The Illusion of the “Next Step”: Growing Up Following Expectations

I used to have this incredibly annoying habit of doing things simply because I thought they were the most logical next step. Going to college, landing that dream job, getting married, and having the white-picket-fence house with a couple of kids running around, all felt like a perfectly paved road to guaranteed happiness. It was almost as if I checked off the boxes in the right order, life would unlock some “You did it!” screen at the end and I’d be considered a success.

No one ever told me that those logical steps weren’t logical at all. They were merely expectations handed to us before we were even old enough to understand what we wanted. And college? That was the biggest expectation of them all.

But somewhere along the way I started wondering……

Who decided this was the path?

Why was college presented like a golden ticket instead of one option among many?

Why did every adult in my life speak about it like it was oxygen? “You need it, don’t question it…just GO“.

Back then, college was marketed to us like a promise: Go to school, get a degree, land the job, and everything else will fall into place.

College as a Golden Ticket: Marketing the American Dream

It was sold as the safest investment we could ever make. And maybe for some it was, but for the rest of us, it quickly became clear that this promise had a fine print we weren’t allowed to read. The tuition, the loans, the fees. Suddenly “investing in your future” felt less like opportunity and more like a trap. This golden ticket came with strings attached, and if you didn’t keep up, you weren’t failing college, you were failing at life.

When Higher Education Becomes a Gatekeeper

And that’s when I realized that college wasn’t just an expectation, it was a gatekeeper. A system designed to make us believe that we needed it, to make us chase it, and to make us pay for it, one way or another. We weren’t told there were other paths. Other ways to build a life that mattered. Other ways to define success.

“Go to college” they said, “It’s the only way to secure a good job, a stable future, a life worth living”.

The Party, the Pressure, and the Perfect Image of College Life

And to be fair, I loved college. I met great people who became my closest friends, had amazing experiences, and was able to see other walks of life outside of what I had previously known growing up in a small, midwestern town.

But was it the right choice for me at the time? Sometimes I didn’t go to class. Often times when I did, I wasn’t able to comprehend the material because I didn’t prioritize learning as my main objective. I went to some great parties, spent many nights in a small college dorm room with four of my closest friends binging beer and Pokey Stix from Gumby’s Pizza while watching Alley McBeal. I was inside the bathrooms of bars at 18 years old feverishly scrubbing off the solid black X written in magic marker on the tops of my hands to distinguish my ‘under agedness’ in the hopes of scoring an alcoholic beverage to enhance my night out with friends.

And isn’t that what college was also supposed to be about? The media’s constant portrayal of college kids going to parties, pulling all-nighters, gaining the freshman fifteen from loading up on a carb buffet at the cafeteria, while still planning a lit spring break trip to Cancun, seemed like yet another trap to make us believe that doing all of this was ok, because, well…we were in college, and if college was both the gateway and the party, then skipping it meant missing out on life entirely. And at 18, who wants to have a life void of opportunities, experiences, and great stories to tell?

What I didn’t understand back then, and what most Millennials were never told, is that this obsession with college didn’t magically appear out of thin air. It wasn’t just our parents being overbearing or our guidance counselors being dramatic. It was the result of a massive shift that happened long before we were even born.

It had a history. A strategy.

The Hidden History: How Reagan Changed College Forever

Back in the 1980s, during the Reagan era, something big changed. College stopped being treated as a public good and started being treated like a personal investment.

Reagan believed that students should “pay for what they get,” and the government slowly pulled back funding from public universities. The cost burden shifted from the state to the individual. In other words, our generation was born into a system where college wasn’t just encouraged—it was monetized.

And once college became a product, the marketing machine kicked in. Suddenly it was everywhere.

“Go to college or you’ll never make it.”

“Go to college or you’ll struggle.”

“Go to college or you’ll be left behind.”

Whether they realized it or not, our parents were repeating a message that had been engineered decades earlier by politicians who turned college from a public investment into an individual burden.

And that message took root so deeply that by the time Millennials came of age, college didn’t feel like a choice, it felt like a moral obligation. If you didn’t go, you were “wasting your potential.” If you questioned it, you were “being difficult.” If you chose another path entirely, well…good luck convincing any adult that you weren’t ruining your life.

So we went.
We borrowed.
We followed the path.
Not always because we wanted to, but because we were told this was the only responsible thing to do. Besides, wasn’t this just the next thing you did after high school?

Student Loans, Debt, and the Illusion of Stability

And here’s the part no one warned us about.

That shiny promise of stability? It didn’t exist. Not for most of us, anyway.

Instead, we entered adulthood carrying tens of thousands of dollars in debt, stepping into a job market that didn’t match the story we were sold. Wages didn’t keep up. Industries changed. Degrees didn’t guarantee anything except monthly payments that followed us like shadows.

And because we grew up believing college was the one “right” choice, any struggle afterward felt like a personal failure instead of what it actually was–the inevitable outcome of a system designed to profit from our hope.

Why Millennials Felt Trapped by a System Designed to Profit

Meanwhile, everyone from student loan companies to universities was benefiting. Tuition kept climbing, student loans piled up, and banks thrived on interest and penalties. Colleges expanded programs and administration, often more to attract students than to educate them. Textbook publishers, prep companies, and private tutors flourished as anxiety around “getting in” skyrocketed. And on a broader level, governments and corporations reaped the benefits of a generation burdened with debt, primed to spend and repay in predictable ways.

Taking Control: My Journey Back to Education

I decided to take a year off from college….and then life happened and that one year turned into 14. I went back only at the thought of finishing what I’d started. I made the Dean’s list this time. I was finally able to walk across the stage and hear my parents proudly cheer for me as they handed me my diploma. And in the spring, I walked down the hill with hundreds of other graduates, this time holding the hands of both my children.

And guess what? I didn’t stop there. I went on to earn my master’s degree. Not because I thought it was the next most logical step, but because I realized that my love of learning far outweighed any disgruntlement I carried in my heart for a system that was designed to profit from my hopes and dreams.

Degrees Don’t Define You: Lessons on Curiosity, Courage, and Compassion

But the truth is, a degree doesn’t define you. It doesn’t make you moral, it doesn’t make you wise, and it certainly doesn’t make you a good parent or a better human being. College can open doors, but it doesn’t measure your worth. Your curiosity, courage, and compassion do.

College isn’t for everyone. And it’s certainly not for everyone at one specific time in their life.

Rethinking College for Future Generations

So let’s try to make the narrative different for future generations:

Go if you want to learn. Stay if it fuels you. But don’t go because someone told you it was the only way to a good life. Don’t go only because you think it’s the next step after high school. The real measure of success isn’t what’s on your diploma. It’s what you do with the life you choose, on your own terms, with your own heart leading the way.

Success isn’t a path you follow, it’s a path you build for yourself regardless of what everyone else is trying to sell you. Because the real tragedy isn’t taking a different path. It’s never realizing the path was yours to choose in the first place.