College and I have always had a tenuous relationship. I grew up being told that I HAD to go. That I would be an utter nobody, never able to hold a good job, relegated to the shanty towns of *gasp* poor people, if I didn’t go to college. To become *someone* you HAD to go to college. Life was absolutely impossible if you didn’t go to college.
Then in my senior year of high school I realize I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and college costs money. Lots of money. Then one of my wonderful teachers got me a scholarship (I didn’t think of going for any, because scholarships were like, for basketball players and valedictorians, of which I was neither.) So after a semester off, where I caught up on some sleep, enough that I felt utterly useless and knew I had to do something, I started at U of L.
Now I loved it. Really, I did. I liked the school environment, meeting new people, and the utter lack of pressure, so that I could actually enjoy learning for learning, not because the world had *expectations* and I’d better damned well live up to them. (By the way, if you haven’t noticed, being a white middle class person doesn’t solve all your problems.) But after three semesters I got a shit teacher who failed me in history 101 because I used the PC term BCE in essay questions and he began the semester with a thirty minute lecture on his Christianity and how he’d be teaching History from a Christian point of view (no matter how hard I studied, no matter how many details I gave or how good my grammar I NEVER got over a 60 on my tests in this class, which is utterly ridiculous seeing as I always got high 8os and 90s on the multiple choice and fill in the blanks parts of the tests. But alas, I didn’t learn about dropping or protesting classes until it was too late.) And I’d finally got the pre-reqs down to get into a creative writing class, where the head of the creative writing program told me I’d be a great writer if I stopped writing genre trash.
So I lost the scholarship (there was only one more semester left anyway on it) and my plan on what I wanted to do with my life. At the least I knew U of L was not for me, and it didn’t make any sense to fight for scholarships, or take out student loans if the only thing I wanted to do I couldn’t go to college for (that would be writing. I know there are colleges that teach and respect genre fiction writing, but they were very far away and I was not ready to completely relocate and incur a ton of college costs as well as live in a city where I knew no one and nothing.)
I decided to do some living and I discovered a few things. Like that it is possible to be a successful and worthy person without graduating college. Like I still want to be a writer, but I’m not entirely sure getting a degree would help me do that. And that college is clearly a big fucking load of bullshit.
To begin with, there’s the bit that was forced down my throat for so long, that I HAD to go to survive after high school. Yeah? And yet no one seems to want to help you find a way to pay for it. Or teach you the tools you need to survive on your own. Or even admit that in the present economy, or hell, any economy, you could take out $40k+ for a basic bachelor’s degree and not have marketable skills. You can (and more and more people ARE) end up flipping burgers of working at Walmart trying to pay off insane student loans.
But the truth remains that there are some jobs you need a certificate or degree for and those jobs tend to be higher paying, comparing base rates. Right now, having been out of the job market for almost 11 years I’ve got crap for marketable skills. So when the youngest started school I had to decide whether to get the job that I could, or go back to school and try to get something to give me an edge.
(By the way I also learned in this time that U of L, which had been a massive–to part time working me–$1400 or so a semester when I went in 1999 is now over $3500 a semester. So I knew the costs, as well as nothing seeming to have changed about their degree offerings, that it was still not for me.)
So I picked school, and I was too late for all the deadlines. Of course. So come January 1st when all the enrollment and application stuff opened up for the Fall 2010 school year I applied. I applied and had my transcripts turned in two weeks into January. I was on the ball. Then in May advising starts, and I’m told to get in fast because the course I’m wanting to get into (phlebotomy) fill up FAST. So first day of advising I’m down there at 8:30am (when I want to get something done I’m pretty driven.) Three hours later the advisor sees me, enrolls me and tells me:
“Oh, there is no financial aid for that program.”
Um, huh. So, why isn’t this mentioned on the program’s page on the college website? And why when I put in that I’d be going to school for less than two years didn’t the FASFA website tell me RIGHT AWAY that I wasn’t going to qualify for aid. Why when I had all my shit together and was totally serious about this, why did no one mention any of this?
So then I was faced with a choice; pay for my classes out of pocket (because we can all afford to do that, right?) or enroll in at least a 2 year degree program. Way back when I went to college the first time two years was nothing. But now…I’m not stupid. I see all the people who are having their scholarships and aid dropped for no reason other than the government can’t or won’t pay for it. Just last night there was a story about a woman who went to school to become a teacher, the state agreed to forgive her entire costs if she taught at a low income school for a certain number of years. She did, thinking it was fair, and then the state said it didn’t have the money to forgive the loan so she had to pay it all back with interest. They sent her to collections which harassed her, even threatening her with the loss of her teaching license and calling her AT SCHOOL to harass her.
Right now my family is keeping its head above water, but if something like that happened, if the school decided to renege on aid we’d be royally screwed. And what if I went for a year, then didn’t qualify for aid anymore? What use is half a degree?
Plus with most of my basics out of the way there’s a chance I won’t get aid because I wouldn’t be in school for a full two years. That’s right, I might not get financial aid because I’ve already been to school.
As it stands right now I have everything turned in. I’m enrolled, but I can’t pay. What’s worse is I can’t drop the class either, without going back downtown (and I’d have to take the kids with me this time, because school is out) because someone in the administration hasn’t put my ACT scores into the system (I turned them in my hand to the administrator’s hand) and the system claims I have to take the Compass test (which the administration said I didn’t have to take because I’ve already passed multiple college level math and English courses).
College is in a horrible state in America today. We’re told, by high schools and employers, that we have to have it, no matter what, so people are taking huge, bad risks with money and loans to pay for it. Then when they’re out with that shiny new degree they find there is no job waiting for them, just people who want to be paid back. More and more college is only for the rich, and it almost seems as if the advisors and administration of colleges are purposefully hiding things, or omitting them to continue to keep enrollment high. At the cost of what? The average person. In 1999 there was no way I could work full time and go to school full time. The per semester price of $1400 seemed like grabbing for stars. It was impossible then, now… now at more than $3500 a semester before books, housing and things like mandatory parking passes and U of L has a mandatory $500 food card fee. ALL students are required to spend $500 on a card just for the on campus restaurants. The costs and fees of college are astronomical, and prohibitive for most people these days.
Between the jacking up of tuition and tacking on of fees and the pressure to go to college no matter what the cost college has become little more than another way for us to be fleeced. Despite the ridiculousness I’m still planning on going back. But rather than letting myself be dragged into big dreams and “You need to make something of yourself”s I’m taking part of a tax return and going just through the certificate program I want.
I loved college, and I missed it. But I can’t afford to live that lifestyle at the cost of my family, my finances and the trouble college brings. Which is a shame. Getting an education should never be a bad thing.
