Life is too expensive. Everything. Costs keep going up, but the quality is not. I understand that as inflation rises, companies raise prices to keep pace, and thus we all have to pay more for the same product just to keep things on an even keel, but it seems that some time between our generation and the last, things got out of hand.
I was raised on the belief that if you work hard, study hard, and make good, responsible decisions, your life would reflect that: you would have a happy home-life, a happy work-life... I admit, it was a modest (naive?) view of the American dream. Frankly, this seems all but impossible in the modern era. I've been responsible, I've worked tirelessly, and I've studied like a madman for most of my life. But to what end? Those traits alone are not enough.
What do I have to do?
I don't live an extravagant lifestyle, and I'm finding it hard to make ends meet. Last year I decided to go back to school. I stayed in-state, even went to a community college to make things as cheap and simple as possible. I worked full-time through each semester, even worked two jobs at one point because I thought that would help augment the huge sum going into my education... Wrong. No matter what I did, the cost was too much.
I know it's silly, and I apologize if this makes me sound arrogant, or like I'm complaining without due reason, but doesn't that seem especially unfair? Shouldn't I be able to easily afford a quality education if I'm working full-time? But I can't. Can anyone?
Even at a community college, the cheapest around, I still had to borrow money and basically forbid myself from living a normal life in order to get by without debt. It was so bad that at one point I only had seventeen cents in my checking account, with a couple days till the next paycheck.
Some suggested I take out a loan, but they're missing the point - I shouldn't HAVE to take out a loan, not for a cheap school and a handful of courses. I will take out a loan for grad school, but that makes sense - at that point, I'll be so overwhelmed by material that I won't be able to work. That part I get. The schoolwork is too intense, you won't have time for a job, so you need a loan to pay for it. Fine. But if I AM working - and working A LOT - shouldn't that be enough?
Yes, it should, but it's not. And THAT, I'm saying, is just not right.
I don't know what the solution is. It's not my job to know what the solution is. But clearly this is a problem. The cost of education is too high to be realistically manageable, and as such the American dream cannot realistically be achieved.
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