She paid for college herself. Worked her way through. Made it happen. Now her daughter needs college and guess what? The math doesn't work anymore.
Tuition climbed faster than wages. Shocker. A generation spent telling their kids to work hard and pay your own way, completely unaware that the system they navigated no longer exists. It's like teaching someone to hunt woolly mammoths in 2026. Inspiring stuff.
The article calls her college experience "good debt." That's what we're doing now. Branding debt. Giving it a little tie and a firm handshake. Good debt. Bad debt. Next we'll have debt with a compelling origin story and a three-act character arc.
Here's the thing about generational advice: it expires. What worked in 1995 when college cost the equivalent of a used Camry does not work when college costs a house. But we keep passing down the same wisdom like it's scripture. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Except the bootstraps now cost $80,000 and require a cosigner.
She wants to recreate her success for her daughter. Noble. Impossible, but noble. The daughter will take on debt her mother never imagined. She'll graduate into an economy that demands experience she can't have and degrees that don't guarantee employment. She'll spend her twenties wondering why she followed the exact path everyone told her to follow.
The real question isn't whether the daughter can make college "good debt." It's whether she'll figure out her mother's advice was a relic before she's $100,000 in the hole.
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
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