Paying for College on Your Own Made Easy
Paying for college without parents to foot the bills is always difficult, but it’s never been harder than now due to the lack of easy access to student loan money from traditional lenders. Since the financial crisis erupted in 2008, banks have clamped down on lending to college students, and made it significantly more difficult for students to pay for college on their own.
Coupled with this fact are the constantly rising rates of tuition, textbooks, and living expenses, which are only making things worse for college students around the country, but paying for college without going broke is still possible, as long as you follow some common sense guidelines.
It may be virtually impossible to graduate completely debt free in this day and age, but we suggest that you take the following steps if you need help paying for university courses.
Need Help Paying for College? Try These Five Simple Tricks
1. Don’t Move Out
Moving out of your parents’ house is one of the first things that new college students look forward to, but is it really worth it? Your rent at home is likely $0, but as soon as you move your things into someone else’s place, start running up the debt clock, because it’s going to pile on quickly. And if you’re already out of the house, do you really need to move into nicer digs just because you’re starting school?
Rent is not cheap, no matter where you live, and it’s only getting more expensive as less people purchase new homes and move into the crowded rental space. Without your parents paying for college, you really shouldn’t even consider moving into a more expensive living situation and rapidly increasing your cost of living, especially if you want to graduate without massive debt.
It may be tons of fun to move out, but do you really want to pay the financial burden later? Living with your parents and commuting to school will save you massive amounts of money on accommodations, food, electricity, cable, internet and all sorts of other living expenses, which you can use to pay down tuition, student loans, or to take vacations with during school breaks.
Don’t forget that you’ll have a lot of down time too (Winter, Spring and Summer breaks), which you’ll want to use for traveling to college student destinations, and that your lease still has to be paid whether or not you’re home. Paying for college without loans starts by cutting unnecessary expenses, so if you can avoid rent (or increases in rent), then make sure to do so!
2. Consider Community College
A college’s reputation is the number one determining factor in the price of their degree programs. Sure, we’d all like to list an Ivy League school on our resume, but is it really necessary to get a job? Is attending an Ivy League worth graduating with well over $100,000 in debt, before you’ve even begun to collect your first professional pay checks?
Regardless of how you answer the question above, don’t forget that plenty of people who graduate from Harvard, Yale, Princeton and other top schools around the country started their collegiate experience at a community college or junior college that you’ve never even heard of. Those same individuals who now list a tier one school on their resume saved upwards of $50,000 just by avoiding paying tier one pricing for their first year or two of school!
Don’t think that you have to start out at the school of your dreams, in order to graduate from it. Remember that staying local provides plenty of benefits, the biggest of which is a massive price savings. You may have to resign yourself to attending a college that doesn’t offer as exciting of a campus life as you’d find at the big four-year school, but you could save yourself quite a deal of cash in the process.
Community colleges generally offer extremely low tuition rates (orders of magnitude cheaper than expensive private schools), and many of their courses can be easily transferred for credits at four year schools. Class sizes tend to be relatively small, and many schools even make financial aid available to help pay for the cost of your tuition and textbooks. Ignore community and local colleges at your own financial peril!
3. Get a Job
Many modern college students have found themselves forced to work part or even full-time to pay their way through school, and there are a great deal of good paying jobs out there for college students, even in this down economy. Line something up that you can leverage into long-term career employment once you’ve graduated from school.
Check out your school’s notice boards, talk to your career advisors, network with classmates and look for internships on websites like Craigslist and Idealist to try and line up positions that match your career goals. Find a job in the industry you’re studying, or which you can apply the skills you’re learning in school to, so that it’s relevant to your future business prospects.
Don’t just get a job to get a job, but do something that will both help pay the bills, and set you up for long-term success down the line when it comes time to working full-time. You do not want to graduate without having already secured full-time employment and internships can be your best friend in lining up job prospects for the long-run.
Working while you’re in school will decrease the amount of money you need to borrow, help you pay the immediate bills, and potentially even prevent you from going into debt altogether (depending on your unique situation). If you graduate without any work experience, you’ll be left behind in the competitive modern marketplace, so don’t think that just pulling straight A’s in honor classes will be enough to cut it. Split your focus and think long-term. Remember that most employers won’t even ask for your GPA once you’ve graduated!
4. Get Your Degree Online
Getting your degree online is a good idea for a variety of reasons, the first of which being that you can set your own study schedule. When you attend an online college, you’ll be able to arrange studying around whatever daily schedule you’d like to have, meaning that you could keep pulling income from a full-time, 9-5 day job, without having to sacrifice your education in the process.
Students paying for college on their own should utilize online degree programs as one of the most cost effective savings techniques in their arsenal. Paying for college tuition isn’t easy, but it’s far less difficult if you’re able to pull in a full-time salary while you’re studying. And while online colleges used to have a bad rap, the tide has turned and accredited online schools can definitely lead to high value employment opportunities in the modern job market.
Combine a few of our tips from above by earning your degree from a 100% online university – you won’t have to move out, you can get or keep your day-job, and you may even be able to pay near community college tuition rates if you attend one of the cheaper online schools. Search out public online universities, rather than relying on expensive private schools, to keep tuition costs to a minimum.
5. Take Out a Loan
If you’ve already tried all of the above tips, or if you can’t take advantage of them, you may find yourself in a situation where you need emergency money to make the rent, pay for tuition, or just cover daily living expenses. If this ends up happening to you, make sure that you remember to look into car title loans as an answer to your problems.
While most loans require lengthy forms, credit checks, and hassles that will leave you feeling like you’ve jumped through a series of flaming hoops, car title loans are simple and straightforward. One of the best things about a car title loan is that they’re widely available to students, because they’re one of the only safe ways to get a no credit check loan within minutes.
Car title loans are similar to collateralized personal loans, like those offered by pawn shops, except that you don’t have to sacrifice any of your valuables to get the money you need. With a car title loan, you will get a loan based on the value of your vehicle (it can be a car, motorcycle, jet, helicopter, or any other type of vehicle with a clear title), but you’ll get to keep using your vehicle while you pay off the loan.
Even individuals with bad credit, or worse, no credit at all, can be approved for car title loans, so if you find yourself needing an emergency loan in San Diego, a car title loan in Orange County, or fast cash in Los Angeles, then try to find an approved car title loan lender near you.
Make a Plan and Stick to It
Hopefully these simple tips will prevent you from saying “I need help paying for college” ever again. Remember that there are a variety of options for students looking to finance their collegiate education, and that there are some relatively easy ways to make getting your college degree affordable.
One last thing we didn’t mention above is to be sure to check for any scholarships, grants, or other free money that’s being offered to people like you to help pay for your education. If you’re a Veteran, in the service, or even directly related to someone who was, make sure to take a look at the military friendly schools lists that float around the Internet as well, because some of the colleges and universities listed on them will cover 100% of the costs associated with earning a degree.
Do your research and be sure to fully utilize all means necessary of getting extra money to help pay for your college education and you’ll be well on your way to success come graduation day. Good luck out there!
