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User Info The Bill To Permanently Fix Health Care For All; entered at 2017-05-03 15:05:40
Ostriches
Posts: 357
Registered: 2009-10-28
Regarding the "independent" status.

I had parents that refused to pay for my, or several of my siblings', secondary education.

My solution in the late 80s/early 90s was to enlist in the Army for a little over 2 years and take advantage of the Army College Fund.

With that, I was able to complete 4.5 years of undergrad (I switched majors a few times, certain classes were only required in specific semesters, and/or I was required to take some useless classes to get a degree, e.g., "Music of the World" or "Fine Art") without any debt. An added bonus was that I was stationed in beautiful W. Germany and even got to visit the even more beautiful nations of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait from behind the laterals of an M113A2!

As a result of being a Veteran, at 20, I was then considered to be independent for student loan/grant/income purposes - which, s my folks lived in another state and didn't pay anything, I certainly was!

I am not sure if such is the case nowadays.

Post-graduate was another story, and I had to take out loans to complete that - all while working part time to pay the rent/expenses. I am still paying on those loans to this day and while I could have paid them off a long time ago, I decided to keep the money on hand in case of an emergency.

I often lament the fact that had I stayed in the Army, I could have retired by now - well that, or dead in a useless war in Southwest Asia.

If I were to do it all over, I would probably do Airforce ROTC, enter as an officer, get them to pay for my professional degree that resulted in a cushy job well behind the lines (dentist, JAG, etc.), retire from that with a fat pension/medical for life, etc., and then start/join a practice.

Finally, this "public service" forgiveness is utter and complete horseshit - everyone that works is performing a damned public service and/or knew what they were getting into when they took their "public service" job. Why is their job so damned special? Heck, the "public services" they perform end up costing everyone more.
2017-05-03 15:05:40