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College and Money

Balancing the Budget

My first great shock upon arriving at college was not that the dorm rooms were the size of phone booths, nor that I was expected to do three hours of studying for every fifty minutes spent in class. No, my first great shock was how much money the other women on my hall seemed to have.

Let me admit up front that I was better off, financially speaking, than some. I didn't attend college as a work-study student. And I knew that if anything truly dire happened, I had a safety net: my parents.

So, I was very, very lucky. I didn't have to go into debt to pay my tuition. I was more privileged than many college freshmen, and not a day goes by that I don't offer thanks for the privileges with which I started adulthood.

That said, throughout college I was on a pretty tight budget for extras. I'd assumed that most students would be in the same boat.

I assumed incorrectly.

Money to Burn

My first clue was the sheer volume of stuff some of my hallmates seemed to be moving into their dorm rooms. I had my cello, and a dusty old hand-me-down desktop computer. My hallmates, however, showed up with carts, truckloads, housefuls of stuff that they somehow crammed into those teeny-tiny dorm rooms: snazzy laptops, televisions, and a slough of technological gizmos I'd never even heard of.

My next clue gradually revealed itself, as I saw my hallmates parade a seemingly endless line of haute couture. And then the weekend rolled around, and many of my new friends went dancing, went out to restaurants, went to plays and rock concerts (I attended school in Manhattan, where there were endless cultural temptations — my budget more or less required me to stick to museums). I stayed in and read a book.

Buy New Clothes or Eat …

I would like to say that as a mature, highly-evolved, utterly self-confident gal, none of this bothered me in the slightest. But that would be a fib. Actually, it would be an out-right lie, a whopper.

What got me down was not so much that I didn't have the same stuff that my new friends had. (In fact, I still don't have a TV.) What most bummed me out was that I couldn't participate in many of the social activities that filled the calendars of the people I wanted to hang out with.

Shopping was a case in point (and if I'm being honest, I'll admit that shopping brought together my lust for things and my desire to do what everyone else was doing). My friends, Helen and Ursi often blew off studying and spent a few hours haunting vintage clothing shops — you'd think I could afford that, right? I mean, used clothes? But cool used clothes are pricey, and I was living on $1,500 a semester. I could eat, or I could indulge in vintage outfits, but I couldn't do both.

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It shouldn't bother you at all if your friends are zillionaires, right?

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My college alma mater doesn't boast a big Greek scene, but my friends at Southern schools tell me that pledging a fraternity or sorority just ramps up the financial pressure. And where is that pressure most keenly felt? Again, wardrobes.

My neighbor, Mimi, who recently graduated from a posh Southern college, tells me of the phone fights she would have with her parents: she would explain that she absolutely needed a bigger clothing allowance, because she had to have the same cute dresses and matching sweater-sets that her sorority sisters had. Her parents replied that no, she did not have to have these fancy duds, and she would just have to make do with the perfectly presentable, if not necessarily au courant, clothes she had.

But I Deserve those Gucci Shoes!

I never did quite solve the problem. I put together a pastiche of short-term, part-time jobs in college — research assistant, deli cashier, babysitter. The income from those jobs was fun money, and it eased the pressure a little bit. Sometimes I nonetheless felt searing, if misplaced, resentment toward my parents, along the lines of I can't believe my mother just bought herself that outfit/took that trip/went out to dinner! Doesn't she know that I might like a new pair of shoes!?!

In other words, all throughout college, I skirted dangerously close to developing an obnoxious air of entitlement. And if there's one characteristic I can't stand when I meet it in other people, it's a sense of entitlement. And it seems to me that Christians in particular have no business acting as though we deserve a fancy education — for being a Christian is about serving, not deserving.

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Our generation often seems to feel entitled to things — jobs, nice clothes, cars. Where does this attitude come from, and is it justified?

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My freshman year, I really, really wanted to fly out to California over winter break to visit a new college friend (a friend who, it seemed, flew to far-off places at the drop of a hat — the Caribbean for fall break, Europe for spring break). I called my mom to discuss the possibility of the trip — my only expense would be the plane ticket, since I'd be staying with my friend's family the rest of the time. In all honesty, I didn't exactly want to go to California. What I loved was the idea of it: the idea of jetting across the country to visit a new friend. It seemed sophisticated. It seemed adult.

Well, my mom listened, and she responded simply: I could buy the ticket, but it would eat up 1/3 of my spring semester allowance. It was my choice, she said. Annoyed, I decided not to go to California. I was totally ticked off with my mother, but now I can see how wise she was.

Good Training for the Rest of Your Life …

In hindsight, I'm actually glad I had to face these social pressures in college. They trained me well for life after college — for I have never returned to my social bubble of high school, where everyone in my set was basically working in the same budget. In fact, as I've entered adulthood, the financial disparities between my friends and me have only widened. I am a writer, and a grad student, and let me assure you, neither of those is especially lucrative. So I have friends from church who regularly go out to lunch or dinner, and I just can't always do it.

Sometimes, of course, it still really bums me out that I always "have to" invite people over to my house, instead of joining them at the new hot restaurant. (Only now, instead of whining resentfully to my parents, I whine to God: Why can't you wave a wand and sell 9 million copies of my books? Why did you create me to be a lowly paid writer, anyway? You clearly gave some people vocations that also happen to be lucrative. Why not me? Why couldn't you have created me with a deep calling to neurosurgery or corporate law???)

On the other hand, I have friends who earn less than I do, and my experiences with super-rich friends in college helps me to be sensitive to them too. I won't ask my friend Suzie to go shopping with me very often, because I know she simply can't afford to buy many clothes, and I know how uncomfortable and annoying it can be to go shopping with a friend whose can seemingly buy whatever she wants. Instead, Suzie and I have cooking dates, or walking dates, or museum dates.

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Has the comfort of our American society caused us to misunderstand or misrepresent the truth of the Bible in any way?

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If it bothers you that your roommate has three times as many clothes as you do — well, that doesn't make you a shallow, materialistic person. It makes you human. On the other hand, you can decide that keeping up with the Joneses doesn't have to be your number one priority. Actually, an absence of stuff can free you up to focus on service, on prayer, and on cultivating gratitude for all that God has given us — starting with a relationship with Him.

And if you're the roomie with lots of clothes … well, at least let your new nearest neighbor borrow your Manolo Blahniks once in a while.