I grew up in one of those construction oriented families that sunk everything they had into buying, building, and renovating new properties. Indeed it made them very wealthy, but it left me impoverished in more ways than one. Did you know how much you have to pay for college isn't just calculated on your parents' income, but their assets, too? My parents didn't.
I decided early on I don't want anything to do with that pyramid scheme. Give me a nondescript apartment on the 57th floor of a highrise any day of the week and let me do work which matters.
I don't mean to comment on your particular situation but I would use your post to share a different experience. My own family was construction-oriented four generations ago, and it elevated us (the 3 still-to-be-born generations and the alive-at-the-time one) from poor to wealthy.
That effort by my great-grandparents was one of the definitive blessings of my life. I still invest in construction/renovation myself and take as much meaning from providing housing to others as I do from work in technology.
No offense taken. Cleaving away my very personal anger about how my dad's wealth fucked over my college plans: Moral culpability for high housing prices lies primarily with those who enact the housing regulations which artificially constrain supply, and hence allow long-term profits to be made in a market which really should drift down towards prefect competition, and not with the actual housing providers themselves, who are just ordinary profit-seeking business owners like the rest of us. You're doing a service to your fellow man, no matter what, because voluntary trade benefits both parties by definition.
People often get in fights about the thorny intermediate layer here, which is that politics and economics intertwine. Many landlords politically advocate for further supply-constraining laws in their area, because surprise surprise, long-term profits are a really sweet deal if you can get them. I have no qualms saying that that is both (a) perfectly economically rational and (b) still a wrong thing to do. But I want to underline that that is mostly missing the forest for the trees here, which is housing regulations being a well entrenched thing in the first place.
Man I'm with you all the way. I was also lucky to be born in a place where college education is very affordable: around 1K/year flat fee for everyone. It sounds like you got a raw deal.
I decided early on I don't want anything to do with that pyramid scheme. Give me a nondescript apartment on the 57th floor of a highrise any day of the week and let me do work which matters.