You wrote below this line that your current expenses are $500/month. The poverty line is currently $12,880. Even if you are making one half of that (which is hard to believe: $6,440/year works out to $3.10/hour), you would still have $440/year to invest. You wrote elsewhere that you are in your late thirties; $36.67/month invested in the S&P 500 over the last 15 years (which has returned 8.4% over that time) would be worth $13,195.76 today. That is not a lot for folks above the poverty line, but by your own math that works out to over two years' living expenses. Over the course of forty years at the same long-term rate one could expect to have enough saved up for twenty-four years' expenses.
Or you could invest it in something with a greater than 8.4% return … such as a college education.
> I also feel really uncomfortable with debt in general, especially debt that I cannot choose to have absolved through bankruptcy.
Debt can be a problem, but it can also be a solution. Borrowing at X% and investing at Y% is a great idea when Y > X (of course, if Y or X is not constant, then there is a risk that Y < X at some point!). When Y >> X, as in the case of going to college for a marketable degree, it is an easy decision.
Also, people who come to college later in life tend to do better than average, because they want to be there, and have more maturity and discipline to do the work necessary.
I'm not saying college is the right choice for you, you do have important considerations that you're clearly weighing against each other. But, I am saying it may have more in the "pro" column than you credit it for, and there are also some non-loan subsidies that open up for students as well.
But yeah, student loans suck. A lot. For sure!
You have your time and energy to invest, and you can get an educational loan.
" then work at your job for 5-10 years to pay that debt off"
I don't think all of your money goes into paying off the debt during that time.
"I'm philosophically opposed to getting a piece of paper for a job that I could do just as easily without a college education as I could with one"
Well if you don't need it and don't want it, obviously don't get that degree.
" I also feel really uncomfortable with debt in general, especially debt that I cannot choose to have absolved through bankruptcy."
Since you have established you can earn as much without a degree, and it takes 5 years to pay off the costs, you could also work for 5 years and save money for the degree.
"Well if you don't need it and don't want it, obviously don't get that degree."
The concern is that, according to parent, and I believe parent, is that the system requires a useless piece of paper. The degree is more an economic hurdle than a proof of capacity. That merit is a social construct.
Apart from that, while the usefulness of some degrees can be questioned, there is a general concept called "signalling" which has actual value. That is you demonstrate certain qualities in a way that are difficult to fake (usually by doing something costly, like getting a degree, or carrying around a huge tail if you are a parrot).
My friend often comes to me and says, "Hey, man, how come you don't invest your money in <x>?" Because I'm living in poverty. People who live in poverty don't have money to invest.
> So why not find an affordable college?
So I did a quick calculation. Affordable, meaning junior college and public state college, would come out to roughly $23k for a bachelor. Maybe round it to $30k. When I was paying off my car, which only come out to about a little over $10k. Two years of having to work JUST to pay that off felt really, really uncomfortable. A college infused starting salary would probably only pay about 1 and 1/2 times more than what I was making then and the idea of having to do that for even longer without being able to absolve myself of it through bankruptcy is not something I want to do.
> Can't you just hack this by going to school for pretty much anything you're interested in and being able to work in an unrelated field?
That particular situation doesn't apply to every job. It seems like its mainly tech jobs I see that in and I'm not 100% certain I'd want to work to be forced into a tech job.
So I'm trying to think of the best way to explain this because I feel like I'm going in different directions but it seems like there's two paths:
1) go to college, accrue debt to get a job then work at your job for 5-10 years to pay that debt off
Barring someone making sure I have the proper technical bonafides, I'm philosophically opposed to getting a piece of paper for a job that I could do just as easily without a college education as I could with one. I also feel really uncomfortable with debt in general, especially debt that I cannot choose to have absolved through bankruptcy.
2) live at the lowest possible means necessary and eke out a living as best you can
As it stands now, my current expenses are no more than $500 a month (including rent). My biggest challenge, currently, to maintaining that type of lifestyle is getting remote work that I can do on an ad-hoc basis that will allow me to stay under the income necessary for government subsidies.