It is officially Fall which means my mailbox is getting flooded with letters from my alma mater a) asking for money (I'm still paying off the 4 years I was there!) & b) encouraging me to come to Homecoming! It actually makes me a little sad to think I will probably be missing Homecoming this year. Right now I'm just hoping for walking privileges...I haven't even thought about driving ones yet. Baby steps, literally. I've never missed a Homecoming game. I've also only been out of school for 2 years, but still. I remember before I graduated how I told myself that I would always make it to the LU Homecoming game no matter where I lived or what was going on. I was going to go every year until I died and when I got older and had kids I would drag them along and make them like it. I really told myself that. But I've learned life and circumstances aren't always so compliant. I really do miss LU. My 4 years of college were single-handedly the best 4 years of my life, so far. And I think sometimes I give LU too hard of a time b/c I complain about student loans and how expensive college was when I really did get a decent amount of scholarships from them. And while it still was RIDICULOUSLY expensive (private school will do that) it was worth it for the education, experience, and life-long friends I left with. Plus, it is really organizations like FAFSA and SallieMae that I should complain about. Sidenote: if you want to skip the momentary complaining don't read the italics below.
Let me just get this off my chest and save you some time. If you have two parents that are working and trying to provide for your family you will get nothing from FAFSA. That's right, nothing. You WILL however have to fill out the 3284023 million pieces of paper/online mess to apply for it. But you will get nothing. Tell me how that is fair? I am being punished because my parents work. If your parents don't work then you are lucky b/c you will probably get a lot. Even if one of your parents doesn't work you will at least get something. Tell your parents to quit their jobs before you apply for school and you will probably get to go for free. I'm only half joking. As for SallieMae...don't be fooled into thinking you can get out of your student loans. You can't. Even if you die, your family will be burdened with them. Take a look at your student loan balance (try not to cry) and then double it b/c by the time you pay it off 20 years later the interest will have practically doubled. SallieMae doesn't care if you aren't using your degree, if you barely have enough money to survive, or like I said, if you die. Rant over.
Back to LU. I am proud of my school. I seriously love my school. I honestly believe the students that graduate from there will change the world for Christ. And when you are doing big things for God there are always going to be haters. And I think LU gets a bad rep sometimes b/c of the rules or the founder or (insert some ridiculous rumor here). And maybe its because I grew up in VA and LU is in VA but I sometimes think the worst haters are the ones that go to other VA colleges and think their school is so much better than ours. For example, UVA. Ok, so you're smart, we get it. You're also probably boring. And for Tech and VCU and JMU and ODU and whatever other schools think it is impossible to have fun without being wasted I ask you this...does this not look like fun to you?
I'll stop there before there is too much irony in my words. And before I get bad comments on this post. I'm not a hater, I'm just saying. If you want to know what LU is like from an outside perspective I encourage you to read this book, The Unlikely Disciple. But a better way to know what it is like is to check out this video...
OR take a look back this post to see why I love(d) college.
Want to know my favorite part of college? Remembering it.
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