People often ask me why I chose to graduate college in three years rather than the traditional four. My answer? Because I couldn't do it in two and a half years.

We hear it all the time that college will be the best four years of your life. I refuse to accept that. I refuse to peak at twenty-one. But there are so many reasons college will not be the peak of my life.

You are not independent.

College is this constant in between of living with your parents and sort of (but not really) on your own. Sure, you have more independence than at any other point in your life, but you are still so far from independent. I cannot call relying on my parents and loans, the best time of my life.

Your very existence costs quadruple what it's worth.

You pay tuition that has skyrocketed four times the national inflation rate in the past twenty years. You sign ridiculously expensive housing contracts, on or off campus. You pay for over priced, under quality meal plans. And please, don't get me started on the textbooks.

Parties will not be the peak of my life.

In my experience, college students, when they aren't studying, are primarily interested in anything that involves alcohol and minimal clothing. I can acknowledge other student's lifestyle choices, but I can also say that the "best four years of my life" don't involved conversations about people worrying if they contracted an STD at least three times a week.

College is an investment, not a lifestyle.

Your college experience is not supposed to be about getting drunk and laid. A college education is a financial investment in training for a specific career in whatever industry you choose, be that medical, business, engineering.

Living in a limbo state of independence, over paying for everything I touch, surrounded by too many people who can't seem to get their priorities straight, will never be something I can call "the best four years of my life."