Well, CE, not sure what you are implying here but FWIW, I was not a resident of CA at the time. I don’t know what UC tuition/fees were in that era but IIRC, SDSU (recently renamed from SD State College) was about $114-143 semester + fees (about $168 semester incl pkg). CA CC’s were “free.”
My 30 ACT score got me admitted to CU (Boulder, CO), which, IIRC, was about $850 – $900 tuition per semester + fees and books at the time. I had a FT job and lived over 40 miles from it and would have had to drive there in the snow on 2-lane roads. Even back then, living in Boulder was very expensive (and still is). There’s no way $4400 would have covered a year there (perhaps a $4400 loan + an annual “BEOG” grant of $2000 may have, if I qualified for it).
Yes, I could have worked and lived in Boulder but I doubt any job offered me would have been F/T or paid more than min wage. I made MUCH more $$ living in Denver.
When I later moved back to CA, I got a F/T job immediately and was no longer interested in attending college. In any case, I was ineligible for “resident-student tuition” for the first year.
Even as much as 15 years after HS graduation, I had MANY HS friends who I wrote and/or visited periodically who were not as well off as me or established in their own right (owned their own homes, etc) due to leaving the work world to attend college for several years. And many had student loans to pay off (although not as large as today’s loans). I wouldn’t have been able to swing buying my first property at such a young age if I had had student loans to pay off!
I concede that those days are long gone and that a college degree is now the new HS diploma (in employers’ eyes). It’s very sad that a college degree costs so much. I also think most employers are short-sighted in hiring a young, inexperienced college grad over an experienced HS grad or “Certificate” candidate. Most employers today automatically think the “college grad” candidate will be the better employee but nothing could be further from the truth. A candidate who will be “up and running” on the first day of work due to work experience and superior basic skills (which most college grads don’t have) is the better candidate.
I’m speaking of non-technical jobs here … in the business sector.
