I began my undergraduate degree in the Fall of 1999. My parents paid the first semester’s tuition bill by taking on debt. The next three semesters (and two summer sessions) were paid with parents taking on debt, me getting a scholarship and me paying tuition with a credit card.

I then quit college for two years.

When I returned to college in 2003, I switched majors and essentially started from scratch. But this time I was paying the tuition bills out of pocket.

The first semester I could only afford one class. I was making $28,000 (salary). The second semester I was able to afford one class again. But from then on, as my salary went up (all the way to $40,000 in 2006) I took as many classes as I was able to afford. In the spring of 2006, I was a full time student and full time employee.

Since my job had nothing to do with my major, I quit (along with some other reasons), and obtained an internship in my field. Working part time, I was back to taking on one class per semester. I then decided to take on some student loans so I could finish up and get my degree.

Earlier this year, I decided to go into debt and took out loans. Earlier this year, I also found another internship with an organization where one of the perks was tuition reimbursement (up to four classes per fiscal year). So I was able to avoid taking on 4 classes worth of debt.

I hope to graduate toward the end of the year with about $8,320 in student loan debt of which $5,500 will be subsidized student loans.

One reason I decided to take on debt, in addition to wanting to graduate this year was because I was having trouble impressing potential employers with my debt free lifestyle. I assumed that as an accounting major, the fact that I was paying for tuition out of pocket would be impressive to people. But it wasn’t. I interview fairly regularly as I think its a good habit, and finding that no one single potential employee was impressed with my ability to avoid debt was very much of a downer.

If I had to do it all over again and I magically had good circumstances surrounding me, would I change anything?

Probably not. As I think the lessons I’ve learned about money to date will serve me well for the rest of my life.