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Comment by deedubaya | Hacker News Reader

What struck me most about this essay is the privilege required to make it all possible. From educational institution to educational institution changing focus and whimsically studying other fields without much care for how to make a living or how it all would be paid for. Perhaps just omitted from the story because it wasn't relevant or doesn't need explaining.

Kids these days sure don't have it so lucky, and if they do, well then they probably already hit the jackpot at birth.

How many fewer pgs will we have tomorrow because of the financial burdens and inefficiencies of higher education today?

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Quotes from the essay:

> I had some money saved from consulting work I'd done in grad school; there was probably enough to last a year if I lived cheaply.

> The good part was that I got paid huge amounts of money, especially by art student standards. In Florence, after paying my part of the rent, my budget for everything else had been $7 a day. Now I was getting paid more than 4 times that every hour, even when I was just sitting in a meeting. By living cheaply I not only managed to save enough to go back to RISD, but also paid off my college loans.

He earned his own money and paid his own bills. You can do that today as an software engineer if you choose to live like in worse conditions than a working class, like he did.

The biggest difference is how quick you could pay off a college loan compared to now.

Have we read the same essay? Like half of the time he’s running on zero or negative dollars in the story. Some people just value different things in life.

Didn't he have his (rather rich) family as a safety net? That's got to cause wonders for your mental health and emotional stability, even at 0 income.

I think that’s true but the “rich” part is not really relevant. Personally I can sort of relate to his life journey, and I come from a very much not rich immigrant family. I just remember not understanding why people cared about money instead of say learning more math. But looking back there was always an implicit understanding that no matter how bad things got I could crash on the couch and get a meal at my parents place or something, so hardship never really crossed my mind.

Ok, then treat it as "always having a plan B".

Sure, but is that super uncommon? I’m judging by the number of people I went to high school with who now live with their parents. They could all treat it as a fallback and otherwise follow in pg’s footsteps, but none of them do.

Exactly 4 fewer pgs

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