"Collectivist" Social Security helped Paul Ryan pay for college

One of Paul Ryan's hobby horses is that the country is in danger of becoming a European-style welfare state, apparently terrible thing.

Which is odd given that he is the beneficiary of the "collectivist system of Social Security." From a US News & World Report snapshot:

Ryan's father died when Paul was only 16. Using the Social Security survivors benefits he received until his 18th birthday, he paid for his education at Miami University in Ohio, where he completed a bachelor's degree in economics and political science in 1992.

Now, it is obviously a sad and terrible thing that Paul Ryan's father died when he was so young. But the benefits Paul received are exactly the kind of thing doled out by the "welfare state" he loves to demonize as a tyrannizing force.