I'm grateful my parents didn't save a dime for my college and I paid for it myself. And here's why ... because I wasted it. I was angry at my parents for a few years for not saving for my college like normal parents do. But I outgrew that nonsense.

What college taught me: how to shotgun a beer faster than guys could; how to strike a match with one hand that was still in the pack (without lighting the other matches on fire); how to give plasma for money; how to use a pawn shop for money; how to starve on the weekends because there wasn't money for food after spending it on beer; how to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes in one night. The list of shame goes on and on. If my parents had paid for that .. I'd probably have killed myself over the shame.

Then, once I pulled my head out of my ass, I proceeded to have a good life that I worked hard for, making really good money as a programmer, able to stay at home once I had children to raise them myself. And I'm not saving money for their college, either, not because I can't afford to but because I don't believe college is worth it. Gender studies? fuck that.

Oh, and I paid off my student loan debt many, many years ago.