I’ve been posting a lot about how people can reduce or completely avoid college debt, and why, in the humble opinion of one Someday Wise, they should.
But this same Someday Wise is, herself, a college graduate. With a bachelor’s degree. Oh, and by the way, also a master’s degree, which was completed 18 months after the bachelor’s and at the same institution. At the end of that master’s program, there was no debt.
The world was a different place in many ways back then. Said bachelor’s degree was completed in 1989, and the master’s, in 1990. All of it was completed at a large and competitive state land-grant university. It’s what’s called an R1. According to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, there are, in 2018, 115 R1 colleges. These are universities that grant doctoral degrees and perform the “highest” amount and level of research. In essence, smart people develop new knowledge there.
Back in the mid 1980’s when Someday was not even a little bit Wise (downright naïve, in fact), the lure of the local R1 university was irresistible. The first time I visited for some high school day trip, I was mesmerized by the beauty of its quad (one of the nicest you’ll find, in fact), and fixated upon a dream of attending.
I had to maintain a decent grade-point average (no problem for classes that came easily, but difficult when I hit brick walls, in, say, advanced algebra, pre-calculus, chemistry, and Spanish). I also had to score well on the entrance exam. Luckily I am a good standardized test-taker. I plan ahead and get a hold of practice tests if available, brush up on whatever I don’t know a day or so in advance, stay calm throughout the ordeal, and I NEVER CHANGE MY FIRST ANSWER! Second guessing one’s first instinct is a ticket to bad scores, a ticket to messing up your own juju, a ticket to an overall sense of failure. Boo!
Did I consider the local community college? Well, yes and no. My parents, of course, wanted me to go there. I did not. I was anxious to leave home as soon as possible, but I wanted a setting that was more interesting than the town I was leaving. I had been an independent child from a young age. I had a good sense of direction and survival. I was babysitting before double digits, and I had worked a “real” part time job before I was old enough to drive and throughout high school.
Frankly, I had had it with my hometown, many years before I finished high school, and I wanted OUT. I wanted that beautiful campus I mentioned earlier, within a huge community of serious students engaged in the pursuit of greatness. In fact, it was the only school I applied to. I considered the military, and I looked at all the mailers I was sent by colleges within a 3 or 4 hour radius of home, but none of them called to me. So I applied to the one big state university, knowing that acceptance (as well as affordability) was less than a sure thing. The back up plan was that local community college. I saw no point in paying the premium price of residential college for any less than my dream school.
As it happened, I got in. And my parents, who had divorced just a couple of years earlier, were in challenging circumstances financially right at that time, and so I was given a need-based package that made it possible for me to actually go. Unfortunately I did not keep any of my old statements, but I think tuition was only about $3,000 per year for in-state students at the time, and I think my grants covered that for the first two years. Of course, there are other expenses, like books and the residence hall fees.
I did a few other things to help deal with the cost: I had saved part of the money I earned at that part time job in high school. I lived in a dorm that allowed you to forego the dining plan and feed yourself, saving many thousands of dollars per year, even back in the mid 1980’s. I had a 10-15 hour per week campus job. And I earned an additional small, merit-based honors scholarship, that I did not even apply for!
Even in tough times, my parents were able to help as well, and so all of those resources covered my first two years. Things improved for them in subsequent years, and my need-based grants dropped. However, I became a resident advisor at the beginning of my junior year, which included full room and board. I did that for three semesters, which was, frankly, stupid. I should have done it until I left that campus for good.
I was hired by one resident director who I wanted to work for, and she quit immediately after hiring me. I was not a good fit for her replacement, and suffered through an unhappy experience and working relationship with this individual, but I chose to go back to the same dorm senior year. I could have tried to transfer my job to another dorm that was a better mutual fit, and almost certainly would have been allowed to do so. But instead, I foolishly returned to a situation that I knew was dysfunctional. Can you guess why a young woman would do such a thing? That’s right. A boy.
Things did not work out very well with either the boss or the boy (not the same person), and so I quit my job at the end of fall semester of my senior year. This was unspeakably foolish from a financial standpoint, and my parents were not very happy about it. In fact, the total situation was a case of immaturity on my part. I had red flags all over the place in this situation, and I did not see the wisdom (there you go!) of solving the problem in a way that made sense.
Perhaps that was the period in my life when I started to vaguely understand what a fool I was. The period where I began to strive to become Someday Wise.
I managed to find lodging at a relatively reasonable cost at a rooming house just a block off campus, finish my bachelor’s with one $650 loan (I did not want loans, but that final year’s financial aid package sort of stuck it to me), and move straight into a master’s program. Once again my grade point average was borderline (B+ at a school that wanted to see all A’s) but my GRE test scores were, well, exceptional and so the doors were flung wide open for me.
I was given a fellowship, a research assistantship, and a teaching assistantship. I was expected to take two classes per semester, and teach two classes per semester. This package included a full tuition waiver, plus a modest monthly stipend (salary). It included work and class for the summer session as well. During the 18 months of this program I was able to manage all costs without further aid from the government or my parents, and I paid back that little loan as well.
I was grateful at the time for this deal, but in fact I later found that the opportunity costs of the additional time at school, and out of the non-academic job market, were at least somewhat detrimental to my career. You see, I had planned to pursue a doctorate and become a professor, but during the short master’s program I quickly realized that was not the path for me. I finished the program, because, free master’s, but then that experience made me both over and underqualified for gainful employment afterward. Too much education, too little marketable experience.
Eventually I overcame it, but my career path was really messy and bumpy after all that college. Granted I made a lot of mistakes in maximizing my prospects and networking, my college extra-curricular activities, my job hunt and my aspirations in general. Again, that niggling sense that I was missing something, something I called wisdom. I knew I was really short on that commodity, and I thought, “If I live long enough to become wise someday, that would be awesome. Because I know I’m book smart, and yet I feel pretty immature and foolish and clueless.” That journey continues, nearly 30 years later.
But, at least I finished college without debt! I had a clean financial slate to start carving out my own little unwise niche in the big, beautiful world.
Have a nice day!
Someday Wise 