Going to college gave me the space I needed to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, to get internships, and to make connections that enabled me to get paying gigs later on.

I may not have ever put my "Intro to Archaeology" knowledge to practical use, but I was able to eliminate "archaeologist/Indiana Jones" from my list of dream careers. And I value the fact that I was able to make a list that had room for careers as audacious as that.


If I hadn't have gone to college, I may have eventually been able to figure out that I wanted to be a writer. But I don't think I'd be where I am now, or even close to it.

That doesn't mean my career is going perfectly, or that my student loan payments have gone off without a hitch. I got laid off from my first post-grad job a week before last Thanksgiving, and it's taken almost six months to gain any real traction as a freelance journalist. But I work in an industry where that kind of instability is common. And after covering student loans as a journalist, I'm fortunate to know how to navigate my debt with confidence, even when money is tight.

Student loans can be an oppressive force, one that can prevent you from doing what you want to do and living how you want to live. And predicting the amount of debt you'll graduate with can be a difficult task. (Based on my freshman year aid package, I thought I'd graduate with about $35,000 in loans and ended up with nearly double that.) But I can't say I agree with people who insist it's better to skip college altogether than to graduate with debt.

I don't regret my student loans. And I don't think it's fair to tell people like me, those who would be the first in their family to go to college and don't come from money, that this opportunity - which has long been touted as a surefire path to upward mobility - isn't an good option.