Paying for What’s Free
My student loans compound while Khan Academy teaches calculus for free.
Every month. Same payment. 15,000 taka. For the next fifteen years. 180 payments total. For a degree I earned five years ago.
And Khan Academy? Free. Complete calculus course. Better explanations than my professor. Better examples. Better pace. Free.
Every monthly payment reminds me: I mortgaged my future for knowledge available at the library. YouTube professors explain concepts better than tenured faculty I paid thousands to hear mumble through lectures.
My economics professor? Monotone voice. Reading from slides. Slides copied from textbook. Textbook we had to buy. 3,000 taka. For information available free on Wikipedia.
YouTube economics professors? Animated. Engaging. Clear examples. Real applications. Completely free. Better teaching. No cost.
I paid 800,000 taka for my degree. Could have learned everything online. For free. Actually did learn most useful things online. For free. While paying for degree that taught me less.
The internet democratized learning. Made education accessible. Available to anyone. Anywhere. For free or cheap. Best professors worldwide. Best courses. Best resources. Click away.
But institutions preserved their monopoly on credentials. The paper. The degree. The certificate that says you sat through required courses. That’s what costs money. Not learning. Certification.
We pay premium prices not for information but for certification. The knowledge is free. The paper proving you know it? Expensive. Very expensive.
My friend Rahim learned coding online. Free courses. YouTube tutorials. Practice projects. Got job at tech company. Makes good money. No degree. No debt. Just skills he learned free.
My computer science degree? 800,000 taka. Four years. Learned coding same way Rahim did—online. For free. The degree just certified I attended classes. But employers test actual skills, not degrees.
The cruelest realization: most career-relevant skills weren’t taught in classrooms but learned through necessity, trial, YouTube tutorials.
My job as content manager? Never studied content management. Learned it on the job. Through YouTube. Through trial and error. Through free online courses. Nothing from my communications degree helped.
The spreadsheet skills I use daily? YouTube. The project management? Free online course. The writing? Practice and feedback. The social media? Self-taught. The analytics? Google’s free courses.
My expensive degree? Gave me theory I don’t use. History I don’t need. Requirements that weren’t relevant. And debt. Lots of debt.
The job I actually do requires competencies no curriculum covered. Real skills. Practical knowledge. Current tools. None taught in university. All learned free online.
This isn’t unique to me. Everyone I know says same thing. “University didn’t prepare me for actual job.” “Learned everything on YouTube.” “Degree was just expensive paper.”
But we all have debt. All paying monthly. For years. For decades. For education we could have gotten free.
Debt transforms education from investment into burden. Investment should generate returns. Pay for itself. Increase earning. Make financial sense.
My degree? Burden. Pure burden. 15,000 taka monthly. For fifteen years. Could be saving that. Investing that. Using that. Instead—paying for past. For paper. For credential that matters less than actual skills.
Knowledge becomes expensive rather than enriching. Should be enriching. Should expand possibilities. Should open doors. Instead? Closes doors. Because debt limits choices. Limits risks. Limits freedom.
Can’t take lower-paying job I’d prefer. Need this salary for loan payments. Can’t take break to learn new skills. Need steady income for debt. Can’t start business. Too risky with debt obligations.
Learning serves loan payments instead of personal growth. Working to pay for past education instead of pursuing future growth. Trapped by debt from learning that should have freed me.
Tonight I calculate what those monthly payments could fund. 15,000 taka monthly. 180,000 taka yearly. Over fifteen years? 2.7 million taka.
Could take professional courses I’d actually choose. Could learn skills genuinely useful. Could attend workshops that interest me. Could get certifications that matter. Could invest in education aligned with curiosity rather than degree requirements.
Could travel. Learn languages. Experience cultures. Gain perspectives. Real education beyond classrooms.
Could save. Invest. Build security. Start business. Create freedom. Instead of paying for paper I got five years ago.
My younger sister is eighteen. Deciding about university. Looking at programs. Calculating costs. Everyone telling her: “Get degree. Essential for career. Worth the investment.”
I tell her differently. “Learn skills online. Free. Get certificates that matter. Build portfolio. Get experience. Save the debt.”
She’s confused. “But everyone says need degree for good job.”
“Everyone’s wrong,” I say. “Need skills for good job. Degree might help. But free education gives same knowledge. Without debt.”
She’s considering. Gap year maybe. Learn coding online. Build projects. Get freelance experience. Then decide about university. Smart approach.
Because here’s truth nobody tells students: debt is prison. Education should liberate. But debt imprisons. Limits choices. Determines decisions. Controls life.
My debt determines where I live. Can’t afford expensive city. My debt determines my job. Can’t take risks. My debt determines my future. 15,000 taka monthly for fifteen years.
And for what? Knowledge available free. Skills learned elsewhere. Paper that matters less than portfolio. Credential that means less than competence.
The system is broken. Universities charge premium for education that’s free elsewhere. Students go into debt for papers that don’t guarantee jobs. Everyone pretends this makes sense.
But it doesn’t. Not anymore. Not when best education is free online. Not when actual skills matter more than degrees. Not when debt destroys more opportunities than degrees create.
What would I do differently? Everything.
Learn online first. Free courses. YouTube. Khan Academy. Coursera. EdX. Learn actual skills. Build portfolio. Get experience.
Then, if degree truly necessary for specific career? Consider it. With full information. With realistic expectations. With understanding that degree is certification, not education.
But most careers don’t need degree. Need skills. Need experience. Need portfolio. Need competence. All available without debt. All learnable free.
My 800,000 taka degree? Taught me this: education and credentials are different things. Education is free. Credentials are expensive. Choose wisely.
Tonight I make 15,000 taka payment. 164 more to go. For knowledge I could have gotten free. For paper that matters less than I thought. For debt that limits more than degree liberated.
And tomorrow? Free online course on skill I actually need. Because real education never stops. Real learning never costs. Real growth never requires debt.
The library has books. YouTube has lectures. Internet has courses. Knowledge is free. Always has been. Only credentials cost money.
And maybe—just maybe—credentials aren’t worth the cost. Not anymore. Not when skills matter more than papers. Not when portfolios speak louder than degrees. Not when debt imprisons more than education liberates.
My student loans compound while Khan Academy teaches calculus for free. This sentence contains entire tragedy. Entire irony. Entire broken system.
Knowledge is free. But we pay anyway. Not for knowledge. For paper. For credential. For permission to say we’re educated.
While real education—free, accessible, better—waits for anyone willing to learn without requiring debt in return.
Tonight I’m paying for past. Tomorrow I’m learning for free. The first is obligation. The second is choice. The first is burden. The second is freedom.
This is truth they don’t tell you: education is free. Credentials cost money. Choose whether you need the paper. Or just the knowledge.
I chose wrong. Paid for paper. Got debt. Could have learned free. Built skills. Avoided burden.
My sister will choose better. Because she knows what I learned: the best education is free. And the expensive education is just expensive paper.
164 payments remaining. Counting down. Until debt-free. Until liberated from choice I made at eighteen. Choice nobody explained clearly. Choice that seemed necessary but wasn’t.
The compound interest continues. The free education continues. Both simultaneously. One taking money. One giving knowledge.
This is modern education. Ironic. Tragic. Broken. But slowly changing. As more people realize: knowledge is free. Only the paper costs.
And maybe—hopefully—paper matters less each year. And free education matters more.
Until then, 15,000 taka monthly. While Khan Academy teaches for free.