Epigram ‘n Aphorism Samwiches

Pop Talk: College $$

Even though I had to leave college in the spring of 1992 to have emergency surgery on my eye, my dad chastised me for dropping 60 cents in a vending machine for a soda.

It was a turbulent time. I had a graduate course I was missing out on, a strained relationship with LuAnne (many poems were written) and was just starting a new job as a TV news producer in addition to working radio as on-air journalist. My boss made me bank a week worth of stories before I left so he could keep focusing on sales clients when not 'reading' news as news director.

Dad had driven us to a Mayo. We had our own troubled dynamic because I was 'different' and didn't do things his way. He was piling a cache of money into bonds and CDs, spending pennies on day-old, dented, used or free remainders of the world. I was blowing what little I had 'like there was no tomorrow.'

Our stay extended, he checked us out of a nice motel where I could recover after a near botched surgery and into a room in a woman's house where I shared a bed with a 60-year-old who bathed once a week. He brought in groceries, including a 12-pack of generic soda. It cost $2 -- cheaper than 20 cents can when I paid six dimes. His logic was flawed, though I didn't know it at the time. You should have what you want and it doesn't have to torpedo your budget...or life.


My son is going to college now and got the idea he doesn't have to work because he's going three years instead of four. Simple logic says yes that is cheaper. But, there are more complex algorithms lying beneath this labyrinth of educational expenditures you can't escape. He's already in debt from non-subsidized loans of $1700 (round dollars) just this semester. He was granted $800 work study but dragged his feet and no job now, since he got the idea he can cut a year of college expenditures. That's like going 2.5K in the hole per semester. And, he doesn't have a plan. It was innocent when I walked up to that machine and plunked in a few coins. I had no plans to buy vending machine soda for the next three years.

Dad didn't get he wasted money on soda we had to consume that week, and it wasn't very good. Meanwhile, my son could miss out on internships that go with a four-year degree in communications at a public university. His focus is becoming a gaming creator through story-telling. I have an eerie inkling how this story goes:
While not working to defer cost of his education and increasing difficulty of student work load (18 credits per semester +8 more credits in summers to catch up), he'll struggle, stress, grades drop, falls behind, misses important electives, misses internship opportunities and valuable contacts and winds up going...four years.

I told him I will support him, but is his advisor on the same page...crafting a three-year plan? Does he just not want to work and goof off, mail it in, sail through college like he did high school? He got better at the SAT when he retook it after drilling him on the importance of planning and strategy. You don't re-do college (though many go five or six years). You take your best, measured shot. You're supposed to soak up this experience.

College is regimented, structured so that you qualify for that diploma. They don't hand them out like the no-child-left-behind softies who gave him a hall pass out of high school. And, if he's thinking about a career just three years away, what is it? How will it materialize? We can cut costs, take a risk, let this kid think he's a stud and go out there and fall flat on his keister/face. How will he recover from that? He'll always find a job serving slices and wiping down tables. When the regret sinks in and no true career to bring joy lays out in front of him, what then? I will have regrets too, if I don't make him think big picture.

I don't discount that he will be great. I took the reins off to let him run wild. He's trying to jump out of the stable instead of going through his paces. He's talented and a spectacle. How do you apply simple logic to a complex math question with moving, flexible parts -- and he wants tighter reins and all the pressure of pulling it off without the financial understanding and complexities that potentially make this an implodable situation.

I didn't want him to leave college with huge debt. My debt was $700. Paid it off in a year. His? Astronimcal? No. $25-40K at this pace...three years! If it goes four because he struggles? Remortgage the house?? His decision means not my problem. I don't think he'll wind up living in a cardboard box. He just needs to know the value of a life spent rationalizing one vending machine purchase.

The irony, it's grandpa's money that is paying for half of college (or more: investment strategies), not my own $. My dad didn't take risks with money (mine were calculated investments that near tripled college seed money). Dad still saw me as an unbreakable stallion while saving a penny at a time over sixty years. I just took his financial ideas and made them better (after I blew through all my college money with no plan in less than five years!). College is so expensive now. My son couldn't even land scholarships. And, he's a genius. To hear my family talk, I wasn't...at least about money. I got smarter. Maybe, my boy will, too.

And, despite my efforts to plan for this college thing, I still worry. Or, is that already obvious? 529 college fund, parents. Look into it. Or, you'll be awake at night remembering guilt felt sucking down a Mountain Dew 27 years ago...and other life stuff.