The Cost of College Education
How many of us have MSN.com as our home page? It’s usually the default home page on IE, so unless you actually changed your homepage then you probably see the page everyday too. But most of us won’t venture deeper than that front page. At most, we’ll click on to the Hotmail link to check mail, and then move on from there.
But when you’re at work, like I was a few days ago, you won’t really go browsing to other websites. So I clicked on a featured story on MSN, the banner read: “Finish college with zero debt” In the Philippines, I don’t think a lot of institutions offer student loans. I know that we have that in UP, but I’m not sure of the details. It is true though that many parents fall into debt to send their kids to college, along with their hopes and dreams that someday their kids would help pay them back, and eventually help them send younger kids to school.
In general though, I am still with the opinion that we are better off, and even fortunate that a college degree is a lot more affordable here in the country than in many places around the world. Each university/college also has its own scholarship program. Many other companies and institutions provide college scholarships too.
I think that this is something that I may have taken for granted.
My college education was never a problem for my parents because they had taken out a college plan and had completed paying for it years before I took the entrance exams. So money for tuition: check.
Next came the question of where I was going to study. I got accepted to all three schools I had tested for. And because the cost of their tuition fees were not a problem (again, not because we were rich, but because my parents were wise enough to take out a plan), I was at liberty to choose which one I wanted to finally enroll in. Though none of my friends were going there, I decided to enroll in the country’s premiere State University’s Diliman campus. There’s a lot of pride of getting into a quota course too, haha. 🙂 So university: check.
Like I said, I think I took for granted that I had it easy. I didn’t explore the many other courses I could have learned at the UP. I used to think that I balanced my social life with my school life while in college, but on hindsight, I simply didn’t give my education the top priority it deserved. I didn’t graduate with honors, and I did have to drop out of a subject or two. Calculus and Chem16 gave me such joy that I had to take both twice!
A lot of people are in awe of students who finish with the highest honors, not me. I’ve always felt like I could do that too, and in fact, I could have had those. But I didn’t work for it. At the time, I just didn’t care. I say this though without any bitterness. And it’s not to say that I was a bad student, or that I didn’t value the gifts that were given to me. I guess my point is that, now that I know better, and if I had the chance to do it all over again, I’d probably change some things. 🙂 I’d still be as socially active (I’m not talking about going out with friends either, I was involved in other things while I was still in school), but I would also work hard to keep my grades up.
Why? Because others don’t have it as easy as I’ve had it. And they would kill for the same opportunities I got in life. I hope to impart this to my future kids, but hopefully not put undue pressure on them.
