One of these things is not like the others. If you lived rent free at your parent's home, you did it with your parent's money. I know a number of people who, come 18, were on their own.

I drove my Aunt's beater car she gave me for 15 years of nearly unpaid yardwork.

I did accept a 9 year old desktop computer from my dad.

I did have a girlfriend that was supportive, let me nap in her dorm.

I'm sure if you try hard enough, you can find 1 friend or family member that gives me privilege.

I don't have anything further to contribute, but I wanted to frame the entire situation. Maybe it's these obscure privileges that made it possible.

I don't imagine it's more than 20% and I expect it is substantially less. If so, what is the point of your objection?

The bast majority of people could do what OP did, but don't. That's interesting.

Disclosure: I went to college 50 minutes away from where my parents lived and still lived on campus because I had to get out of living in the middle of nowhere and a 50 minute commute to class wasn't my thing.

Why do you think so many colleges have so much housing infrastructure?

Most people study grew up in places without any decent universities within commuting distance.

It's not just the elite universities that have housing infrastructure.

I remember that I was one of the few students in my year who grew up in the city in which my alma mater was based.

I couldn’t find stats, but my impressions is dorms are way more common in america.

Top university in my country, so not everyone could to begin with.

For the same reason each region - aside from those who had good schools themselves - was represented roughly proportionally to its population.

I did very poorly in school, dropped out before I had a chanced to have too much debt, but have done relatively well in the professional market. Would you say it's good advice for me to tell everyone to drop out, because it worked out fine for me? I don't think it would be; people are different.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Who said "all"? I will assert, without data because per-school or per-school-type data is hard to come by, that most of the debt problems are caused by students choosing (or being pressured) to attend expensive private or out-of-state schools with insufficient financial aid.

However, if that wasn't the OP's intent then I admit fault and apologize.

Go to community college for 2 years, don't take summers off, live within your means, stay at home or get roommates, work part time for your living expenses. I see people complaining about $25k per year, $100k in student loans. It's absolutely absurd.

When I first went to that college in the late 90s, it was $6k a year, including room and board. I had a full-ride scholarship (which I wasn't able to hang on to for more than 3 semesters, but that's another story), and it was going to pay $24k total for all four years. Now it's that much for 1 year.

By the way, if tuition followed inflation AT ALL (i.e. I checked an inflation calculator), the cost would have only increased to $9k a year, including room and board. Clearly the price tag of college has just increased out of control for the past 20 years.

https://financialaid.illinoisstate.edu/paying/cost/table-gro...

You're right about the community college. That is absolutely a way to save money, but in states like PA, you'd still have to pay nearly $46k for tuition alone. That's not including housing or transportation costs. It's not as easy as "2 years at community college and then transfer to a state school" for everyone.

[0]http://www.collegecalc.org/colleges/pennsylvania/

You got a high-paying job? You started a successful company? You finally sold more than 300 copies of your eBook?

If you want to prove the article wrong, you're going to have to demonstrate more than just the fact that you got a piece of paper. If you can't do that, then you're actually proving the article's point.

of this group, some people hate it just because they hate contributing money towards any government program, but others might have (reasonable imo) concerns for what kinds of majors they are paying for, whether their money will be spent efficiently, etc.

edit: maybe I misunderstood the point of your post; I thought you were talking about providing cheap school.

Yes, with those in place the route you took is totally doable (agreed it’s strenuous).

I experienced the change myself because I dropped out after going to school for two years and went back to school 9 years later to finish my degree.

By the time I got back I was kicking myself for not taking out student loans then and staying in school, because the same education was now more than double the price, and I ended up having to take out loans anyway, and twice as much as I would have before. I'm just about done paying them off, 8 years after I graduated.