I went to college in the 1960s. Much has changed since then. Many of my classmates had what I would call a “comfortable” college experience: They had cars, nice clothes, attended football games. But that wasn’t my experience. I went through college and law school the hardest possible way.
I wasn’t the first in my family to attend college. Both of my parents were college graduates. My maternal grandfather, who died long before I was born, probably was too, as he was a school superintendent. My paternal grandfather was a farmer, and as far as I know, never got beyond high school, which was typical in his generation.
My father was a modestly-paid a newspaper reporter, my mother a stay-at-home mom, and there were six children in our family including three younger than me, so I always knew there would be no family help for college expenses. And there wasn’t, other than allowing me to live at home for a year while I attended a local commuter college.
Getting to classes involved an hour-long bus ride, including a transfer at bus stop a block from Lake Michigan that was bitterly cold and windy in winter. I had a part-time proofreading job in the newspaper printing plant that required working from 6 pm until 2 am on Fridays and Saturdays, when other people my age were going dating. I didn’t begin dating, and wasn’t kissed by a girl, until age 30. That’s how badly I wanted to be a lawyer someday.
Papers were written longhand on lined notepaper, and research had to be done in libraries, because computers and the internet didn’t exist yet. In that first year, I wrote final drafts of many of my papers on the bus, and once an angry man yelled at me during the entire bus ride because I wouldn’t give up my seat to his wife, because I had to turn the paper in, would get a failing grade if I didn’t finish it, and couldn’t write standing up.
After my first year, I transferred to an out-of-state school in a college town where the only work available was minimum-wage part-time jobs that were insufficient to cover my tuition and living expenses. So I had to go into debt. I couldn’t qualify for Pell Grants because my family’s income was too high, even though none was available to me. That’s how financial aid rules worked in those days; my parents’ income, all of which went to supporting my younger siblings and none of which was devoted to my education, disqualified me for any financial aid except loans, even though I was emancipated and completely on my own.
I was very poor; so poor I lived in the cheapest and rattiest housing there was, and sometimes didn’t have much to eat. Once, I lived for two weeks on half a sack of cornmeal and half a bottle of pancake syrup, because I had nothing else.
I carried a heavy class load and attended summer schools to finish a four-year degree in three years. I also worked most of that time. At one point, I had a full-time night job working 40 hours a week while carrying a full academic load. I went to law school by enlisting in the Army and fighting in a war to get G.I. Bill benefits, but it still took more debt to finish three years of law school. I also started a business while in law school that created jobs for other people, but didn’t make any money for me.
I wasn’t unique. I met some students who were working at factory jobs and supporting families. They attended day and evening classes, worked night shifts, studied and wrote papers on lunch breaks, and slept on weekends. They were blue-collar guys who, like me, were willing to make any sacrifice to get a shot at becoming engineers, accountants, or doctors.
No one then talked about student debt relief. I eventually repaid all my student loans. At the time, I was happy to get them, because I couldn’t have stayed in school without them. Republicans, then as now, opposed student aid programs. That’s when I became a Democrat. That’s how they lost my vote for fifty years.
It’s always been tough to move up from the underclass in this country. The privileged kids didn’t know or appreciate what they had. Their class holds up people like me as proof that grit can make up for lack of advantage. But how many of them have done it, or know what it’s like? Yes, I had world-class determination, and that’s what it takes
to overcome disadvantage and climb up from the bottom, which was as true then as it is now. What I want to ask them is, what gives people who don’t need to demand that of themselves or their children the right to ask it of someone else?
It shouldn’t be this hard for anyone. Getting a college education, which is almost a prerequisite for being middle class now that good blue-collar jobs are disappearing, shouldn’t be an epic struggle for those unlucky in birth. It should be a birthright for all Americans, with the cost shared by society, because everyone benefits from an educated workforce, and such a workforce is the backbone of a prosperous economy.