My first day at Colorado School of Mines was 12 years, 2 months and 29 days ago. I learned to drive in snow, failed both calculus and physics my first time around, cried at auntie’s dinner table, learned how to learn, found a penchant for thermodynamics, and managed to squeak out one hard earned engineering degree in a blitz of three and a half years.
Two countries, four jobs, one economic recession, one divorce, one generous grandpa, one infinitely patient auntie, two entirely selfless and kind parents, lots of financial prudence, some stock from an oil company, and as of today… the debt is gone.
As much as I have learned multitudes about life, love and the pursuit of gainful employment, the debt has also been a tremendous burden. 17 year olds have zero study habits and zero ability to adequately quantify the sum of money they are about to be indebted. The number of life choices, or lack thereof at times, impacted due to this large elephant in the room known as student debt is massive. Travel? Eek, have to make my payments. New (to me) used car? Uhh, not sure I want to add $300 a month to my $1000/month of student loan payments. Divorce settlement? Do I want to take him to court or let him take my car, my dog and all of my money leaving me only with a big therapy bill and a heap of ‘dollars owed’ to xyz student loan issuer. The latter sounds nice, for expedience sake.
Through this all however, I was lucky. I graduated from a top school with a great degree which is thankfully in demand. Turns out hardly anyone wanted to be an engineer between 1980 and 2008 so it’s pretty solid job security. I weathered the Great Recession of 2009 with my job intact and have never much worried about keeping a roof over my head or food on the table. So many others, however, are less fortunate. The idea this rite of passage of a college education is the only means into an adulthood of middle class bliss has been so indoctrinated that we are blind to the zeros on the loan balance outstanding, myself most certainly included.
I am one member of a larger generation of young Americans who have been saddled with a seemingly insurmountable quantity of debt, all in the name of higher education, advancing our own station, and attending a few solo cup-laden keg parties. I wrestle with this juxtaposition and my own hypocrisy as while I so voraciously love the establishment of higher learning, I abhor the idea that this love must come at so great a cost.
How are we, a rich country so rife with opportunity, expected to rise above the financial and psychological burdens this educational promise demands? How do we right the ship on a path of reasonableness and opportunity the previous generations enjoyed?
I currently live in Canada, where a college education for 4 years cost roughly the same as 1 or 2 of mine. My elation today is tempered by my friends and colleagues who have no concept whatsoever what 100k does to your young adult psyche over 12 years. Did I learn more because I paid more? Probably not. Do I have a much different view of risk, financial circumstance and the privilege of education? Definitely.
I wouldn’t wish any 17 year old the burden of six-figures of debt. However, I would wish for any 17 year old a degree that will simultaneous kick their ass and open more doors than they could imagine. CSM is a weird little school with weirdly smart students and an even weirder mascot. But it made me weirdly proud to have been one of the handful to struggle through to the finish line and now to the finish line of the cost of it all. Even amidst the debt, I’d do it all again, maybe a few things here or there different, but mostly the same. The biggest lesson of it all was discovering how to work and learn, to understand the true value of money and risk, and to realize how much I value all of the above.
I have a busy day at work but part of me wants to ignore my email and go drink a Coors Light in a bar and make a toast to Golden, to Mines and to a 12 year chapter of my life which has finally closed. When I graduated, I made a silent promise to myself I would have the debt gone by 30 and hot damn, I made it, with 5 months to spare.
blakekathryn
andulkaphoto
turnnoffyourmind
areudirty
discoholicmusic
ellievsbear
kianamaiart
