POST HIGH SCHOOL ADULTS: WHOSE EDUCATION IS IT ANYWAY?

Parents mortgaging their homes—borrowing from their own retirement accounts to pay for the post high school education expenses for the post high school adults that they raised?  Preposterous!

As a generation, we Baby Boomers we have different expectations and experiences than do many young post high school adults today. Some joined the military to fight for our country and you can believe that facing battle, seeing your friends killed, and having to kill our enemies, these young men and women grew up in a hurry. Some boomers got married right out of high school and had adult responsibilities at age 18. 

They did not ask their parents for mortgage money or college education money. Do you know how they paid for college? THEY WORKED! They themselves worked --to pay for their own educations!

 Paying your own way is one opportunity to make wise choices. It is absolutely a sign of, a prerogative of, privilege of and a RESPONSIBILITY OF a post high school adult.

Ever take a five-year-old to a store? They want everything that they see.

Ever take them with their own money, say from a cash birthday gift?

 All of a sudden—they are interested in details, weighing the appeal of this toy vs. that one. In other words, they are prepared to make carefully thought out decisions that they weigh very carefully… when it is their money!

So it can be and should be with post high school adults. If a college education is what they want – it is THEIR responsibility to pay for it. 
When they have that responsibility they, like the 5-year-old with his birthday money, are going to check things out-- very carefully.  How much do they really need that new apartment/car/stereo/outfit-- if they have to work to pay for it themselves? 

If you parents are writing the check, whatever they want at that moment is a vital necessity:  it is essential. If they are writing their own check, maybe the item can wait.

Post High School Adults—that really needs to be the new phrase  to put the right “em-PHA-sis  the right sy-LAB-able”—as the Austin Powers’ character said in that zany movie with Gwyneth Paltrow as a flight attendant.  We as a society have lost our minds and our perspectives in some areas, and this is absolutely one of those. We have begun to prolong “adolescence” to the point that we may need to send along diapers in the college back pack-- that we pack for them!

Where to begin? You begin wherever you are.

If they are entering high school that is a very good time to have a sit-down face-to-face heart-to-heart talk.

“Listen, Michael or Michelle, mom and dad need to tell you something very important and very serious.

In four years you will graduate  from high school and you will be an adult. You will need to make important decisions that will affect you for the rest of your life.

“In fact the first day you set foot in a high school class room are already making life- altering decisions.  What are you in a high school class room for, anyway?

“It is my strong suggestion, son/daughter that you are there to prepare yourself for the work you will do for the next forty years. You are there to make the first decision for yourself, for your future: will you go to college-- or not?”

Yes, that is still a decision;  and too many people blow right past it --assuming that college is necessarily for everyone—which it is not.

I am not one of these advocates of the so-called self made man who dropped out and founded a Google-like mega company and made more money that Bill Gates has given away to his foundation.  No, depending on your family’s values, some type of post high school education is essential-- unless you plan to work three entry level jobs for the rest of your natural life.

But the question still needs to be raised, so that a conscious thoughtful decision is made regarding how much and what kind of post high school education your son or daughter wants to attain for himself/herself.

Assuming for the moment that Michael or Michelle says, “Yes, mom, dad I want a college education.”

“Well, wonderful”, you can then say. “How do you plan to pay for it?”

“I thought you guys would pay for it—you have money.”

“Yes, we have a little money—that we have worked very hard for, over a long period of time. We scrimped and saved so that we will have a decent retirement. The money that we have for our retirement is ours.

We will need it to pay for long term care insurance, perhaps a nursing home or assisted living should the need arise. We do not have any money laying around to SPARE to give away to anyone…including you dear son or daughter.”

“Mom/Dad what are you saying? I can’t go to college?”

“No, we are not saying that. What we said is that we are not paying for it.”

“I’m just a kid—how can I pay for it?”

Now you are asking the right question. And there are good answers for that.

I will give you the punch line here: our son and daughters, the three young Hunte

who are 20-somethings now have all graduated college with zero college debt.

ZERO COLLEGE DEBT.   If you care to know how that was accomplished, ask. 

THE SCARY TRUTH ABOUT CHURCH AT AGE 5

        Church with Granddaddy Bill was interesting and a little scary. I liked the music and the singing.  I did not mind the preaching.  Reverend Lett would always call me “baby” and “sugar” and I loved him for that.

He would say, “Come on down here, Sugar, and put your money in the collection.”  I would stand erect and march down the red carpeted aisle to the table placed in front of the pulpit-- but on the floor level, not on the stage.

I’d put my dime on the table. I was not the only one to put my money in the collection like that: that was the way it was done. Everyone in the church—so it seemed to me—got up walked down the aisle and put their money on that table:  coins and paper money. (I realize now, that checks were not used and of credit cards were not even thought of!)  Bill and his helpers would count all the money right there in front of everybody.

The organist would be playing a certain style of music during this time. The tempo was upbeat and lively and it lent itself to marching down the aisle. This aisle was actually down—the back of the church was way higher than the floor area in front of the pulpit. Yes, it was the way theaters used to be-- before you had to take stairs to the higher elevations in the rear of the auditorium, as you do now.  The main floor of the church was tilted up in the back, down in the front!

So, I’d walk down a gentle slope to the lower elevation at the front--no stairs needed. Then, after placing my dime on the table I would march past the table, and then and back up the other aisle. It was, I guess, a parade of sorts. At age five, I loved that.

The scary part came when Reverend Lett would preach. What was scary for me came not from him, but from what would happen in the congregation.  He wore gold-rimmed glasses, a very low haircut and he had a disarming smile. He wore three- piece suits, very often white and all his accessories were white also—sometimes even his tie would be white.

He would start out calmly and speaking in a modulated very smooth, very pleasant voice.  As his sermon progressed, though he began to be more forceful with his words, and his gestures.

 As he raised his voice, it seemed his body temperature would go up too.  As he exhorted the flock about something:  he would really start to sweat!  He would periodically take his out handkerchief and sometimes wipe his forehead. Sometimes he would just blot his face.

The thing is this: that church was one of the few places that I went to in those days that was air-conditioned!  There was always a lovely peaceful shady-feeling-coolness about the sanctuary--no matter how bright and sweltering it was outside.

 This may not be so, but it seemed to me this way: as his volume increased, there would erupt punctuations of “amen” and “hallelujah” from the congregation.  All of a sudden, some woman—I never saw a man do this—a woman would start “shouting”-- literally. 

That’s what it was called. She would raise both arms and seem to rise from the pew then fall back.  She’d do that several times—with her arms in the air the whole time, shouting over and over, “Lord have mercy!”

Two of the white-uniformed, white-gloved ushers armed with paper fans would briskly walk over to her and they both kind of took hold of her arms and patted her arms and fanned her furiously till she settled down.

This stuff scared me to death! Just when the first woman was getting quiet again and looking as if she had swooned, another would start shouting in a different section of the congregation!  The whole thing would start all over again.

There were many of those white-uniformed white-gloved members of the usher board.  They would scramble to do their duty:   to attend the shouter.

After a while with this shouting breaking out in different sections of the church, Reverend Lett’s voice will begin to slow, and to soften.

As he wound down, toward the end, he practically spoke in a calm and gentle whisper.  As he did so, he would begin to smile.  He would wipe his forehead once more; and this time he folded and returned his handkerchief to his pants pocket.

The organist would play a soothing quiet melody, and the whole congregation, it seemed to me, let out a deeply satisfying “sigh”.  Then, church was over.