Open Forum: Good-bye, California
By Laurie Stephenson
I write this with tears in my eyes. I feel betrayed, bewildered and it's as though the world is completely off its axis.
I'm referring to the college application experience in the once-great state of California. What for me was a happy time, a time of excitement, of anticipation, of possibility, has been anything but for us and my heart aches for the young people who will never know the college experience that was mine.
Our daughter graduates from high school this year. My husband and I have been preparing for this moment since the day she was born. We had always planned that when the time came, we would make a list of colleges and universities that appealed to her; we would visit the campuses, prepare and submit the application paperwork and then, in due time, she would have choices from which she would make a selection. That's how it was in my day, back when California was solvent and when there was a place for everyone who wanted an education.
When our daughter was born, we researched and started a college fund for her to which we have religiously contributed over the years, the goal being to have enough to fully finance her higher education. I've always been a saver. It's just something that is hard--wired into my personality. I don't like debt -- financial or personal -- and relish the liberation of being unencumbered, of not owing and therefore not being owned. My husband is the same way. We have worked hard to pay as we go, to live within our means, to not depend upon anyone but ourselves and to set aside for our daughter's education as well as for our own retirement years.
When the time came to go into high gear on the college applications, we made a list of public and private schools to which our daughter might be interested in applying. I am a product of Catholic education and would have loved for her to attend my alma mater. The tuition and expenses there are exorbitant now and, as we have too much income/assets and not enough offsetting debt/expenses, we would not qualify for much in financial aid. Our college fund investments took a major hit in late 2008-early 2009 with the collapse of the economy, and a major portion of it is gone forever.
So, to foot the private school bill ourselves would mean that we would either have to borrow or liquidate a good chunk of what we have saved for our retirement years. With the economy in such turmoil, and our daughter's employment prospects after graduation thus so uncertain, we feel it would be foolish to encumber her, and ourselves, with education loans. And we believe that to liquidate our retirement assets would also be foolish, in that we cannot depend on the