The daughter of a friend just completed her first year of college and is in danger of losing her scholarship. She apparently missed her GPA requirements two semesters in a row so she is now on academic probation. If she loses her scholarship, her tuition will increase significantly.
After my second year of college, I was doing great academically. I had a small scholarship, a Pell grant and student loans. But then, a combination of me not doing my mother’s taxes in time and Ronald Reagans’s reductions to the student loan program, crushed my chances of being able to pay for my next semester of college. That, plus a complete lack of direction in what I wanted to do, led me to drop out.
I spent the next decade bouncing around from shitty job to shittier job making minimum wage as a laborer, retail store clerk, warehouse manager, part-time lifeguard, bike messenger, nursing home unit clerk and paper delivery guy until I finally landed a job at a computer store in my late 20s that launched my career in technology sales.
While working these jobs, I attended night school at community college, with the intention of eventually transferring back to the university to complete my BS in Computer Science. I ended up with a high GPA and over 100 credits, but never graduated from college.
That decade of struggle truly sucked.
With the benefit of hindsight, I would have done everything differently. I had my entire life before me. I would have been better off doing any of the following:
- Skipped college altogether to apprentice as an electrician or plumber when I graduated from high school – eventually opening my own small business as a skilled tradesman.
- Skipped college altogether and gone directly into sales at 18. I learned nothing in college that helped me in my sales career.
- Enlisted in the Coast Guard or Navy, earn my degree there and remain in a military career for 20 years then retire early to the private sector (or retire completely).
- Started at community college so I could take inexpensive general credit courses for two years while I figured out what major in. I could have paid cash for these classes which were ~25% of the cost of courses at the 4 year school.
Coulda, shoulda, woulda. I wish I had known better.
But I didn’t, and it set me back at least 10 years financially and from a career prospective.
I can’t help but see parallels between my path and my friend’s daughters trajectory.
Since I am really bad at predicting the future, my fingers are crossed this will be another time that I am wrong.