Did you go to college in your 20s and did your parents pay for it?

hollydolly said:
for me that is what grew up reading about .. the All American dream... back then it was so far removed from us as the moon...
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It was, especially considering my dad's father was a sharecropper who was eventually able to purchase his own land and my dad dropped out of the 11th grade to help full time on the farm. Sadly, though, the American Dream is now unattainable for an ever increasing number of Americans.
 

Nathan said:
I dropped out of school after 11th grade, was headed for trouble. My Mom threatened to 'put' me in the service, I thought "oh yeah?" So I went down and enlisted the next day, brought the papers home for my mom to sign...her jaw hit the floor,but she signed them.

It's ironic how things go- I originally went to the Navy recruiter, who got all the papers ready but he told me that since I was born in Cuba that I had to go to some place in downtown L.A. to...sign some stuff. I went down there, turned out to be the Immigration & Naturalization office. I knew something was wrong, since I had dual citizenship. So I took all the enlistment papers over to the Army recruiter and he said "sure son, we'll get you IN, no problem". :LOL:

Enlisting in the Army was probably the best move I ever made in my young life of 17 years, I signed up for an extra year and got my choice of MOS. I went through AIT as a Marine Diesel Engineer, went to a leadership school and got E5, then went through the Harbor-craft Engine Officer's Advanced course, signed an intent to reenlist for 3 years if the Army needed Warrant Officers in my MOS.

...so, I did get into the navy, but it turned out to be the Army's Navy. ;)
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In the Marines, they were called an EEM, or Engineer Equipment Mechanic, I think. Or was it Equipment Engineer Mechanic? Not sure.
 
I didn't start college courses until I was 37. So no my parents didn't pay for it. I was working full-time and took courses at night.
 

No. I've gotten through life well without one.

Nowadays, even the PA State Police, PA Game Commission etc. do not require a college education. If you have a high school diploma or a G.E.D. you are good to go.
 
Knight said:
No college but job experiences combined to have a really enjoyable life. Miscellaneous jobs like grass cutting, paper route, stocking shelves at a mom & pop grocery store all good. At 16 applied for the new DI [distributive education" experimental school program. Was accepted. Class in the morning & working in the afternoons as an apprentice retail butcher. To this day the skills learned butchering serve us well. From then forward a lot of different jobs.

All those combined helped me land a managerial position which in turn made it possible to retire in comfort.
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It's very tough to be promoted to any managerial position these days without a business degree. That's what I have seen anyway.
 
Pepper said:
When I began college, all branches of (NY) City University were FREE. I got my BA from a private university years afterward, for which I was mostly scholarship.
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I think all the state colleges should be very low cost again. Like $200 a semester. Stop beating people up financially because they want to do something SO IMMORAL as LEARN.

We're bass-ackwards in our priorities in America. Some states are paying $70,000 per year, per prisoner to keep criminals in prison. Let them stay there, I don't want them out, but why pay so much tax revenue toward prison and so little taxes toward helping people LEARN?
 
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VintageBetter said:
It's very tough to be promoted to any managerial position these days without a business degree. That's what I have seen anyway.
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You are most likely right. Even then when I attended my 1st upper level meet & greet the company president other snobby college grad department heads couldn't believe my position.

Even worse was when I was confronted by the purchasing department head for violating company protocol & I proved him wrong & had a portion of that protocol rewritten.
 
My parents paid for most of my college (I dropped in and out of several colleges for many years before I finally completed my "4 year" degree in my early thirties), but since for all but one semester I went to state schools, you could say the taxpayers paid for a lot of it.

My last semester my parents paid using money inherited from my great-uncle's estate, so I guess you could say my great uncle paid for part.

Oh, and some of my courses were paid for by various employers as part of employee benefit packages.

Also I studied overseas for a few semesters where the education (and dorms) were free, so I guess the taxpayers there paid for part of my education.

My father's college degree was paid for by the Navy.

My mom originally only graduated from a 1 year teaching certificate program and I don't know who paid for that. Much later (after I was grown up) she got a degree (I think maybe just a 2 year associate degree), and I don't know if that was paid for by her employee benefits or not.
 
When I married right after high-school, the 6-year plan was that my wife would work as a receptionist-dispatcher-courier at her dad's construction company so she could pay my way through 4 years of college, and after getting my teaching credentials, I would work so she could go to a 2-year college and I'd do another 2 years of college at night.

A few months after we married, she was pregnant, and when she was about 6-months along, she stopped working.

Fair enough, I thought, and we revised the 6-year plan to an 8-year plan with a switcheroo: I quit college and went to work to pay her way through a 2-year college, and then she'd work so I could go for a solid 6.

Next thing we knew, she was pregnant again, and she stopped going to college. But she also didn't want to work, so I worked and went to college at night...until I discovered I couldn't afford college plus a wife and 2 kids.

So the 8-year plan was looking more like a 10-year plan, and she was pregnant again....and she was on *the pill*.

I swear I could get my (1st) wife pregnant just by staring at her too long.

Anyway, neither of us completed college. My parents did offer to pay for me to go, but I had this plan and, young and stupid, I was determined to stick to it (and its basically annual revisions).

Today, all I have to show for all that "planning" is a 40 year-old divorce decree, 3 totally awesome kids, 8 super-cool grandchildren, 4 beautiful little great-grandchildren, and a varied and interesting, mostly blue-collar work history.
 
I had expected to but then a year before graduating from high school the military draft for the Viet Nam War stopped excusing those entering college. Thus would become drafted and likely sent to slog through leech, mosquitoey, poisonous snake infested Mekong Delta swamps carrying an M16 while dodging bullets. So took USN and USAF tests, scored high, and went into a classified airborne electronics USAF field including a year in electronics school. After my HD discharge, did at times take several community college classes, but not for the sake of obtaining a degree.
 
I got married right after high school and had 3 kids by age 25. When my youngest went to school I was 31 and started college full time. My husband worked overtime so we could pay cash and I got my first degree in 3 years.

Then I got a master’s degree and worked for 4 years as a social worker. After a coworker was murdered by a client I went for a second master’s degree and the feds paid for it as long as I worked in public vocational rehabilitation for 3 years after graduating. Then I went to work and eventually obtained a PhD in psychology.
 
The Pell Grant didn't exist when I started college. The student loan program started in 1958 but was only available to certain students (I wasn't eligible) so I went to the city and worked instead. After three years started college and paid for my first year myself.

When Whatsisname, the Father of My Children, and I got married, the deal was that I'd work until he finished, then I'd go back. That didn't happen, but he went on to grad school and beyond, working and getting VA benefits, while I worked, too.

I did go back here and there after we parted ways, then gave up because it was just too much to raise three kids as a single parent and work three jobs to keep a roof over our heads.

Meh. I cared then. I don't care now.

BTW, tuition for my first year? $48. It was $4 per credit hour. I was registered for 12 hours. That was a lot of money then.
 
Yes and yes (sort of). I had an academic scholarship that covered school expenses. Living expense was covered by funds from my late mother who passed when she was only in her 30’s. I did work during the summers and some weekends for extra $’s and experience.

I agree that education should not be so expensive. It was incredibly cheap in the 60’s and 70’s compared to today. In my perfect world it would all be free.
 
EmptyCup said:
I agree that education should not be so expensive. It was incredibly cheap in the 60’s and 70’s compared to today. In my perfect world it would all be free.
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I have to agree with that. An educated population is good for the country. It should be available to anyone who is willing to put some effort into it. And by education I would include trade schools.
 
HoneyNut said:
My parents paid for most of my college (I dropped in and out of several colleges for many years before I finally completed my "4 year" degree in my early thirties), but since for all but one semester I went to state schools, you could say the taxpayers paid for a lot of it.

My last semester my parents paid using money inherited from my great-uncle's estate, so I guess you could say my great uncle paid for part.

Oh, and some of my courses were paid for by various employers as part of employee benefit packages.

Also I studied overseas for a few semesters where the education (and dorms) were free, so I guess the taxpayers there paid for part of my education.

My father's college degree was paid for by the Navy.

My mom originally only graduated from a 1 year teaching certificate program and I don't know who paid for that. Much later (after I was grown up) she got a degree (I think maybe just a 2 year associate degree), and I don't know if that was paid for by her employee benefits or not.
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But you're a taxpayer too, so you paid for it too.
 
I took some English classes as well as an American Government class when I first arrived in the USA. After that, I took various night classes to improve my skills.
My husband paid for his education.
When our daughter was two years old, we decided to enroll her in the Florida Prepaid College Program. It was a very good decision and she very much appreciated it.
This month, they opened up enrollment for the year, we decided to enroll and pay forward for our two grandkids.
We thought that life is hard, education is important, and that they will need all the help they can get to assure them a good life. Their little family is happy, and so are we, about the decision we made.
 

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