Kid, Major in Anything You Want but You Ain’t Living at Home After Graduation

Growing up I always knew I was going to college, mostly because I was told as much from a very young age.

“You will go to college,” my parents told me, “and we’ll help you pay for it.” Notice they didn’t say they’d pay for it, or that I’d be free to take a year off to backpack through Europe.

Following high school graduation I attended California State University where I chose Child and Adolescent Studies as my major because I thought I liked teaching. As it turned out, I didn’t like teaching, or really even other people’s kids, so I never began my career as an elementary school teacher. BTW, you’re welcome for that.

As affordable as subsidized education was through the state of California at that time, my divorced parents each agreed to pay a third of my tuition while I struggled to pay my third.

While I never considered a college major in Theater Arts or Philosophy, my parents would have been happy to support any major of my choosing so long as I understood the two-third buck stopped after graduation.

As a parent, I like to pretend that college is a long way off but it’s not. Boy Wonder is turning 10 years old next month and his life’s goal is to become an artist. He’s pretty good too (check out gallery I and gallery II). We’ve already supported him with art lessons for the last five years, and I know him well enough to understand that his ability to study art in college might be the only thing that motivates him to attend…[read more]