It is not common knowledge, but I graduated from high school early and never went onto college. I had and have many reasons, though lately I've been revisiting the idea.

Originally, I watched one of my friends after the other go to college, spend an amazing amount of money on tuition, and then drop out when they realized the courses just weren't for them. Some of them did this multiple times, now landing them in over $30,000 in debt with either student loans or lines of credit. The thought that that could have been me is terrifying!

At age eighteen if you had asked me what I wanted to do for a living, I'd have shrugged and mentioned a number of possibilities. The one foremost in my mind would have been game design. Oh how I am glad I never went into it!



At the time, the four year course would have run me around $46,000. Not to mention my final costs once you throw in the crazy student loan interest rates. I of course didn't have the money to pay for it outright, and neither did my parents. And now, at 25 years old, I have no desire what-so-ever to make game design my career. That would have been an amazing amount of money to throw down the drain for something I would never have put to good use.




The counsellor at my high school told me I should spend the few thousand dollars it would take to go to our local college and take Art. Why? Because he believed I would "Have fun".

A few thousand dollars, and several years of my life not working, to have fun? I thought he was loony!

While stressing about my academic future one afternoon, I ran into the older brother of an old friend of mine. He knew I was graduating soon because his sister was as well, and he asked me what my plans were. I told him I was going to graduate early, and work full time in a print shop because I wanted to continue learning graphic design. He told me he was proud of me for not making the mistake he’d watched so many of his friends make. (And later on, his sister, who in the end went to several different schools and threw away a lot of money into courses she never completed.)

He was…proud of me?
My mother had yelled and screamed at me until we were both in tears because I refused to go to college right away. My councillor thought I would be an idiot not to rush into a course so I could have fun. My dad wanted to see me go to school so I could have a good job. My aunt (to this day) could not sit down with me in a room without changing the subject to tell me how I should take a few thousand dollars and go to any school for any course.

And he was proud of me for not jumping into it?

Currently, my job is not the greatest. I’m doing very low end graphic design part time, while my husband is putting his four years of trade school to mediocre-use.

Four years of schooling, to become a red seal certified top of the line welder, and he is making less than first year students because there is just no work here for his trade. He is making literally half of what the average wage rate is for someone of his experience, skill and certification.

My co-worker just finished school for the course I would currently take if I went back to school. She is done, and knows less than half of what I know from on the job training, and is still working part time alongside me because there is no work here for that field.

Recently I have been job hunting. Nearly every posting is requiring at least two years of post-secondary education, and starting wages range from $11 to $14 an hour.

$10,000 to $44,000 in student debt, for $11 an hour? I’m making more than that doing what I have taught myself to do.

The employers around here complain that their aren’t enough educated people in the city, but they’re paying less than retail wages. This is a bad cycle guys, and someone needs to wake up!

Housing here is astronomically expensive; wages are ridiculously low.

Sometimes I wonder if I made a mistake by not going back to school these last few years, but then I look around. I do not know a single person who went to college who is now working at a well-paying job in a career they love. The ones who did successfully complete their education? Several were working in retail establishments, full time if they were lucky.

You can’t expect your youth to jump into college the second they receive their dogwood, as my and many other parents expect their children to do, unless they have a clear idea of what they want to do with themselves.

If housing and the job market here were different, then I would look at taking some courses. Though at the same time, I’ve also been informed that I know more than most the teachers here who teach the courses I would take. So in the end I feel like I’m caught between a rock and a hard place.

Maybe one of the schools is hiring?