When College is FREE...
Both my wife and I decided that after we've had student loan debt up to our eye balls and finally paid it off that we would never go back to borrowing again. The year before we got married, my 3 years of college debt had amassed to around $8000 big bucks. My wife finished her 4 year degree with a little over $15,000 (and this was after her parents helped foot half the tab!!) I cant imagine having to go back and pay that again, but we stood firm on getting rid of it!
Granted it took me a while to find an amazing job with great benefits however one of the best benefits is the Tuition benefit. My job will actually pay up to a PHD in whatever I want for FREE! How could I resist the temptation to start when my benefit kicked in! I started with a 3 credit calculus course and finished with an A. This semester I am still only pushing a 3 credit class. Some may ask, well why not just finish it up my degree as quickly as possible.... well I learned my lesson the first time I decided to take on a full time job and 12-16 credit hours of college. Something had to give, and it wasnt my job. I ended up having to retake 3 of the classes because even though it was "free", I suffered more in my GPA that year and TIME LOST, than I ever could recoup in free tuition dollars. We live and learn. Im on track again with a brighter path in mind, only this time, Im not going to be carrying that extra weight of debt on me.
3 Comments:
First off, good for you and your wife for paying off your undergraduate debt. This is a huge burden for young people, and few pay them off as fast as you did.
Secondly, your companies benefits sound fantastic. It's great that you realize this and take advantage of it. I work at a company with similar benefits, and it is suprising how few people take advantage of educational benefits.
If only every company would do that, I think its a big perk that they could easily take advantage of. Now if we could just get them to do it for bachelor degrees for young people, as college is so damn expensive now!
It such a waste of free education if we dont take advantage of it. Everyone at my company has that benefit but there are TOO many that do not utilize it. I can understand life doesnt allow all of us to take educational courses, however I heard only 20% or less of the company uses this benefit.