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VOC Rehab only supports community colleges, unless you get a scholarship to pay for everything. I went to UM Rolla in 1986-1987 with a student loan, but ran out

VOC Rehab only supports community colleges, unless you get a scholarship to pay for everything. I went to UM Rolla in 1986-1987 with a student loan, but ran out of money to live on. So I returned home and attended a community college while living with my parents. I started working in the Computer Lab while earning an IT degree and got a couple jobs, but I was too busy working to earn a Bachelor's degree. My Associates was good enough until the 1999 Dotcom bust, where they raised the degree to a bachelors to do my job. I returned for a Bachelor's at the University of Phoenix in 2005. But I became disabled due to a mental illness in 2003 and could not work a job. I paid off my student loans, but college was expensive. I applied for 100+ scholarships and won none of them. I came from a middle-class family where my father was a phone installer for AT&T/SWB and barely made enough to make ends meet with three children and a wife. I learned BASIC on a Commodore 64 I shared with my two brothers, and got into BBSing with a VICMODEM 300 Baud MODEM. Now there are Hacker Bootcamps to learn how to code without a STEM degree.

clipsy 1y ago
> I came from a middle-class family where my father was a phone installer for AT&T/SWB and barely made enough to make ends meet with three children and a wife I don't want to be disrespectful here, but this seems like a contradiction in terms. Can you explain how you'd define "middle-class"?
- bigjimmyk3 1y ago
  I believe my situation was similar to GP's: family on the lower end of middle class, and enough younger siblings to make it a stretch. I was accepted to a reasonably prestigious university, but ran out of money after the first semester, so I wound up coming home and finishing my degree at a state school. It's also important to note that the student loan system back then was very different: different guarantors, and non-infinite money.
  - orionblastar 1y ago
    Yes, that was the case, lower-middle-class, and three children with a wife on my father's salary.

clipsy 1y ago

> I came from a middle-class family where my father was a phone installer for AT&T/SWB and barely made enough to make ends meet with three children and a wife I don't want to be disrespectful here, but this seems like a contradiction in terms. Can you explain how you'd define "middle-class"?

bigjimmyk3 1y ago
I believe my situation was similar to GP's: family on the lower end of middle class, and enough younger siblings to make it a stretch. I was accepted to a reasonably prestigious university, but ran out of money after the first semester, so I wound up coming home and finishing my degree at a state school. It's also important to note that the student loan system back then was very different: different guarantors, and non-infinite money.
- orionblastar 1y ago
  Yes, that was the case, lower-middle-class, and three children with a wife on my father's salary.