“What is college? Stop going, until we figure it out!”
-John Mulaney.
In 2011, I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed 18-year-old graduating from small-town high school. I had been homeschooled through 8th grade by Mom, and Dad had been one of my high school teachers (and the football coach). I was ready to be out of there, and even though my parents had recommended that I go to community college first, I did what my friends were doing and applied to a four-year college. This was a mistake.
I committed to a subsidiary of a state school located in the less-than-charming town of Pueblo, Colorado. That August, I moved south and took out a small loan to cover the difference between tuition and my savings from my high-school job, dishwashing at the local retirement home.
I was free! Off to college and out of my one-horse town. I registered as a business major because I was 18 and… Money, right?
Fast forward 5 months, and I was back in the same town with my parents, having dropped out at the semester’s end with 12 credits at a 2.7 GPA. I had also earned an underage drinking ticket and a hospitalization for alcohol poisoning. I never found a part-time job. The absurdly expensive meal plan drained my savings, so I arrived back at my parents’ house broke, depressed, with a bit of debt, and the distinct feeling that I’d failed.
This was one of the most fortuitous experiences of my life.
Eight years later, I graduated from Colorado State with a teaching license, debt-free, honored for being one of the most promising future teachers in the state. By the time I graduated, I had been to 16 countries (on my dime). I’d lived, worked, and surfed for a year in Australia, danced salsa in Colombia, and played arcade games while slurping ramen in Japan.
After graduation, I had enough money saved to head to Southeast Asia for three and a half months to celebrate, saved from working part-time as a bartender.
Let’s back up and fill in the gaps.
What happened to that 18-year-old broke-and-miserable kid?
I got my job back at the retirement home. I was promoted to cook, which meant that I spent less time hunched over a dishwasher like a cave gremlin and started to see and talk to the residents. The concentrated wisdom I received there changed my life. It showed me that I wanted more.
I changed paths, became a server, and started working for tips while I went to the community college that I should have gone to in the first place. I started using travel points credit cards to pay my expenses and tuition every semester, earning flight points on money I had to spend anyway (be very careful with this, use this method only if you have the money to cover your credit card bills right away).
I used the points I built up for a free flight to Europe and spent two months making friends in hostels, riding trains, and eating cheap pasta on my shoestring budget.
In Paris, an American I met in a laundromat told me about the Australian working holiday visa, and one semester later (after I finished community college), I flew down under to bartend and surf for a year.
THEN I went back to school.
I was labeled as an “adult learner” (university-speak for “older person who wants credentials”) at the age of 23.
Here’s the kicker: the system rewarded me for waiting.
The tax refund I received from the Australian government covered my first semester out of pocket, and after that, I had turned 24, the magic age to receive full financial aid as an independent for going “back to school.”
Being an adult learner means less competition for more targeted scholarships and more financial aid.
I used the restaurant experience I had earned to get a wonderful bartending job that paid the rent. Because I lived like a college student and not a bartender, the surplus of money let me keep traveling and staying in hostels on my breaks. It was (and is) a very good life.
Here’s why I’m sharing my story: there is another way.
If you are about to go to college (or you have a kid that is about to go to college), do everything you can to keep away from the predatory, life-sucking student loan industry. You don’t have to follow my path.
If you don’t want to work in a restaurant, learn a trade! There’s a shortage of trade professionals, and you will always be able to fall back on a skill during your time in school. Experience this beautiful world until you know what you want to study.
All I’m asking is that you think about waiting. How you want to affect the world as an educated professional (or not) is the biggest decision of your life.
There’s a good chance you don’t have a clue how to answer this question at the age of 18. Just wait and learn a skill or two, trust me. Going to college as someone independent, more financially secure, with a living-wage-paying skill to fall back on is a completely different experience.
Just wait. Just like in every other area of life, patience is a virtue. In today’s world, where we live to be 80+, 18 is a ridiculous age to choose what you want to do with the rest of your life.
Wait and explore. There’s always time for what everyone else is doing.
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