10 Reasons Why You Should Stay in College As Long As Humanly Possible

Billy Madison said it best: stay here as long as you can, for the love of God.

There’s no excuse for not going all out, because, in reality, it is the last time you will be able to act like an absolute savage with reckless abandonment toward the rules of normal society.

If you feel like you haven’t maximized your collegiate experience, here are 10 reasons why you should stay until you have:

1. Post-Grad Life Sucks

This bullet point serves as the umbrella statement, or general theme, for this post. Life moves pretty fast and the real world sinks in once the protection of being a college a student has been vacated. Parents, family members and friends become less accepting and more abrasive. Jobs require a majority of your time, whether you have one or looking for one. Activities, such as partying and sleeping in late, that you’ve grown accustomed to over the past four years aren’t tolerated. 

In summary, life after college blows.

2. The Return Home vs. Living Alone

Partying and sleeping in aren’t the only elements of college that have become like second nature – living amongst others your age and the fraternal life that comes with it has become the norm. Well, once you receive that college diploma that all ends. There are no more 3 a.m. nights with your roommates finishing off the final drops of Jim Beam; no more comrades to lean on when you can’t walk home. Instead, the brutal reality is you’re either moving back to live with mom and dad for a little while or you’re moving into a one-bed, one-bath apartment in some obscure part of town.
In case you were wondering, if these two options were pitted against one another in a boxing match there wouldn’t be a winner. Both situations are equally awful.

3. No More Month-Long Benders

Once you exit the gates of college you can say goodbye to excessive drinking, whether it comes in the forms of a bender (four or more consecutive days of heavy boozing) or just simply day drinking. Unless you’re a fully functioning alcohol, the real world will reject you and spew you out if you try to drink like you did in your college days. The daily visit to the local liquor store will quickly become a weekly or monthly trip and that’s depressing to think about.

4.  ‘Experimental’ Phase Ends

Perhaps the No. 1 luxury of being a college student is being able to experiment with substances or situations that you will never get the opportunity to seize in the real world. Whether it is with drugs or sex, the promiscuity of college life doesn’t last very long. It’s a short period which makes it all the more precious.

5. Disappearance of Dreams

The phrase “Dream Job” is mentioned a lot during your four years in school, whether it is by parents, professors or peers. The enduring truth of graduating college is that the ideal you’ve been working towards is nowhere to be found now that you’re out of school. You will have to settle to work somewhere and soon all the hope and promise from college will be gone.

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6. College Parties

It’s actually depressing how immediately you feel like a dinosaur when entering a college party as a ‘real person.’ Everything that used to be so illuminated is gray and decaying and the reality of your age compared to the rest of the people in the room sinks in. The freshmen girls that seemed so eager to jump your bones a few, short months ago now walk away from you when you tell them you’ve graduated. The kids still enjoying the best years of their lives can detect your miserable, real world stench from a mile away. It’s not pretty.

7. Restricted Roads

Whether it is winter break or spring break, or even just a weekend getaway, college and road trips are synonymous with one another. The freedom of the open road matches the complete independence of college life; however, once out of college, the road is a lot less open. The weekend trips become limited, if not obsolete, and you begin to earn for the days where you could get away from the dorm life and go bend at one of your other buddy’s school for the weekend.

8. Expenses Pile Up

The safety net of college doesn’t prepare students for the expensiveness of the real world. No matter where you go, what you do or who you are with you, money will be spent, and usually in excess. That is true in college and actually holds true once you graduate, which isn’t a good thing, because along with all the day-to-day expenses you will have to worry about paying off loans in addition to other monthly payments for your car, electricity, cable, insurance, etc.

9. Life as a Student is Good

You will never admit to this while cramming in studying for your finals one week before the test is handed out, but once you leave school the life of being a student will be glorified in your mind. Yes, homework isn’t fun, but when it’s your only true worry or responsibility life is a lot more manageable. More importantly, telling others that you are a student automatically gives you the benefit of time; that you’re working towards something but you’re not quite there yet. It’s a lot better to have time in front of you than it is to have it peering over your shoulder every day and asking, “What comes next?”
That’s what life outside of the classroom looks like.

10. The Weekend Isn’t the Weekend

This should be inferred by now, but in case you didn’t get it – the freedom and fun of college has an expiration date and you will taste it once you have to work a full weekend following a full work week. There’s nothing quite like a Sunday morning spent in the office. Hopefully there won’t be many of these, but one will be enough to jolt you uncomfortably into feeling the frustrations of post-college life.