There Are Reasons Some Dorms Aren't Full

The morning before I drove my oldest daughter to her first stay in a college dorm - she won a partial scholarship to a state sponsored program for High School students - I was trying to alleviate some anxiety in the house by stressing positive things.

“The books for the program are provided for free, isn’t that nice?” I said as we packed.

“All textbooks are free if you’re not a pussy about it.” Replied the oldest daughter, not even looking up from her task.

I nearly exploded in parental pride, right there on the spot. The kid already knows how to pirate college textbooks and she’s not yet 18. This did considerably lift my mood for the day, which would hold more frustrations after a long May of frustrations.

The oldest daughter had been recruited to attend programs at elite universities this summer, but of course we couldn’t afford those. We ended up at a state sponsored program in its first ever year. This summer on campus experience is a bid to offer lower income students the same sort of opportunities well off families can afford, as well as a chance for a state uni with lower enrollment to fill a new dorm for the summer. The registration for the thing was a red tape long haul, which I won’t go over again, but just know that when we pulled up to the fancy new dorm that had been advertised, this turned out to not be the housing provided. I don’t blame the state uni employees who put the program together for the many stumbling blocks in the execution of student registration and enrollment. It’s the first year of the thing, and we’re getting what we paid for. Every kid in the program had to fight to be there just as hard as the program employees probably had to fight to pull such a thing off.

So we had to assemble the bedroom ourselves a bit, the furniture in the provided dorm rooms all being in one corner as it was unprepared for guests, but it was newly cleaned. No signs or banners welcomed the kids to campus, but they did each get a water bottle, a cinch sack, and some pens. I helped the oldest daughter set up her first dorm room ever, and took her out for a last off campus lunch for a month, and then was left to drive home by myself, dealing with my own conflicted relationship with academia.

One of the things I did in the decade I took off from blogging was author a textbook myself. It won some awards, and the second edition is still being used in a few graduate courses. Springer publishing sends me a check for 2k every other year, and I get about $200 annually in royalties from the second edition, which was self published on Amazon, because the respected academic press offered to pay me in “Springer Bucks” for the update. I actually have a peer reviewed article that will be published later this year, for the customary zero compensation. So from a strictly “how much have you published and how much are you cited” view of academia, I’m relatively successful. Of course, me being a late Gen-Xer, I have a pretty complicated relationship to higher education on the whole.

Two decades ago I had close to two dozen friends and friendly acquaintances who worked for universities, and today I have two. I watched over the years as an entire generation of academics were sidelined into adjuncts until they got so sick of living on pennies they quit. Those of us who weren’t made into adjuncts - academic librarians and archivists - had our positions eliminated or downsized. Sure, a few here and there made it through the killer filter of the early 2000’s, but none of those I know or know of my own age were able to stay in academia and have kids. I know there are women and men out there around my age who got to work for colleges or universities and raise children. I just don’t know any of them personally.

I defaulted on my student loans. That’s a longer story, but I refuse to feel bad about not paying back the education that failed to pull me out of the ranks of the working poor. Anyone who wants me to feel bad about defaulting on my student loans can feel free to take payment for said loans in Springer Bucks.

Dropping my kid off at a cut-rate university program for the poors was a hail mary pass at padding her college applications with scholarship bait. I’ve had the talk with her about university not being strictly necessary for a productive career, but she wants to study Psychology, and no one wants a therapist without a degree, so into the machine that chewed up and spit out so many Gen X nerds she goes. Our family is hoping the oldest daughter can achieve escape velocity from the lands where abortions are illegal, and the summer college program is more fuel for her to move in that direction.

We are flooded with mailers from universities, of course, and I think GSU right here in Atlanta is a great school. Due to our economic circumstances, she may end up in higher ed here yet, but I am hoping against good sense that a school where more sane laws govern young women’s bodies will offer to take her in despite our lack of cash.

Everything is a knife edge for kids as they finish high school. I just hope universities don’t end up wounding either of my daughters as badly as they did so many I have known. That I got away with only the financial scar of a loan default I suppose was a fair price to pay considering I have my degrees and the doors they did manage to open. There wasn’t any real cash behind any of those doors, but there was some work, and some health insurance, and I got away in time to have my children.

Steal all the textbooks by downloading them, Gen Z. Don’t be a pussy about it. The universities and loan officers certainly won’t flinch or blink while they steal from you.