Timothy Stabosz:  

Life As the 4 years at Brother Rice drew to a close, I knew I was going to go to college, but didn't know what I wanted to do. As I recall, I was accepted by the Univ. of Chicago (my father, Tom, had went to the Graduate School of Bus. program in the mid 80's, which, besides my good grades and a decent class rank, probably helped my being accepted there) but was rejected by Georgetown. (I really had an interest in politics and public policy, and became a voracious reader of National Review, et al, in high school, and thought applying there would be appropriate. But, naive child, I made the mistake, when I got to the interview phase, of discussing my "conservative credentials" with an interviewer who was probably pretty liberal, I'm guessing. Duh!) As it turned out, since I have been a very thrifty individual from time immemorial, and my comfortably well off parents weren't going to help out in the more expensive colleges (the real "burn" being that those colleges look at your PARENTS' net worth and income in determining whether to give you grants vs. loans, even if you yourself are virtually penniless!), the notion, to me, of piling on tens of thousands of debt "right out of the starting gate" [grin] just did not suit me. So I ended up going to the ever-blessed Moraine Valley Community College for two years (great, because it was free if you simply graduated in the top 10% of your class back then). Then, for the last two years, I transferred to DePaul University. There, I got a bachelor's degree in accounting, and started work for the National Credit Union Administration (the federal agency that regulates--and insures the deposits of --credit unions). Upon taking the job in 1990, I moved out of my parents' house in Orland (which, at that time--and certainly when we moved there in '81!--was in the "boondocks", a mile and a half west of Carl Sandburg HS) to a small apartment in Lansing, IL...on the Indiana border. (The guy that trained me for the credit...Expand for more