Congratulations? I'm happy for you and all that you've accomplished. However, your situation is different than mine and most others. I did not have the luxury of grants and aid money because I'm so privileged (because slightly above the poverty line = luxury). I did not waste loan money on anything more than what I needed for books. I would've had a significant debt regardless of whether I did that or not and I graduated with a degree in Economics and a minor finance. My dad used the GI bill and I'm not against it at all; I'm simply saying people that use that or grants or get their education subsidized in some way have no right to sit on their high horse and assume that everyone had the same options. Yes, I could have joined the military right out of high school instead of going to college but I wanted to play baseball and join later on as an officer. And yes, I worked 30 hours a week while going to school full time WHILE playing baseball in college. Of course I didn't get an athletic scholarship that covered much because I was transfer student, but whatever.
I'm sure some students use excess loan money irresponsibly, but it's typical of people like you to just assume that instead of there being a systematic problem with the education system and cost of tuition, that its simply the fault of the student/borrower. Also, you both are unaware of how the private loan system works. The school certifies only a certain amount that they judge to be reasonable and there is a cap to how much you borrow. You can't just go to school for 6 years and take out 20k a year.
You do this all the time in topics relating to disadvantaged groups. It's always the fault of the individual and because you were able to climb out of shitty circumstances you assume everyone can and should be able to help themselves the same way. But those people are just takers right? Myself included - I'm from the 'gimmedat' crowd because I think that cost of tuition is fucking ridiculous? Stop spewing biased, better-than garbage. You're not that much smarter than anyone else and you had plenty of help along the way.
Point: it is simply false that there is money for tuition for everyone. I had a 3.5 GPA out of high school, 28 ACT, and played baseball and got just a partial scholarship everywhere I applied but I did not get even close to a full ride. Should I just have forgone higher education and got a shitty job instead?
So you wanted to play baseball. Your decision. Don't complain.
I don't assume
everyone can, in the sense that people don't have the same genetically bestowed abilities. But the
options exist. The money is there for the people who will make the
hard decisions. Why must the decisions be easy? That's all that you seem to be supporting. Easy street for everything. That's all a separate problem entirely from tuition cost, and your preferred "solutions" exacerbate the problem, which is amazing as somehow a minor in economics apparently did fuck all for your actual knowledge of economics.
As to your last question, yes you should have
deferred your higher education and just accepted the possibility of playing baseball in the Army or something and enlisted.
Lastly, I'm going to address your two separate personal attacks: My intelligence and the amount of help that I received. I've never taken an official IQ test but based on achievement ballparks, GPA, AFQT, and the GRE scores, I ballpark it in the 125-135 range. That's high but not "genius" range. Honestly I think it's probably the upper 120s rather than in the 130s. What sets me apart from my IQ peer group is my life experiences and my personality. I grew up socioeconomically disadvantaged, and I have an extremely analytical personality, yet not in a numbers sense. This sets me apart from the Sheldon crowd, as well as the silver spoon crowd, which is increasingly synonymous with the high IQ crowd. Even Ein couldn't match my Qualitative(essentially reading comprehension/knowledge) score on the GRE, and that's the sole aspect of his degree orientation, and he said he "didn't think a perfect score was possible". But there it sits on my ETS record. My absolute intelligence may or may not be any higher than yours, but my education (I've probably read 10x more general non-fiction than anyone on this forum) and ability to comprehend and synthesize I would put against literally anyone on Earth. That's not some sort of Trumpentine boastfulness, that's mere directness.
As far as "help": I havent received one goddamn penny or word of help I didn't put 10x in effort and sweat into receiving. I will not be guilted into some sort of "lol u dinbildat" position. I worked my goddamn ass off to get where I haven't even gotten yet, and the only help I received on the way is a few letters of recommendation listing a fraction of what I have done along the way, to people who have yet to see what I can do.
