For my fourth and final year at Emily Carr College, I applied for a student loan for the 1988/89 school year,  from September 6/88 to April 21/89.

This was my third time applying for a student loan. In the years before, I’d always applied for less than the maximum loan amount, trying to minimize my debt. In my first year, I’d usually relied on part-time jobs and an incredibly low rent, but it didn’t go well for me. After the first month of first year, my bank balance was already at minus ten dollars, so I reluctantly started working as a busboy at The Pantry restaurant for two evenings a week plus Saturdays. That hard work brought me about $4.25/hr, and I did it for almost a year until about August ’86. During that time I also had odd jobs around my immediate neighbourhood, like putting out and taking in four lawn sprinklers every morning and night, for which I earned an extra $50 a month from the townhouse strata council. Having little gigs like that was a big deal to me. Every dollar was hard-earned and very dear.

In my second year, I applied for a $3000 student loan. I was still trying to hold back and borrow as little as possible. I was afraid of growing too much debt, because I envisioned debt as a self-digging hole that I might never be able to climb out of. That was my Dad’s voice guiding me there. He was very tight-fisted with his money, and as far as I knew, had never borrowed or carried much debt. The most expensive thing my Dad ever owned was probably the family car. No financing, no payment plan. It was always a used car, paid in full with cash in hand, on a trade-in. He didn’t hold a credit card and had advised me against getting one. “If you don’t have the money in the bank to buy it, then you can’t afford it”, he’d tell me. It was good advice for a young man.

In my second year, Grace and I began living together and sharing expenses, and I was also able to get part-time employment at the college as a tool crib monitor and take on a few other jobs. Those college  jobs were like a godsend to me: quiet, clean, and easy, and I was paid at the mighty rate of $6/hr, a 150% increase over the greasy, sweaty bussing job. My hands stayed clean and my mind stayed calm. I didn’t have to worry about buspans full of dirty dishes, or scrubbing pissy urinals, or emptying overflowing grease traps. I’d just sit in the Foundation Tool Crib for a few hours a shift, and once every 30 minutes or so someone might come by and sign out a power drill or return a clamp or a glue gun. I was able to keep my hands clean, rest, read, or study quietly. I did not peel any potatoes or slip on wet floors, and there was no stress or loud noises. Being paid to essentially enjoy peace and quiet was a true luxury at that time – a mental and emotional vacation. I was safe and sound in that little tool crib.

For my third year, I borrowed $4000. During that year, I was getting regular part-time work in the college under a Student Challenge program (where I think the provincial government subsidized student employment). So I had become a “Computer Assistant” to the college’s audio-visual department. That work paid much better and again, let me keep my hands clean and my mind relaxed, allowing me to read or study between helping students with their network accounts or troubleshooting printing problems in the computer labs. Looking back, I can see how it would actually prepare me for decades of technical and customer support in high tech companies, later on in my career.

For final year, I finally took the advice of friends and classmates, and applied for the maximum student loan amount, which was about $6300.

All in all, I doubt I made more than $1000-$2000 annually from my part-time work. Small though they had been, those few years of student loans totalled about $12-$13K. They helped me to clothe myself, buy books, pay my tuition, and keep my mind focused on schoolwork, and not just working to live.

But I had no idea how I’d pay all that money back. I couldn’t see my career ahead of me. I had a vague notion that I’d like to be an “Art Director”. From watching how Tom Hudson had directed me, and how our video director Bernie had directed the Mark and Image TV show, I figured that something like that was what I wanted for myself.