I am one of the fortunate few who will never know what it feels like to graduate in debt. My parents fund my entire college education, books and all, every semester, without fail.

I know that there is another side to the coin though. I am 21 years old and I recently married. My husband graduated from UWM with two bachelor’s degrees and nearly $30,000 in debt. Even with two degrees and experience under his belt, he could find no jobs that would pay more than $8 an hour. After nearly a year of sending out hundreds of resumes to any place that would take it, he decided to just start up his own company, which has turned out to be extremely profitable thus far.

He often jokes that much of the business he conducts on a day-to-day basis has little or nothing to do with anything he learned in college. You do what pays the bills, I suppose.

When it comes to money, much of our differences stem from the fact that I have hardly ever had to pay a bill in my life — whereas he has been working and budgeting his own money since he was 12.

So how has having all expenses paid affected my college experience? I would certainly argue that I do not appreciate the experience any less than any given student who pays for it themselves. I try to get the most out of it that I can, if for no other reason, to justify the amount of money that my parents fork over every semester.

My husband says that his experience is just something that I will never understand without having lived it. And for the most part, he is right.

In the end, expenses paid or not, when I married my husband, I inherited his student loan debts and whatever ventures we pursue in life. And no matter how prosperous they may be, we will be paying off that debt for some time to come.

> Comments