I was always told that college gave people the freedom to do whatever they wanted to with their lives.

A college education was supposed to grant you access to the world, allow you to be whatever you wanted, to go wherever you wanted and do nearly anything.

But does anyone ever talk about the steep price this education costs? We come to college to find the freedom to live our lives the way we want, but too often we end up becoming slaves to those lives instead.

Most of the problem comes down to borrowed money. I, like many other college students, have taken full advantage of the Stafford Loan program, which really does seem to be a good deal. Many students would never be able to attend college if it weren’t for these loans.

But I had a very irrational outlook on this borrowed money.

At the beginning of my freshman year, I walked into Beardshear Hall, filled out a form and, presto, the government paid my tuition for me. I even had enough money left over to buy my books and a couple of ISU sweatshirts. The best thing about all this was that I had what seemed like years before I needed to pay this money back.

Each semester the government offered me a little more money to cover my increasing living expenses. And each semester I took as much as I could, without thinking much about the eventual consequences.

Then about six months ago, I sort of woke up and realized that my days of reaping the benefits of my Stafford Loans were quickly becoming numbered. Pretty soon, it would be time for me to hold up my end of the bargain.

I sat down and figured up a basic budget for myself. Car payments, rent, food, utilities and Stafford Loan payments. For my annual salary, I used the average starting salary for an entry level journalism position, which is fairly equivalent to what the average poet makes a year.

What I found out startled me. Taking what I estimated my starting salary in the work force to be and subtracting my cost of living, at the end of each month I will still owe the world $190.

So now as graduation is on my not too distant horizon, the reality of the world is slowly sinking in. Upon graduation, I will have six months to find a job that will pay me a minimum amount of money to allow me to pay off my debts.

Nevermind if I all of a sudden wanted to open a coffee shop in Vancouver. Nevermind if I wanted to backpack across Europe. And nevermind if I wanted to take a year off and write a book. It’s not going to happen.

What I will have gained from my college education is the freedom to find a job to pay for my college education. I’m not sure why it took me this long to figure this all out, either. It really is a very obvious and fair system. Somebody loans you money, and you eventually must pay that money back.

And even though I won’t get rich, being forced to find a job as a reporter isn’t exactly a prison sentence for me. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. But this is where reality clashes with my dreams: If for some reason I decide that I no longer want to be a reporter, if I decide that I would rather explore the Australian outback or go to Paris, I have to consider my binding debts first.

Most likely I couldn’t do these things and make my loan payments too. So all the options that were available for me in life just a few years ago, have now been narrowed down to pretty much one thing: grow up and get a job. I know it sounds juvenile for me to complain about this, but the realities of life — fair or not — are often hard to accept, especially when they erode your dreams.

To one extent or another we are all in the same situation. But that’s the cost of education for you, and it isn’t cheap.

Troy McCullough is a senior in journalism mass communication from Pleasantville. He is the editor in chief of the Daily.