I frequent a couple of discussion boards. Judge if you must. Now, I must make sure the record shows that I *never* actually participate in discussions on these boards. I’m honestly not sure if that makes the amount of time I spend on these boards more or less pathetic, but it is what it is and I’m totally confident in my online time wasting skills.
Anyway, on one of these discussion boards, I found this (paraphrased for the purposes of this blog) little gem of a thread starter:
My son is thinking of marrying this girl who has $85K in student loans. Should he marry the poor, stupid idiot who has more debt than him?
OK, I might have paraphrased a lot. But whatever. The point is some poor innocent little girl somewhere has her potential future mother-in-law a) talking to her son about personal financial details, b) posting these personal financial details on a freaking Disney message board and c) using phrases like “thinking of marrying” when he’s probably already proposed and Mama just can’t handle it. I feel certain this future mother-in-law also freaked out the first time her son got sick and told her that his girlfriend had already bought Tylenol, Gatorade and chicken soup and her Mama services were not needed.
That’s totally not the point of this post. I just get a little sidetracked with mother-in-law related posts. SORRY.
The thread took a turn for the ugly and everyone started weighing in on whether you should have that much student loan debt. As always happens on this particular message board, you have several holier-than-thou Mamas who jump in to talk about how their kid is doing two years at community college before going to a four year school because it’s cheaper. Now, I don’t know anything about their personal financial situations (and obviously I don’t need to know because I’m not them...or their future mother-in-law). However, this discussion comes up frequently and I never get the impression from these families that the problem is affording a four-year college. The issue is that they don’t think it’s “worth it” since you can go to the classes at a cheap community college and then transfer them in.
Why would you pay more for a four-year college when you can get the same thing at a two-year?
And that’s where I have issues. Because, when it comes down to it...it’s not “the same”.
I MUST HAVE A DISCLAIMER HERE: I have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING against community colleges. I went to one last year. I think that there are probably a lot more kids who should start at a community college. It’s a chance to “ease” into college for those who aren’t quite ready, whether emotionally or academically. I THINK THEY’RE GREAT.
I personally would have been miserable had I gone to a community college for the first two years of school. I know that will not be true for everyone but, let’s be honest, this is my blog so it’s really about me. I had one academic professor at Jeff State who truly made me think (shout-out to Dr. Black). I can’t name a professor at BSC who didn’t make me think. I had a teacher at Jeff State (I can’t call this man a professor because I’m 99% sure he took a YouTube course on teaching) who told me over and over that my thoughts were wrong and invalid. The thing is, this was for a course on analyzing movies. The question was “What do you think Hollywood wanted us to get out of this movie?”. I’m sorry, if you ask me what I think about something you can’t tell me I’m wrong unless a) I’m so in left field that it’s obvious I never even watched it or b) I can’t defend or justify my statement. In his mind, I was wrong because I didn’t think the same thing he did.
I went to a four-year school straight out of high school. I went to an expensive four-year school. I have loans. I don’t care how long I’m working on those loans. I don’t care what side jobs I have to take to pay them off. I wouldn’t trade my time at BSC for the world. It was the right choice for me. I needed to live in the dorm. I needed to join a sorority. I needed to be immersed in an environment where the professors care, and your opinions are valid (even if they’re not “right”). It was right for ME. And that’s the important thing. You’ve got to be at a school where you fit. I may have a ton of student loans (although no where near 85K), but I’m a completely different person than I would have been otherwise.
And BTW, they told the future mother-in-law that she sucked and she should get her crazy-train nose out of her son’s business. All is right in the world.
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