Although I believe the cost of higher education has definitely gone up some, even in constant dollars, I'm not sure the cost of living, inflation discounted, is that much higher now than it was then. Seems to me that what constitutes a "necessity" seems to have been defined a lot more broadly.

I didn't own a car until I was out of college, and then it was a Delta 88 I bought for $200. I scrounged parts from wrecking yards, including doors and a hood. Couldn't be fussy about color, so it ended up looking like a clown car. Fixing it was easy. The front end was about thirty feet long and the V-8 engine sat alone in the middle of that space with plenty of elbow and wrench room.

My TV was a black-and-white job inherited from my parents, and almost as old as I was. I learned where to go to buy tubes. Shoes were Red Wing boots that I still have, patched and re-soled with Vibram. Indestructible.

In the summer the dorms closed but I had to stay in the area for my jobs. Rented rooms at a frat house once. Yech. Had a room in an old lady's upstairs for one summer. Shared a bathroom with someone I never saw, except for their hair in the drain. No kitchen. Breakfast was a doughnut at the doughnut shop, lunch was at a cafeteria near my job, and supper was Burger King. Every night. Also yech. Highlight of the summer was renting a little refrigerator so I could keep cold cuts.

I never traveled over school breaks, often not even to go back home.

My last year of school I got my first high-rise efficiency apartment near the university, one room with both bed and kitchen, and my very, very own bathroom for the first time. I felt like I'd moved into a mansion.

Most of my jobs were from slips I grabbed off the university bulletin board. Odd jobs for the school. One quarter I was an Astronomy TA. Managed by being able to read faster than the students. Did keypunching, library work, To be fair, most of those actually paid a bit over minimum wage, which I think was about $2 at the time. I got paid something like $2.25. I worked at the Post Office now and then under special student program. Pay was damn good--something like $3.50 an hour, with certain periods where it could go as high as $4. I paid for my wife's engagement ring with Christmas overtime. The summer of the rooming house, I was interning at an architect's office, which mostly consisted of running the Diazo machine. I am now able to survive on Jupiter.

Worked at a job shop for a while--$6 an hour--doing design work on photocopiers for 3M. Nothing spectacular. Did a fun stint at Foxjet, but that kind of crapped out.

Eventually started working for Gary Hudson full time in 1980. That came and went as businesses did, but money was good while the companies were good. Did patent drafting to make money in the interim, and developed methods of doing it on a computer. Paid thousands for my first IBM-AT, and financed it like a car. Long before I ever got a new car.

Still working with Gary, and money is still good while the contracts last. Oddly enough, I graduated with an architecture degree.

Nowadays, some kids feel hard-used if they have to settle for the low-memory IPod.