Annette's Essays

College Financing

Annette Snyder

My oldest son is exiting his senior year in high school.  He is my first graduating child, providing he graduates because I don’t think I’ve seen him study since the eighth grade save for the other day when he ran, frantic, around the house looking for a book he was supposed to be reading for English class. 

The territory of graduation announcements, applying for grants, and scholarships seems very deep and very impossible.  On the buffet in our dining room sits an ACT registration form which is now two days late.  We’ll just have to hit the next deadline, carefully penciled in on the front of the envelope, which I cannot read because its coffee stained from sitting on the buffet past the last three deadlines.  There are essays, emails, internet applications, the list is endless.  There are also the college visits and countless enrollment applications to fill out. 

My son is eighteen so, while I’m looking at all the things he has to fill out, I ask him, “What are you interested in doing after graduation?” 

He grunts at me and gives me that annoyed glare most eighteen-year-olds carry in their wallet to pull out whenever necessary. 

“Higher education is better,” ignoring him, I continue, “You can make more money with a degree.  If you’d rather, you can skip college.  I have a good life and I never graduated college.  Just remember, because I never earned a degree, I have to work two jobs to buy tires for the car and eat at the same time.”

 Again, he answers with that grunt and glare followed by a crinkled frown because I’ve told him the story repeatedly since the day he was born--along with the “Don’t Drink and Drive” story, and the “Wear a Condom so You Don’t Catch a Disease” story. 

It amazes me what’s out there for college and the directions kids can go with their lives.  It isn’t the same as when I graduated a hundred years ago.  I had opportunities but there was still that presumption that girls went to college to find a man even though that era went out when equal opportunity came in.  My mother went to school for a career yet she still married young, raised a family and held a profession.  As I grew up, the college marriage ritual floated on the air in our house like lingering fog.

Finally, the fog of going to college to find a mate has dissipated and kids go to college to learn and expand their avenues.  They go to increase their earning potential and modify their direction.  Take the fifteen different approaches that someone who graduated in the eighties had, and refine and focus those into a gazillion different possibilities with specialties on specialties--that’s how many choices kids have today.  The list of scholarships is endless, the requirements are as varied, and the paperwork is no less than mere mind-boggling. 

No wonder my son grunts at me at the mention of college.  After all, he isn’t one for paperwork.  He isn’t one for numbers, details, or dates.  He won’t grow up to be an accountant or an attorney, which is fine with me.  He can do anything he wants providing he goes to college so he doesn’t have to work two jobs—unless he wants to work two jobs. 

God willing, he’ll make it and if colleges offered classes called ‘Sony Playstation’ or ‘Window Rattling Electric Guitar’, it would be a plus for him.  Until he decides what to do, he’s working for a local carpenter re-roofing buildings for six-and-a half dollars and hour.  He complains about that work nearly every hot, humid day, which is a good thing.  It gives me a chance to say, “Go to college and learn something so you won’t have to move dirty shingles the rest of your life unless you want to.”

He grunts and reaches for his wallet for the glare followed by the crinkled frown.

But, just the other day, I caught him on the Internet filling out an online application to a local trade school. 

He turned and asked, “Can we afford this?”

I grunted, reached for my wallet to get my annoyed glare, and instead replied, “Sure.  We’ll get the money somewhere.  We’ll fill out a form or something.”