In light of the recent amazing story of the overnight billionaire whose money was gifted to him by his parents, I’d like to share my truth… he wasn’t the first to be gifted an economic miracle by his parents.

At the start of my freshman year, a whole year and a half ago, I, too, was gifted an economic miracle by my parents that changed my life dramatically. My parents had attended college nearly 20 years earlier and wanted to give me a very special gift on my first day of college, a lesson about the real world. I was not left with four billion dollars, sent a care package, or even a “happy first day of college” note to wish me luck.

Rather, I was bestowed… (drumroll please)… my parent’s ENTIRE college debt with a principle balance of $204,630 and an interest rate of 20%, which would take me at least 28 years to pay off, not including the debt I would incur from my own career. This brought my total credit score down to a big fat zero.

I took this as a sign that I needed to transfer to Wharton ASAP.

And that’s the story of my economic miracle. Can’t wait re-gift this to my own children someday!