As my debt climbs higher and higher, so does my education and my friends.

College is a wonderful experience and I am grateful that I was allowed to attend college for all four years. Every year I watched by debt and loans grown and pile up, but what I also watched was my list of friends and colleagues grow.

College is a great place not only to obtain an education but this is where most people meet and become friends that turn into lifetime friends. People with different lifestyles and from different places around the state, country, and even world come together and form friendships, some that last a lifetime.

I know for me, attending a new school in a new state was definitely a new thing and a new start for me. I graduated with a class of thirty one students, then coming to a school that had six hundred incoming freshmen was crazy I thought and that was a smaller university I chose to attend. Attending a smaller university was definitely the right choice. Here I was able to meet someone and then the next day run into them on my way to class.

After deciding on a major of Elementary Education and began taking classes, I also then started to get to know and meet other students who were studying to become teachers. There in class we were able to discuss our thoughts about becoming teachers and educating the future kids. We were able to discuss thoughts, and bounce ideas off of each other. The more discussions we had in class and the more classes we had together, we started to hang out outside of the classroom. Meeting new people and becoming friends and such a major part of the college experience, apart from obtaining a degree I think that, that comes in second.

College is a place not only where debt grows, but where a new beginning happens, and where one meets new friends that last a lifetime.