First off, huge congratulations. What an amazing feeling. My partner finished paying his loan only last year. It seemed almost surreal and we were both so relieved.
I'm generally not one to give advice but dare I say your best investment may be to teach your girl a language, and send her off to Europe to do her degree (think La Sorbonne, Bolonia or Salamanca, the oldest and some of the best universities in the world).
I did my degree in Barcelona and Amsterdam and didn't pay a nickel (safe a few inscription and book costs here and there), vs my partner who paid £9k a year.
She can always do a Masters in Harvard to round off her international education.
Anyway, all the best. As always, really enjoying your writing.
Our oldest is leaving for 3 years of dance school in London in a matter of weeks and while it's *cheaper* than many colleges here in the states, it still requires a loan. It's terrifying both of us, him going to debt for the notoriously underpaid arts. But a big part of me also believes in him, that he'll find a way and what an experience to have. I'm also very excited for him. It's all such a complicated mess that just doesn't have to be this way.
Thank you for this honest post. I too feel this so hard, except I still have $69,000 in loans to pay off, from a not-fancy (but still wonderful) state school and a master’s from a private (less wonderful) school. And I am lucky that I also eventually had all of my public loans forgiven (after applying for PSLF and being told I had the “wrong kind of loan” a decade after confirming with Sallie Mae that I had the correct type, and no recourse).
I feel like this is another area where millennials are given the short end of the stick. We were told to study what we love or even just told to go to college and it would pay for itself someday, and now we are made fun of for having large amounts of student loan debt or for studying something not deemed worthy. Heaven forbid we dare complain about how expensive our monthly payments are or the interest rates. And no one acknowledges that when you sign up for these amounts of money, you have no concept of adult life or expenses and your decision-making frontal lobe is years away from being fully formed.
I don’t regret my education at all, but I too struggle with what I will tell my kids about my own journey and how I will guide them on their own educational paths. Especially when it seems like higher education is also (still) a giant shitshow, with adjunct professors being screwed over and administrators cutting tenured positions while they make high salaries, etc.
It is a hard thing. Fully support the purchase of a kayak!
Here in Portugal the best colleges are public and there are a lot, in almost every city (bachelor and master cost 600 euros per year). I thought about moving to USA, as I would probably earn a better income but I’m glad I didn’t: americans have to pay everything and everything is so expensive... Congratulations Erin!
How DO we celebrate the absence of something?! When I got my notice out-of-the-blue last year (thank you, undivinable public service loan forgiveness program), I shed tears of joy. And bought a demi bottle of champagne on my way home from work to toast the moment. Hawking for a kayak would have been just right too!
I feel all of this so very hard. I have 0 college degrees and work in project management in an industry where I began in a unionized manual trade. Because of coming up on the fabrication side of things, people often assume I am part of the current pro-trades, anti-college zeitgeist, where we all heckle millennials for being so stupid as to believe the chorus of adults who told them, “Study what you love!” I am not on that side. Missing out on going to college (due to caring for a sick parent) is one of the great griefs of my life. I enjoy what I do and I'm good at it, but it wasn't what I dreamed of doing. I have been successful beyond what I deserve to be, and work at the national (international, to some extent) top tier of my industry, and lots of people go to school many, many years in the hopes of getting the kind of jobs I have worked. I am very lucky. But I am also trapped. When I had children, I could not – as so many other women I know in this industry have done – switch careers due to the punishing hours and male-dominated bias, and become a teacher, for the summer breaks. When I have a really rough stretch of weeks and want to indulge in a revenge fantasy of just quitting and finding a new job, I kind of can’t – I couldn’t even get an interview as a receptionist without a bachelor’s 15 years ago and it’s only gotten harder since then. My fantasies have to be fully off-grid to work out, even in fantasy-world. My reputation and network is all I have, and while it is healthy and robust, it's also exclusive to the microcosm of this one industry, and that’s a scary feeling. It’s not what I want for my own kids.
Those kids, they are 6 and 9, and also my step-children 14 and 17. So we are neck-deep in college tours and admissions data even while still in the "learning to read" years. And it is so hard, to speak realistically to these wonderful kids about all the things we cram into college education – hopes and dreams and self-fulfillment, self-betterment; but also livelihood, financial security, the job you will have four decades from now; and also, enormous debt. My older step-son wants to minor in theater and I am aware that many would expect me to recognize this as the cultural trope it is – the quintessential worthless waste of money – but if I’m being honest, I can think of few better things to spend your young adulthood doing. I think about what you get from a deep experience with acting, especially onstage – you get teamwork and work ethic, physical agility and movement, the ability to summon confidence on command, public speaking experience, a deep understanding of emotion (yours and other people’s) and how the emotional context of a situation matters, history, art, literature, design, a basic understanding of technical concepts (as many programs do require you to learn basic stagecraft as part of a theater degree). Is that really so much worse than a deep understanding of chemistry? He’s unsure of his intended major yet and we encourage him to wait on that if he doesn’t feel strongly about anything yet – he just knows that he loves being involved in shows, and he wants to do more of that in college, and I think that’s all pretty great, honestly.
Ally, this is very wise. I think you are right on with all of your thoughts about studying theater, and really, I think that train of thought could be applied to many areas of study.
Yes - call me a forever-millennial but, while I don’t think it’s accurate to say it “doesn’t matter what you study” as long as you get that degree, because I actually think it’s almost the opposite in my mind, I do strongly believe that if you are showing up and investing yourself in something that interests you, you’re going to get a lot of really good things out of that, almost whatever it is. To me, it barely matters if you get that degree, as long as you study something fully enough to understand what it means to do such a thing. The degree is just proof that you did it, and only matters for that.
I would of course support any of my kids who did not want to go to college! I would support them more then anyone supported me - I had always been very academically successful and so no one thought I might need help figuring out how to orient myself, without a clear well trodden path to follow. And everyone was shocked when I didn’t figure it all out by 20, and just kind of drifted for a while. But if any (or all) of these kids are just ambivalent and uncertain, my advice will always be to grow that idea while attending college. I am a huge advocate of community colleges in that situation and have been excited to learn that lots of NY cc’s now offer on-campus housing, to serve a broader demographic and also integrate more fully into the SUNY system. If I had a kid who was like “I want to have the college experience but don’t even know what I want enough to choose a school” I would absolutely encourage them to go to a CC an hour or two away, and just take a bunch of classes and live in a dorm and work a part time job and see what parts of all of that they like best. What’s their favorite part of working? What classes do they enjoy? What cultural activities matter most to them to have in their lives? Several of the younger people at my company did residential CC and then transferred to SUNY schools, and I think it’s such a fantastic way to bridge the chasm between the cost of all this and the twin uncertainty and importance of it.
Congratulations: A big day. Based on a fun per dollar return, I think the kayak was a worthy investment. If it's any comfort, we bought a child-sized kayak at a yard sale from a kid who had outgrown it, paying close to full retail price because I wasn't going to haggle with an 11yo. When your kids outgrow theirs, I bet they can find a similarly generous buyer.
This reminds me of my parents putting the letter that said my braces were paid off on the fridge. My mom wanted to frame it.
I had student debt and no degree (ended up in a trade). It's all so messy and heavy. There's no way to tell someone they don't deserve an education, or that it's unwise.
This was a great read Erin!
First off, huge congratulations. What an amazing feeling. My partner finished paying his loan only last year. It seemed almost surreal and we were both so relieved.
I'm generally not one to give advice but dare I say your best investment may be to teach your girl a language, and send her off to Europe to do her degree (think La Sorbonne, Bolonia or Salamanca, the oldest and some of the best universities in the world).
I did my degree in Barcelona and Amsterdam and didn't pay a nickel (safe a few inscription and book costs here and there), vs my partner who paid £9k a year.
She can always do a Masters in Harvard to round off her international education.
Anyway, all the best. As always, really enjoying your writing.
Our oldest is leaving for 3 years of dance school in London in a matter of weeks and while it's *cheaper* than many colleges here in the states, it still requires a loan. It's terrifying both of us, him going to debt for the notoriously underpaid arts. But a big part of me also believes in him, that he'll find a way and what an experience to have. I'm also very excited for him. It's all such a complicated mess that just doesn't have to be this way.
Congratulations.
Hoping someday the youth in America can go to college without the burden of debt.
Let’s have a parade💕
That’s a big deal! You are completely allowed to throw yourself a party.
Thank you for this honest post. I too feel this so hard, except I still have $69,000 in loans to pay off, from a not-fancy (but still wonderful) state school and a master’s from a private (less wonderful) school. And I am lucky that I also eventually had all of my public loans forgiven (after applying for PSLF and being told I had the “wrong kind of loan” a decade after confirming with Sallie Mae that I had the correct type, and no recourse).
I feel like this is another area where millennials are given the short end of the stick. We were told to study what we love or even just told to go to college and it would pay for itself someday, and now we are made fun of for having large amounts of student loan debt or for studying something not deemed worthy. Heaven forbid we dare complain about how expensive our monthly payments are or the interest rates. And no one acknowledges that when you sign up for these amounts of money, you have no concept of adult life or expenses and your decision-making frontal lobe is years away from being fully formed.
I don’t regret my education at all, but I too struggle with what I will tell my kids about my own journey and how I will guide them on their own educational paths. Especially when it seems like higher education is also (still) a giant shitshow, with adjunct professors being screwed over and administrators cutting tenured positions while they make high salaries, etc.
It is a hard thing. Fully support the purchase of a kayak!
Oof. So much solidarity. It's all too much.
Here in Portugal the best colleges are public and there are a lot, in almost every city (bachelor and master cost 600 euros per year). I thought about moving to USA, as I would probably earn a better income but I’m glad I didn’t: americans have to pay everything and everything is so expensive... Congratulations Erin!
How DO we celebrate the absence of something?! When I got my notice out-of-the-blue last year (thank you, undivinable public service loan forgiveness program), I shed tears of joy. And bought a demi bottle of champagne on my way home from work to toast the moment. Hawking for a kayak would have been just right too!
might just need to procure a demi bottle myself!
Congratulations!
I feel all of this so very hard. I have 0 college degrees and work in project management in an industry where I began in a unionized manual trade. Because of coming up on the fabrication side of things, people often assume I am part of the current pro-trades, anti-college zeitgeist, where we all heckle millennials for being so stupid as to believe the chorus of adults who told them, “Study what you love!” I am not on that side. Missing out on going to college (due to caring for a sick parent) is one of the great griefs of my life. I enjoy what I do and I'm good at it, but it wasn't what I dreamed of doing. I have been successful beyond what I deserve to be, and work at the national (international, to some extent) top tier of my industry, and lots of people go to school many, many years in the hopes of getting the kind of jobs I have worked. I am very lucky. But I am also trapped. When I had children, I could not – as so many other women I know in this industry have done – switch careers due to the punishing hours and male-dominated bias, and become a teacher, for the summer breaks. When I have a really rough stretch of weeks and want to indulge in a revenge fantasy of just quitting and finding a new job, I kind of can’t – I couldn’t even get an interview as a receptionist without a bachelor’s 15 years ago and it’s only gotten harder since then. My fantasies have to be fully off-grid to work out, even in fantasy-world. My reputation and network is all I have, and while it is healthy and robust, it's also exclusive to the microcosm of this one industry, and that’s a scary feeling. It’s not what I want for my own kids.
Those kids, they are 6 and 9, and also my step-children 14 and 17. So we are neck-deep in college tours and admissions data even while still in the "learning to read" years. And it is so hard, to speak realistically to these wonderful kids about all the things we cram into college education – hopes and dreams and self-fulfillment, self-betterment; but also livelihood, financial security, the job you will have four decades from now; and also, enormous debt. My older step-son wants to minor in theater and I am aware that many would expect me to recognize this as the cultural trope it is – the quintessential worthless waste of money – but if I’m being honest, I can think of few better things to spend your young adulthood doing. I think about what you get from a deep experience with acting, especially onstage – you get teamwork and work ethic, physical agility and movement, the ability to summon confidence on command, public speaking experience, a deep understanding of emotion (yours and other people’s) and how the emotional context of a situation matters, history, art, literature, design, a basic understanding of technical concepts (as many programs do require you to learn basic stagecraft as part of a theater degree). Is that really so much worse than a deep understanding of chemistry? He’s unsure of his intended major yet and we encourage him to wait on that if he doesn’t feel strongly about anything yet – he just knows that he loves being involved in shows, and he wants to do more of that in college, and I think that’s all pretty great, honestly.
Ally, this is very wise. I think you are right on with all of your thoughts about studying theater, and really, I think that train of thought could be applied to many areas of study.
Yes - call me a forever-millennial but, while I don’t think it’s accurate to say it “doesn’t matter what you study” as long as you get that degree, because I actually think it’s almost the opposite in my mind, I do strongly believe that if you are showing up and investing yourself in something that interests you, you’re going to get a lot of really good things out of that, almost whatever it is. To me, it barely matters if you get that degree, as long as you study something fully enough to understand what it means to do such a thing. The degree is just proof that you did it, and only matters for that.
I would of course support any of my kids who did not want to go to college! I would support them more then anyone supported me - I had always been very academically successful and so no one thought I might need help figuring out how to orient myself, without a clear well trodden path to follow. And everyone was shocked when I didn’t figure it all out by 20, and just kind of drifted for a while. But if any (or all) of these kids are just ambivalent and uncertain, my advice will always be to grow that idea while attending college. I am a huge advocate of community colleges in that situation and have been excited to learn that lots of NY cc’s now offer on-campus housing, to serve a broader demographic and also integrate more fully into the SUNY system. If I had a kid who was like “I want to have the college experience but don’t even know what I want enough to choose a school” I would absolutely encourage them to go to a CC an hour or two away, and just take a bunch of classes and live in a dorm and work a part time job and see what parts of all of that they like best. What’s their favorite part of working? What classes do they enjoy? What cultural activities matter most to them to have in their lives? Several of the younger people at my company did residential CC and then transferred to SUNY schools, and I think it’s such a fantastic way to bridge the chasm between the cost of all this and the twin uncertainty and importance of it.
Ohhh a thousand times yes to that first paragraph—it is what I was thinking but couldn’t articulate.
And I LOVE community college and your idea of going to one some distance away is a genius idea.
Congratulations!
TY!
Congratulations: A big day. Based on a fun per dollar return, I think the kayak was a worthy investment. If it's any comfort, we bought a child-sized kayak at a yard sale from a kid who had outgrown it, paying close to full retail price because I wasn't going to haggle with an 11yo. When your kids outgrow theirs, I bet they can find a similarly generous buyer.
Yes! This is exactly what we were banking on!
My son christened his "the salty banana;" please report back what your kids name theirs.
omg yes!! will do.
This reminds me of my parents putting the letter that said my braces were paid off on the fridge. My mom wanted to frame it.
I had student debt and no degree (ended up in a trade). It's all so messy and heavy. There's no way to tell someone they don't deserve an education, or that it's unwise.
so messy and heavy! (and def never had braces ;))
Thank you so much for such an honest, compelling, inspiring story. And congratulations!!!
thank you!!