Tough Being a Dad Sometimes

Most of the time I think it's the greatest job in the world, but sometimes being a dad stinks. Yesterday, for instance, me and Madeleina had a great time driving into town to pick up a paycheck. We blasted music on the radio, caught every traffic light and stopped into the grocery to pick up the ingredients for Uncle Clem's Chicken. Clem was my uncle and god father. And about 30 years ago he won a national cookoff for a cooking oil company that netted him a new car and $5 grand, as well as got his picture in all the major women's mags of the day. He did a basic chicken/asparagus/cheddar cheese thing with a tasty sauce under the cheddar. Clare years ago bastardized it into a chicken and broccoli dish with a great sauce baked under mozzerella.
So I was having fun being a dad and planning dinner. And Italo was going to be home and Chepa and Sierra were coming over--only Marco, whose girlfriend's birthday it was,and Sarah, who was working, weren't going to be there.
Anyway, dinner was great, but at the end of it Chepa pulled me aside to let me know she was leaving town for a couple of weeks to visit her boyfriend. She was leaving this morning. Which sort of stunk because it was then left to me to tell the kids mom left town,
And then Marco came in and said he wanted to go to an orientation at a school he applied to, a tech institute. Well, we'd been there several times. It's a national chain but I know nothing about it--like whether it's good or not-but I do know that it costs about $44,000 for a two year associates degree. Which is a lot of dough, something like $700 per credit hour.
I'm not sold on the school. They were upfront about the costs but said the were great at getting grants. I followed along. Then they gave Marco a test in private and came back and said he'd passed.Marco said it was a crazy test with questions like "Favorite color?" on it.
I didn't think much of that until I saw the same recruiter we had tell a dozen other kids they'd also passed, including one who admittedly couldn't read. So I was suspicious, right?
Then last week we had a meeting about finances. The financial aid officer shows us a video about a parent PLUS loan and in the video they discuss loans with interest rates of 6 Percent. When it's done I suggest that 6 percent seems high for a college loan and she mentions that the loan rate is actually 7.8 percent. I didn't care for that little bait and switch at all. (In fact when I checked the loan rate for the PLUS loan on the computer at home the rate is actually 7.9 percent.)
But the financial aid officer says that while we watched the film she's gotten Marco a Pell grant for $3,500 and another kind of loan for $3,500, leaving us just $9,800 or so to cover with the PLUS loan.
Now that's just for the first eight months. We'll borrow that $13 grand again in April (if there's another Pell grant) and then another $10 grand for the last 8 months.
So I ask when the loans kick in and they tell me the first day of class. But then they bring up the orientation today and I ask if that counts as a class and I don't get an answer. I ask again and they tell me not to worry about it.
I didn't wind up signing the application for the big loan, but had already signed off on the smaller loan and the Pell grant before they could even find out if we were eligible.
When we left, I told Marco that I wanted him to find me five companies that recruit grads from this tech school and I'd call their Human Resources departments and find out if they geneinely do recruit, and if they do how they rank this school's graduates and what sort of jobs they get.
I reminded him again three days later that I wouldn't consider signing for a loan that will cost more than my mortgage and will be backed by my house unless we knew more about the school.
Short form: he didn't. But funny enough, the school put in an application for the loan anyway-in Marco's name--and just yesterday morning I got a rejection on it because Marco has no credit history. I thought that odd, since I was holding off on applying for it, and Marco hadn't signed for it himself.
Then last night, just after Chepa told me she was leaving town for a couple of weeks, in walks Marco and says he needs my car to go to the orientation at school this morning. And I had to tell him that since he hadn't even bothered to stop by the school once in the week to get me the names of the companies they brag recruit from there, well, there wouldn't be a loan right now. He said they were insistent that he go to the orientation anyway and I had to tell him that I think that if he did the $3,500 loan would kick in and that they'd probably collect the Pell Grant, at the least, and perhaps even charge me the other $9,800. So he couldn't borrow the car to go to the orientation.
He was devastated. He looked at me with such anger, such hatred. He felt and feels I'm trying to ruin his life by keeping him from this school that he imagines will be his open door in life.
He hated me even more when I told him he ought to go to Community College for a semester, get a job and between now and January, when the tech school has another starting class, find out something about the school.
I know I'm right on this. The school's too much about the money and the money is too high-I'll bet you could go almost anywhere in the country for $700 a credit hour. But the slight deceptions, the filing for a loan in Marco's name that marco didn't sign off on, the video of a 6 percent loan that actually goes for 7.9 percent, the ambivalence to my question of whether orientation counted as the first day of class for the purposes of the loans kicking in....well, I just think they probably paint a true picture of the place.
But it sure wasn't fun being a dad and having to squash Marco's dream, even if it's not a realistic one.