zelda2fanboy said:
In America you have to pay back your loan no matter what, even if you go bankrupt. Education loans are tied to you for the rest of your life. If you don't pay them, they'll garnish your wages. I didn't make any friends in college, had no fun, and never even got laid. Don't listen to your parents and don't listen to what TV tells you. It is a pack of lies.
Lies about lies, I tell you!
Now, I shall regail you with a story. Gather round escapists as I tell you a tale of great loss and a struggle to fight for the very thing our young protagonist had been aspiring to all of his life.
You see, as a young lad, I was not very good at school...essentially every aspect of my schoolwork confused and escaped me. This was the British state school system, I might add, where I was filed under I for Idiot, and allowed to fall behind. My mum and dad, hoping to encourage me, told me of the wonders and experiences one could have in university, particularly the experience of going to a college and staying there with other students. As an Englishman with an Australian citizenship living in New Zealand, I had a range of choices, as I worked harder and harder towards this very special goal, and eventually I chose the University of Adelaide.
I managed to get in, and landed myself a wonderful college indeed. O-week placed me amongst the loveliest folk I'd ever met in all my life. Homesickness was soon overcome. I began my first year, an apple-cheeked fresher who was ready to learn and work.
Then, disaster. My father fell ill with not one, but two lethal diseases, both slow acting. Motorneurone and Fronto-temporal dementia. I stopped sleeping, stopped being able to enjoy college, even though I could see that it was everything mum and dad promised. It was more like looking at a party through a window now.
Reluctantly, I returned to New Zealand. Had to be with my family and say goodbye to my dad. He suffered for months. I switched universities to Auckland to be closer to home, and there I stayed. I hate it there. It's nothing like where I was before, but I had to remain there.
Finally, towards the end of last year, my dad passed away. Simultaneously, the agency that handles student loans in New Zealand attacked me over having an Australian citizenship rather than a NZ one. And now, here I sit, preparing to go back again this year.
The moral of the story? I was sceptical about what college would be like. Was it, I wondered, the way it had been described in all of the movies? No, it wasn't. It was better, more special, more fantastic than I could have ever imagined it. I don't know where you ended up, mate, but I'm sorry that it could not be all you wished for. I assure you that neither is my current place. However, university and the colleges within it have the capacity to be the most awesome places and the time of your life that you will look upon with fondness and a great big smile. I know it, because dad certainly did, even when he was sick.
Thank you ladies and gentlemen.