A college education, while a worthy achievement, does not come cheaply. Forbes has estimated that the price of a college education has increased 8 times faster than wages, making it a struggle for even upper middle-class families. When factoring in the cost of tuition along with room and board, books, and living expenses, a college education can quickly become an unaffordable luxury.

Managing finances properly is mainly common sense. While we’ve all made financial mistakes, most of those mistakes are easily rectified, particularly when promptly corrected. However, there are some financial decisions that can be much harder to recover from. Here are just a few of them: