Road Trippin With Rachael

There are a great many questions that students are hit with as they are attempting to figure out what their next steps are after high school. Do they go to college, trade school, enlist, or do they go straight into the workforce. No matter what their choice, there are always going to be some pros and cons to the choices they make. Enlisting in the military and going into the workforce might keep you from going straight into debt, but it also means that you have bigger responsibilities – and for those who enlist, you give up some control of your life for the sake of the country.  For those who choose trade school, you’ll make a good paycheck sooner, but trades often are highly physically demanding, which can cause long-term health issues. For those who choose to pursue education through college, a big question mark is how are they going to pay for their education.  This blog may not be as helpful for those who are current seniors, but it may prove more helpful for those who are juniors, sophomores, and freshmen – as they will have more time to implement some of these suggestions from a former Director of Admissions. 

These are my suggestions, but you have to make the decisions that are best for you. Keep that in mind.

Save, Save, and Save Some More

The first big piece of advice I would give a student is to save. If you are working, put money away every paycheck to go towards your education. In the event that you decide not to go, you can always take that savings and place it in a money market account or into a Roth IRA – talk to someone in finance before you do this, as I’m NOT a financial advisor.  

Saving money is the best way that you can help to cover the cost. This doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to cover all of it, but the more money you can pay yourself up front, the less you have to find later on. Even something as simple as being able to cover the costs of textbooks and parking fees can significantly relieve financial pressure when you get your bill from college. 

Work – Even While Attending School

I’ve worked with several students who choose to take a semester off from working to enjoy college. If that is an option that your parents/family is able to provide you with, I think it is a good idea to enjoy the season. However, if you aren’t in that position, working and having some skin in the game of paying for school can help you close that gap between what you got fron the school and what you are having to come up with. Both myself and my younger sister worked through school and had payment plans set up for us to be able to afford to attend. We both worked enough to pay for school, our vehicles, textbooks, and insurance. Although the money surrounding our vehicles didn’t go directly to school it provided us with independence, and allowed us both to work. Additionally, because we were working to pay, we were also determined to do well – because it was our money on the line. As strange as it sounds, when you are the one paying for things, students tend to take better care of them.

Scholarship – A Senior’s Other Job

Students need to be doing everything they can to qualify for scholarships. Most states will have some kind of state funded scholarship that will cover particle tuition at a state school or a junior college. There are also funds that can go to students whose families would be considered lower income based on their FAFSAs (Free Appliation for Fedearal Student Aid). Being a member of different groups that offer scholarships can also be beneficial. I would recommend that for high school seniors, they need to treat finding scholarships like a job; set a goal for how many to apply for each week. If you apply for a 1000 and get 20 that are all at least $250 each, that $5000 you earned. Apply for a variety of scholarships and different amounts. Focus on both local and national scholarships. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are left on the table each year in scholarships because students don’t apply for them. Religious organizations, local groups, parents’ employers, or even the student’s employers can have scholarship dollars waiting to be used. 

Dual Credit and Junior College

One of the ways students can help themselves pay for college is to pay some of it early – that is where dual credit/enrollment comes in. You pay in high school to take classes for college credit. Often these are through a state or junior college offered at a discounted rate. Most of these classes are going to be for credits that are transferable. In otherwords, they will be classes that every student everywhere would be expected to take. If possible, knock out the College Algebra, History, Biology, or English Composition classes and be done with them. This has the potential to shorten either the time in college, or it can make for a less stressful experience by letting the student take lighter loads of classes. Remember that a full load as an undergraduate is 12 hours.

 Here is where we will begin to touch on the topic that will make people turn up their noses: Junior College. In the past, there was a stigma around junior college that it was for people who couldn’t get into universities. That just isn’t true. Whether or not a student chooses to utilize junior college is really going to be based on what the student can afford and what they want their college experience to be. If they really want to be a part of a sorority or fraternity, then it is better for them to go to a university as freshmen. Admittedly, if a student is wanting to go away the bonding that takes place with a freshman is deeper than for a student who transfers. But, if the issue is money, a junior college is cheaper with the same quality of education locally, and reduces the need to take out loans while increasing the ability to pay out of pocket for anything scholarships doesn’t cover. I, myself, went the junior college route and then transferred. I got less in institutional scholarships as a transfer, but I had two years of not taking out student loans to offset what I eventually did borrow. 

Student Loans

People have some mighty strong opinions when it comes to the discussion of loans. I’ll say the same thing that I’ve told my students when we had a discussion on financial aid: “Student Loans are there as an option to help pay for school, since they have relatively low interest rates and there is a set cap that you are allowed to borrow federally. You do not have to borrow the full amount, and you can make payments on them while you are in school to keep the interest in check.” If you are absolutely against taking out student loans, that isn’t a problem, but students need to be encouraged to be saving, working, and applying for scholarships – especially if parents haven’t already set up a fund for college. I cannot stress enough the importance of reading the information on different student loans, and understanding the difference between federal and private education loans. Also, just be smart with it – if you go this route take the minimum to keep it down and only use it for school related purposes. Then when the time comes for students to be making those payments, it will be manageable and they could even get them paid off ahead of schedule by making larger payments towards the principle. If you do choose to utilize student loans, deny the lender as much profit as you can, by paying it off early.

In Conclusion

This list isn’t exhaustive by any means, but it is a very basic list of what parents and their students could be doing early on to make the “paying for college” conversation easier, and it helps both parents and students not to be surprised when they get their bill. My final piece of advise as a former Director of Admissions would be that parents and students need to be having these conversations before they ever begin the college search. It is unfair to the parents for the students to assume that there is going to be money just sitting there for them to go to school, and it is unfair to the student to let them think that they can go anywhere they want without any kind of financial burden.