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- I’m an entrepreneur who never went to college and taught my kids to avoid debt. They both decided to go to college anyway. (businessinsider.com)
Local Mom Shares Unique Path to Success, Supports Daughters’ College Dreams
Baltimore, MD – In a world where college degrees are often seen as the golden ticket to success, one local mom, Terrina Taylor, is sharing her unconventional journey to entrepreneurship and her surprising pride in her daughters’ decisions to pursue higher education.
Taylor, a co-owner of her mother’s Baltimore salon, never attended college herself. Her early life was shaped by the practical lessons learned in her mother’s bustling salon, where she witnessed firsthand the freedom and resilience of an independent business owner.
“Work is more than a paycheck. It is the foundation for the kind of life you want to live,” Taylor reflects, attributing her entrepreneurial spirit to her mother’s example rather than any formal education.
Having her first child at 18, Taylor opted out of the traditional college route, believing that a degree wasn’t a prerequisite for building the life she envisioned. Instead, she focused on instilling values of hard work, service, and independent thinking in her children, lessons she gleaned from her own lived experiences.
Despite her own path, Taylor never pressured her daughters to avoid college. Her focus was on teaching them self-discipline and financial literacy.
“I taught them how to budget. I taught them how to track their spending.
I taught them why credit matters and how debt can limit your life before adulthood even begins,” she explains.
Her oldest daughter, now a college student preparing for medical school, exemplifies these lessons. She independently supports herself as a server, managing her finances, taxes, and tuition with a remarkable sense of responsibility.
Taylor describes this as a testament to the “independence muscle” her daughters have developed. Her youngest daughter, a high school senior, is also diligently preparing for college, researching scholarships and actively shaping her future.
While there’s a “quiet ache” in seeing her daughters forge paths different from her own, Taylor expresses immense pride. “Avoiding college debt gave me a certain kind of freedom.
Teaching my daughters about money and independence gave them the freedom to make choices,” she states. For Taylor, the ultimate success isn’t about her daughters following in her footsteps, but about them having the strength and wisdom to choose their own direction, making their own mark on the world.