Yeah...either you're lying, had help from family, or are old enough to have attended college when it was actually affordable.. because there's no way anyone can reasonably afford to both support themselves and pay for college on the wages you can earn with only a high school diploma in our current economy, and it's been that way for decades.

I worked my way through school as well, at $12/hr, which was a pretty good wage for someone in Kentucky with a high school diploma, I was barely making enough to afford living expenses such as rent, utilities, transportation, and food. There wasn't much wiggle room to afford books and tuition on top of that.

If it came down to it I would have foregone the education over joining the military for the GI bill for the same reason I refuse to even consider taking contractor jobs for the military now. I'm opposed to practically everything our government has used our military for over the past 20 years and don't want any part of it. I'll gladly pay taxes to give any other citizen the same opportunity I had without forcing their participation in something they could very well feel the same way about. Especially the citizens in places like the rural parts of my state where there simply aren't enough jobs to go around, much less jobs that pay well enough for them to do the good ole pick themselves up by the bootstraps without a little help. I'm sorry but "Join the military or spend the rest of your life in poverty" isn't really much of a choice at all, and one that I would rather Americans not be forced to make.