My daughter absolutely beams on the other end of the Facetime call. Her face is radiant, her smile electric, and her hair is amazing. I offer that last part because if she reads this, I want her to know that I think she is cool.
“So, tell me about the college visit,” I asked her.
“It was so great,” she said as her fabulous hair twirled about her head. “It only cost twenty-seven thousand dollars!”
For a minute, I sat there in shock.
“Only twenty-seven thousand?”
“Yes!”
“That’s all in, right? Dorm room, books, and the visit from Rumpelstiltskin?”
“Yup!” she said. More hair stuff happened. It still looks great.
The number made my brain numb. Twenty. Seven. Thousand. Dollars.
“Honey,” I said. I did not have any beautiful hair. “That’s fantastic! I’m so proud of you!”
“I know!”
“Now tell me all about it,” I said hairless.
“Well thanks to constant education cuts by people who already used those same benefits for their own use, this college is more expensive than it has ever been. I mean, you could put that money on a down payment for a house!”
That’s my daughter, always joking like her old man. We both know that there is no way anyone from her generation can afford a house in today’s world. She makes me laugh.
“And since it’s so expensive, I get to be told that I don’t need college at all. Like, dad, people are finally paying attention to me! I just wish I was as lazy and no good as they thought I was. I like working. I’m sorry for that, Dad.”
“It’s ok,” I told my daughter. “Some people just like to work hard and then be told they don’t work hard enough. I expect you to do better in the future.”
She stops briefly and I know she is considering quitting her job that she has had for the last two years. A job that will no way in hell will pay for even a single semester of college. And the first thing I think when she gets home at midnight is how I wish to God I wasn’t saddled with such a lazy daughter. She needs more bootstrapping.
“Well, tell me about the tour,” I asked her.
“The dorms are perfect. They have these melancholy cinderblock walls. Like, it’s insta-depression. The rest of the room is decorated in my imagination. I saw the dorm fridge we could have had if it wasn’t 300 bucks for a biology book. And then, and I know this is crazy, maybe a beige carpet if the student loan interest rate wasn’t always going up. Dad, it was just so perfect.”
This is the college dream. Imagining what could have been if only a few things would fall into place like affordable education and governmental policy that encourages higher education instead of demonizing it. But you know, that’s not the world my daughter and I live in. We live in the real world where competition between universities actually doesn’t lower the price of college at all. The marketing budgets just got bigger.
Not to mention our elected officials and their piece of the educational pie. Why make education more affordable and universal when they’ve got PACs to feed? I mean, unchecked dirty money can only buy you so many houses. And now, my daughter is insanely happy that an in-state school is ONLY COSTS TWENTY SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS.
I am a very lucky man, just not the right kind of luck.
This whole process is magical, and by magical, I mean like in an evil Disney queen kind of way. The poisoned apple is the only thing served in the dorm cafeteria, and dang nabbit, that’s the way my daughter and I like it!
“Honey,” I said. It’s time to calm her and her hair down. “Yes, we can do this. Writing viral articles is super easy, and I’m sure we’ll bank. But babe, have you thought about how long you want to be in debt for? I mean, we have to talk about that.”
“Yes,” she said. “I think it’s only fair that I’m a grandmother before I pay off my student loans. Maybe even a great-grandmother. It will motivate me my entire life to work for substandard rates while I worry about how to pay medical bills.”
“That’s my girl,” I said. “Take no interest rate below 16% and unsecured. You understand me?”
“Yes, Daddy,” she said, and my heart melted.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock