It’s the beginning of the school year and everyone is scrambling to get textbooks, note pads, binders and other small school supplies together. The schedule is changing and some of you are sending or have sent your children for the first time away to college, others are dreading the end of next summer when you have to send your baby away to school for the first time.
Personally, I couldn’t wait to get out of the house and get my own place, but I didn’t want to go to school anymore. Having worked through all of my primary school years as hard as I could to maintain a 3.5 GPA, I was done with it. At the end of my Sophomore year when everyone was talking about college, I didn’t want to hear anything about it. A lone wolf, I was going to make it on my own, join the army or figure it out along the way. The decision I did make lead me to where I am today, however it also dropped me into the biggest hole of debt I never wanted to be in.
As a junior I allowed myself one class in the arts. Photography, it was my safe haven, the class I went to and excelled in with out having to over think anything. It was my way of expressing myself, and I reveled in it. When a prestigious art school entered the classroom to speak about their accelerated photography programs, that was it for me. Three more years of schooling and a promise of ninety percent job placement, and I would have it all, or so I thought.
Getting accepted was a sure thing and the promise of what lay ahead for my future was grand. Within one month I was enrolled and would be beginning classes a month earlier than all of my other college bound friends. With in the first few weeks I was having anxiety issues from being home sick, but I was determined to stick it out. Orientation information explained that most students quit with in the first year because of the tough curriculum and rigorous hours, leaving them in a debt of thirty thousand dollars and no degree. I didn’t want to be one of those students, so I stuck it out through the thick and the thin, each year digging my self deeper and deeper in debt.
Issues didn’t stop with the immense amount of money we needed to spend for our tuition though. One of my friends, in his last semester, was told that he would not be receiving any more money because he now required a valid co-signer, when upon enrollment he was promised the full three years of tuition would not be a problem. We were all digging ourselves deeper and deeper into debt, but knew, according to our representatives, we would be in jobs following graduation, so we didn’t worry. With in my last year the accreditation board was reviewing my school to alter and renew their status as an accredited school. If the accreditation was revoked, we would not have accredited bachelor’s degrees upon graduation, but the school would also be in violation of their contract pertaining to our loans, meaning we wouldn’t have to pay our tuition back. I know most of us prayed secretly for the accreditation to be revoked, but it was not, which was also good news, as our degrees would still be transferable.
Upon graduation I made the choice to enroll in a community college to study Anthropology. While enrolling and trying to place myself in the correct classes I was informed that my bachelors degree was not transferable for a second bachelors. I came to find out that a privately accredited school would not be able to transfer credits to a state accredited school. I would have to start my general education as well as my major courses over, completely.
Its been four years since I graduated from college, and though I try to live with no regrets, I wish I had done a little bit more research, that I would have come home and gone to DVC when my mom told me I could, that I had not been so stubborn. I wish we had done more research so that my monthly loan payment did not reflect a normal car or mortgage payment.
With this, I advise you to ask questions about the schools your children are going to go to. Ask questions about the amount of money they will be putting themselves into debt with. My parents had made educational plans for me and wanted me to be able to achieve my dreams, and I don’t blame them for the choices I insisted we make. I do want this story to reach others though, so that emerging graduates have the ability to live a stable and successful life without the burden of unmanageable or nonpayable debt.
©Shani StudiosHelp your child to choose the right college career path, do your homework on every school choice.
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