well I hope you did ;)
I also paid my way. Held down a 40 hour a week job at a car dealership to pay the tuition. makes me tried just thinking about it 20 years later.
Had a couple of part time jobs and pinched e-v-e-r-y penny. Took the max number of semester hours and went summers to be able to graduate in three years at 20 years old. That was before there was such thing as AP high school classes so we started with 0 college credits. Despite everything, that was the most fun and relaxed kicked back time of my life.
Today’s kids take the bare min. hours and think they need a penthouse suite at the Ritz instead of the dorm with a meal plan. They maybe graduate five or six years later and wonder why they have such large loans to repay... or the taxpayers have to pay it for them.