude, well, you wanted me to go to college, fine whatever. I still think I would have been better off had I followed the path that I had chosen for myself, but nearly 20 years has past and I acknowledge that by the time I turned 18 the time had passed for me to pursue it.

Personally, I worked for both a retail store and a job on campus, and during the summers I worked full time. I also finished my undergraduate degrees while working full time and going to school part time. BUT, I then went back to school because I didn't want to do what I had picked the first time around and was I on my own for that round of school. I walked away with a pretty high balance to pay back in student loans (including several personal loans) and am doing work that doesn't utilize my education fully (pretty much barely). I JUST paid off my undergraduate degrees this year.

Some people are not mature enough to head directly to college when the graduate from HS, and to have it paid for just sounds like a recipe for disaster. The generation of "entitlement" was created though, they didn't become this way just being born, and if that was how they were raised, it doesn't make them an idiot. We can disagree with it because it may not have been what we had or how we feel, but it doesn't make them stupid.

I will apologize to Ram because I got argumentative earlier and I didn't mean to pick on him. At 16 or 17 years of age, many young adults are still very reliant on their parents. CSB was able to provide a GREAT example of where her parents were open and it turned into a success story. I would like to think, I'm an example of where the parents weren't as forth coming yet still managed to pull through (I did get the daum degrees after all).

Oh- and just an FYI- I went to SUNY schools my first round of college and a community college for my second time enrolled, so I choose more than reasonably priced schools.

 

[Road Guy]

Glad to see so many self resilient stories here. Im a worked two jobs + army reserves while went to school while married and graduated with a high C average myself so i think its a good quality to have...

 

[engineergurl]

Glad to see so many self resilient stories here. Im a worked two jobs + army reserves while went to school while married and graduated with a high C average myself so i think its a good quality to have...

I remember when I made my final payment on my college loans and messaged you. You made me feel like you were as excited about it as I was, lol.

 

[SNAPE/SMOTT PE]

Glad to see so many self resilient stories here. Im a worked two jobs + army reserves while went to school while married and graduated with a high C average myself so i think its a good quality to have...

I remember when I made my final payment on my college loans and messaged you. You made me feel like you were as excited about it as I was, lol.

Isn't that one of the best feelings!!!

 

[P-E]

If she spent it all on beer; that I could get behind.

 

[Ken PE 3.1]

And bacon

 

[knight1fox3]

Some people are not mature enough to head directly to college when the graduate from HS, and to have it paid for just sounds like a recipe for disaster.

I wonder why this is? Because the group of friends I hung out with, we all knew that a college education would lead to having a better job and better lifestyle. Is it a maturity thing or just not having the awareness that a college education leads to more opportunity in life?

 

[Ken PE 3.1]

Some people are not mature enough to head directly to college when the graduate from HS, and to have it paid for just sounds like a recipe for disaster.

I wonder why this is? Because the group of friends I hung out with, we all knew that a college education would lead to having a better job and better lifestyle. Is it a maturity thing or just not having the awareness that a college education leads to more opportunity in life?

Everybody's different. I was not ready for college right after high school.

 

[knight1fox3]

Some people are not mature enough to head directly to college when the graduate from HS, and to have it paid for just sounds like a recipe for disaster.

I wonder why this is? Because the group of friends I hung out with, we all knew that a college education would lead to having a better job and better lifestyle. Is it a maturity thing or just not having the awareness that a college education leads to more opportunity in life?

Everybody's different. I was not ready for college right after high school.

Would you care to elaborate? What does "not ready" mean? I'm not trying to pry, just trying to understand the differences you pointed out.

 

[Ken PE 3.1]

Some people are not mature enough to head directly to college when the graduate from HS, and to have it paid for just sounds like a recipe for disaster.

I wonder why this is? Because the group of friends I hung out with, we all knew that a college education would lead to having a better job and better lifestyle. Is it a maturity thing or just not having the awareness that a college education leads to more opportunity in life?

Everybody's different. I was not ready for college right after high school.

Would you care to elaborate? What does "not ready" mean? I'm not trying to pry, just trying to understand the differences you pointed out.

I hated high school, had no real guidance, no real idea of what I wanted to do, no money, etc., etc.

 

[knight1fox3]

Some people are not mature enough to head directly to college when the graduate from HS, and to have it paid for just sounds like a recipe for disaster.

I wonder why this is? Because the group of friends I hung out with, we all knew that a college education would lead to having a better job and better lifestyle. Is it a maturity thing or just not having the awareness that a college education leads to more opportunity in life?

Everybody's different. I was not ready for college right after high school.

Would you care to elaborate? What does "not ready" mean? I'm not trying to pry, just trying to understand the differences you pointed out.

I hated high school, had no real guidance, no real idea of what I wanted to do, no money, etc., etc.

Gotcha....makes sense.

 

[Ken PE 3.1]

Some people are not mature enough to head directly to college when the graduate from HS, and to have it paid for just sounds like a recipe for disaster.

I wonder why this is? Because the group of friends I hung out with, we all knew that a college education would lead to having a better job and better lifestyle. Is it a maturity thing or just not having the awareness that a college education leads to more opportunity in life?

Everybody's different. I was not ready for college right after high school.

Would you care to elaborate? What does "not ready" mean? I'm not trying to pry, just trying to understand the differences you pointed out.

I hated high school, had no real guidance, no real idea of what I wanted to do, no money, etc., etc.

Gotcha....makes sense.

Sometimes you have to know when to say when.

 

[knight1fox3]

Some people are not mature enough to head directly to college when the graduate from HS, and to have it paid for just sounds like a recipe for disaster.

I wonder why this is? Because the group of friends I hung out with, we all knew that a college education would lead to having a better job and better lifestyle. Is it a maturity thing or just not having the awareness that a college education leads to more opportunity in life?

Everybody's different. I was not ready for college right after high school.

Would you care to elaborate? What does "not ready" mean? I'm not trying to pry, just trying to understand the differences you pointed out.

I hated high school, had no real guidance, no real idea of what I wanted to do, no money, etc., etc.

Gotcha....makes sense.

Sometimes you have to know when to say when.

Wait, for school or at the bar?

 

[YMZ PE]

I'm going to be a jerk here and say that I rolled my eyes at most of the comments above dissing this kid. We've all made poor financial decisions, and we've all resented people who didn't give us what we felt we were owed. And we've all argued with people who tried to give us advice because we were confused and scared. I agree with RG, it's inspiring to read about how resilient and self-reliant many of you are. But it's totally unfair to call someone else an idiot for learning a life lesson at a different stage of life than you did. If she made the same mistake over and over again, that would be a different story.

And $20k in the hole for a degree isn't nearly as bad as some of the car purchases I've seen people make...

 

[Road Guy]

Fun sucker!!!

(Did you read her actual comments in the article?). At first read i only read the intro but when i read all of her statements about basically being too good to work is what really solidified my opinion of her...

 

[P-E]

Her comment suggesting that her parents use their retirement fund was the most egregious part for me.

 

[YMZ PE]

Desperate don't look pretty. At least she came around eventually. The minimum wage job and student loan should give her a good dose of reality.