You cannot get a general arts degree in two years in the UK. Diploma, yes. Not a degree.
I think he said “degree”, I’d have to re-check. He wrote TRA with his majority American audience in mind and adopted their spellings, particular wordings and idioms. In American English, diploma tends to mean the document itself which says you have graduated whilst degree encompasses the whole experience in attending and graduating from college. “I’m getting my degree” means you are currently attending. “I’m getting my diploma” tends to elicit an “oh when is the ceremony?” response.
He also had both parents approve of his going to college, so choosing a poor study is all on him though he tried to blame it on JWs.
Then he moves to Croatia and is forced to live with his in-laws which screams to me there was no money.
He even admitted they were living way beyond their means. First they lived in some sort of basement flat, then a JW graciously let them rent a a house or townhouse their son was vacating for below the market price. Dijana still had English limitations so she was stuck doing au pair and other odd jobs which didn’t require a whole lot of communication. He seemed to be in and out of work as well with no stable job history.
This explains some of the motivation to move to Croatia but they were still moving to an isolated village with no real job prospects for her and especially him. They seemed to have a good arrangement in the UK where they at least had a good shot at pulling in something. And he wasn’t disfellowshipped.
But they had to flee for some reason and like NOW.
Did they get kicked out by their JW landlord because they knew the truth of what had happened?