Student housing

I only have two regrets in my life: Not spending more time with my father, and not going to a university, although the latter isn't so much a regret as a "what if?"  I decided at an early age (14 or 15) that i wasn't going to college, although I couldn't tell you why--maybe it was concern over costs (my family didn't have any money, and I didn't want to work hard enough in high school to get a scholarship), or perhaps because I was so pre-occupied with computers, I wasn't interested in general education courses.

Whatever the reason, I quickly realized that any job in computers required a degree, and so I went to a technical school for 3 years to get my bachelors.  But night school at a local technical college is a far cry from a university.  I did the work required, but it was hardly stimulating, mind-expanding, or fulfilling.  I didn't make any lifelong friendships, and (more importantly) never learned to drink.

Now, it's not like I sit at home at night, nursing a cup of tea, thinking about what might have been.  But it came back to me this weekend because, while I was in Edinburgh, I stayed in the student housing at the university.  (Most rooms in Edinburgh during August are over £200/night; I was paying £45 including breakfast.)  Lying in the dark, listening to groups of students in the quad, talking and laughing, I tried to picture a younger version of myself mixing in.

And the fact is, I probably wouldn't have.  Perhaps my career would have been slightly different, but then I've always been quite happy with my career.

I've taken community college courses off an on through the years, and when I moved to England, I looked into taking some classes here.  However, because I am not a British citizen, the fees were outrageous.  For example, at Birkbeck University, an undergraduate degree would cost a British citizen around £6600, but the same courses would have cost me £22,000!

So I decided to wait until I had my citizenship.  Unfortunately, since the new government bizarrely and perversely decided to raise university fees this year (perversely because they said it as a cost-saving measure, when it will actually cost the government more), the fees for ciizens have skyrocketed.  For example, last year an undergraduate degree from the Open University -- which is all online -- would have cost a British citizen around £2,600; this year it is around £10,000!  And I would have to pay £14,000!

The big difference is that for a British Citizen, the UK government would extend a loan for the full amount, that would only have to be repaid after graduation and only if the graduate was making a certain amount of money.  I would have to pay up-front.

So I think that puts paid to that.  (That's an English expression, which obviously means "forget it.")  In any case, I'm afraid I'm too old and intolerant of youth to appreciate the 'university experience.'  i just hope the next generation of my family doesn't even have the same regret.