I paid for my education in student loans. I valued being able to get the “college experience” and focus on enjoying the education, and just doing things like relaxing at the reservation on weekends and go kayaking instead of going to work. To me, getting my education was the work part of it (passing classes).
Not sure where the concept came from to me, but I knew I’d be spending a significant portion of my life after college doing the 9 – 5, so I was in no rush to join the workforce at the expense of other opportunities you can only get in college. My junior and senior year I worked a few hours a week at the HR department of my university for the resume experience, as that’s good to have going out into the real world upon graduation. And through college I did other stuff (rolling burritos) but never for more than a couple months at a time.
My grandma paid my cellphone bill b/c she wanted a way to be in touch with me, and I didn’t value the cell phone at the time, so if she didn’t I wouldn’t have bothered to pay a cell bill, but I paid for my food, housing, gas, etc through student loans.
And to this day, even with my automatic deductions every month for the loan, I think it was wholly worth it.
I also used grants and scholarships to help, but a majority of my expenses were loans b/c my parents were considered to be too-high earners for me to deserve more scholarship. . . but my dad was actually my step-dad who didn’t value education b/c he didn’t have one, so he wasn’t going to help pay, and my mom passed away during my freshman year, so it was on me!