geekitarian

I was paying bills today and it struck me how much easier things are since my wife and I paid off all of our student loans 2 years ago.  I’m simultaneously happy with a system that allows a broke kid like me to go to a decent college, and shocked by the crushing burden of debt that it can create.  The story of my own college debt is convoluted, uninformed, and fraught with my own mistakes and missteps. I grew up in Ohio always thinking I’d be going to OSU. I ended up doing in better on my SAT than anybody expected (myself included), and the University of Dayton offered me a big scholarship. Nevermind that OSU would still have been significantly cheaper. I decided to chase the dollars. It felt great to be offered so much money, though I didn't quite grasp the idea that it was more of a discount than a cash offer. It went fine; I sometimes felt unprepared, but I did OK overall and finished the year with a decent GPA. I had a girlfriend when I started college. The long distance ...