Don't despair over the entire college population!
That does give me hope, MrsPete, thank you!
The funny thing is, as the second article points out, plenty of people get used to scrimping in college. I think for some people that creates a weird combo where they're continually aware of scrimping and yet they eat out at the dining hall everyday, live in a central location, etc. (A lot of which is mandatory, at least for first years.) Which creates a weird impression of what living cheaply means. Someone I know mourns that he no longer belongs to a fancy gym with a pool ...because he had access to one in college. So college has set him up to feel like something in his life is lacking because even though he's earning money now his lifestyle is less fancy pants than it was in college.
I know I'm personally happy that I have dinner protein options beyond tuna and eggs now that I'm out of school. While I enjoyed the student lifestyle, just taking classes and so forth, my life is materially better now. But for many people it's not. At least we're still stuffing two (and three and four) college students into a room, so there's still some reward for joining the workforce.
