You must read the story of Ken Ilgunas: “How do I afford grad school without going into debt? A ’94 Econoline, bulk food and creative civil disobedience.”

Ken writes about his life living in a van to avoid the debt of Duke grad school, and that’s after he paid off his undergrad debt. Some of his words are priceless:

Most undergrads imagine they’ll effortlessly pay off their loans when they start getting paid the big bucks; they’re living in a state of denial, disregarding the implications of a tough job market and how many extra years of work their spending sprees have sentenced them to. But “facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored,” as Aldous Huxley famously said.

…Willingness to go into debt, of course, isn’t just confined to students; we’re a nation in debt, collectively and individually. Going into debt today is as American as the 40-hour work week; or the stampede of Wal-Mart warriors on Black Friday; or the hillocks of gifts under a Christmas tree. An army of loan drones we’ve become, marching from one unpaid-for purchase to the next in quest of a sense of fulfillment that fades long before the bill arrives. We’re little different from the Spanish explorers who dedicated their lives to the quest for El Dorado, which was always just around the next bend in the river, yet never there at all.

Here is an interview with Ken from a Duke newspaper. Ken wants to be a writer. I’d say he has already succeeded (his writing is superb), and plus, one thing he’ll get from his “living in a van” experiment is priceless experience and perspective. Also see his interesting blog, and especially his post on his “article aftermath.”