Angry Graduate Wrote This Letter To His University. It's Hard Not To Agree With Him.

[davidthegnome]

97. I understand the anger.

I've gone into my own circumstances a few times here at DU, so I won't go into great detail about my college experience - but suffice it to say that higher education is simply not affordable, or even logical for the vast majority of us.

My family lives in Northern Maine - and as long as that's the case, I don't really plan on living elsewhere. The problem, of course, is with our severe economic depression, more so in this part of the state than in most others. When I was a young boy, my home town was booming because of a local air force base that supported our businesses and our population - which, at the time, was more than twice what it is now. As I advanced through my teens and into my twenties, I watched business after business fail. I watched shop after shop close down. I watched streets that used to be bustling with activity... become empty.

In my later teens I worked for Restaurants as a dish washer - they paid the minimum wage at the time, which was a little over five dollars an hour. This was roughly thirteen years ago. Last year I completed my first year of college (with significant help from my parents, and student loans/grants) and realized at the end of it, that I was in debt up to my eyeballs, could not find a good job, and had to move back in with my parents because I couldn't pay rent.

It's not just the area, either. I've heard many, many stories like mine, even from supposedly thriving big cities like Boston and New York. Even so... I feel that I'm one of the lucky ones. I have a job at a hotel where I make eight dollars an hour. Which, I suppose, is a bit of a step up from the 5.45 or so I made as a teenager, but still kind of hilarious. Take your standard car payment for a half decent used automobile, which is often somewhere around 160-200 (200 in my case). Then add up the price of gas (even with decent MPG) of a thirty mile commute each way, daily. Then of course there's all the odds and ends, like food, water, new clothes (thank God I can fit into dad's, because I can't afford to buy my own), shoes (mine are falling apart, but I still wear them), medical bills, repaying loan debts, trying to save for a child's college education while wistfully dreaming of one day having your own completed.

I work, typically, anywhere from 32-40 hours a week, no benefits, no breaks, on my feet about 80% of the time. Even so, this is nothing compared to how bad plenty of others have it.

It's not just college that's unaffordable - it's life in general. At this point most of us have to band together or live on the streets - unless we are either wealthy, or very, very fortunate to be in the tiny and ever shrinking middle class (what remains of it).

I can no longer justify the expense of a college education for myself. I can no longer have any reasonable expectation to repay the debts I would incur, to either the government or my family. I've given up on my own - but have some hope for my son, if I keep putting away twenty dollars a week for his future education (with my parents matching me) then we should be able to at least pay for him to attend a community college.

It's all about the money. Ever buy a 300 dollar book to be offered 15 dollars for it's return a few months later? Just one of the many ways that college students are screwed.