I had to "work my way through college" too
-- but no way I had it as tough as Willard and Ann did ...
The Romney Plan for College Affordability
by Matthew Yglesias -- April 16, 2012
[... Ann Romney: ]
They were not easy years. You have to understand, I was raised in a lovely neighborhood, as was Mitt, and at BYU, we moved into a $62-a-month basement apartment with a cement floor and lived there two years as students with no income. It was tiny. And I didn’t have money to carpet the floor. But you can get remnants, samples, so I glued them together, all different colors. It looked awful, but it was carpeting.
We were happy, studying hard. Neither one of us had a job, because Mitt had enough of an investment from stock that we could sell off a little at a time. The stock came from Mitt’s father. When he took over American Motors, the stock was worth nothing. But he invested Mitt’s birthday money year to year—it wasn’t much, a few thousand, but he put it into American Motors because he believed in himself. Five years later, stock that had been $6 a share was $96 and Mitt cashed it so we could live and pay for education.
Mitt and I walked to class together, shared housekeeping, had a lot of pasta and tuna fish and learned hard lessons.
-- a 1994 interview with Ann Romney in the Boston Globe
Oh the hardships
of 'slumming it' at BYU! (
Brigham Young University)
Let us count the ways ... shall we?
1) Oh the horrors of a mis-matched decor -- Can you imagine have to live in Remnants-ville for so long. Oh how completely gauche!
2) When you can't find a job, it does effect your state of mind. It makes you dig deep to find those "inner resources" you didn't know you had. But it can build character too. Just ask the Romney's how their college days drove them to become who they are today.
3) And Wow! It can be SO traumatic to have to sell-off your shares. I mean what will you live on, in your old age, if you cash in all your capital investments NOW? Who ever heard of such a thing!?
Oh My Gosh! Can you imagine the stress they were under?
No wonder they find it so hard to relate to what the rest of go through ... they tried that once and they "learned their hard lessons" ... and they aren't going back to THAT!
No way -- thank you very much! It was just "too pedestrian" for their refined sensibilities, know what I mean?