There are several different ways to pay for college…
Deb: Um, hello. Would you like to look like this?
[holds out a photo]
Napoleon Dynamite: [Napoleon takes the photo and looks at it] This is a girl.
Deb: [Deb continues nervously] Because for a limited time only, Glamour Shots by Deb are 75% off.
Napoleon Dynamite: I already get my hair cut at the Cuttin’ Corral.
Deb: Well, maybe you’d be interested in some home-woven handicrafts?
[Scene continues after Rex Kwon Do TV ad Kip's watching]
Deb: … And here we have some boondoggle key chains. A must-have for this season’s fashion.
Napoleon Dynamite: I already made like infinity of those at scout camp. Deb: I’m trying to earn money for college.
Though making home-woven handicrafts would be quite fun, you don’t have to earn money for college the way Deb chose to. There are other options.
- Join an on campus group that offers free room & board. A great option for anyone with great leadership abilities who wants to be involved. For example, a Residential Advisor. Look into the benefits of positions on campus that are related to residential life and food services.
- Attend your campus wide Job Fair: Bring a resume, dress well, and pay for college by working it off through an on or off campus job .
- The Summer Melt is an opportunity few know about. It’s the time right before fall term when students resign their spots in a university, thus resigning their scholarship money. Writing a letter to your financial aid office asking for more money doesn’t hurt, and usually helps.
- Write a killer scholarship essay, and use it for multiple scholarship entries. Kill multiple birds with just one sweet stone.
- Join a free scholarship search service such as Fast web, College Board’s Scholarship Search or Sallie Mae and let them find scholarships for you to apply for.
- Using Advanced Placement credits towards college means super cheap college credit.
- Have the government cancel all or part of your educational loans by qualifying for loan forgiveness. To qualify for loan forgiveness you must match the criteria specified by the forgiveness program which can include community service, joining the armed services, and teaching or practicing medicine in certain types of communities.
- Seek out jobs that pay your college tuition. Three national companies that assist employees towards their education are UPS, FedEx and Home Depot.
- If you’ve got a knack for writing, or just have things to say that would be useful in any way to others, create a blog and make money through advertisement placed on your website.
- Host an event (more likely if you are living in a house) and organize a house show with the musicians on campus, or host a Scrabble tournament with incentives. The suggested donation for attending should be posted as anywhere from $1 to $1,000,000.
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- Accelerate your degree by getting yourself into an accelerated degree program, which cram a semester’s worth of content into a shorter amount of time. In an accelerated degree program, tuition is about half the price of a traditional degree program, while encompassing a greater intensity of work.
- Bulk up on transfer credits! During the summer, enroll in classes at a community college that will transfer to your university and save you a whole lot of money.
- Consider transferring into your preferred university after two years, if it is more expensive, while going somewhere else at first. Doing this will allow you to still gain the benefits of your chosen university while also taking away a diploma from the college of preference.
- Create a budget to calculate the money you spend on coffee, late night fast food runs and other things that are unnecessary. Being able to track your money will help you save and spend responsibly.
- Keep coupons of local grocery stores and follow weekly sales, avoiding expensive grocers.
