According to CollegeBoard.com, a four-year degree at a private institution is topping out at more than $26,000 per year. Even state schools cost more than $7,000 year according to the same report, which is beyond the reach of many families. (For background reading, see Preparing Parents’ Pockets For College Tuition.)
While it may sometimes seem like everyone is going straight from high school to college, many students actually don’t take this path. Many start working during and after high school to save up money for college, or work part-time while attending classes.
Scholarships are always an option, but they often aren’t available to people who don’t stand out in some significant way. If you’re not the Alabama Jiu-Jitsu champion or a breeder of rare lizards, but rather a straight-B student who plays acoustic guitar, you’ll probably get stuck footing most of the bill for school.
If your family’s income is on the lower side, you might qualify for enough need-based aid (in the form of grants) that can help pay for a four-year university, but to increase your odds of getting that aid, you’ll have to apply to a lot of schools, which is both time-consuming and expensive. However, if you can find a school that needs someone like you, you may be able to get a significant scholarship even if your credentials aren’t extraordinary. For example, perhaps there is a small university in North Dakota that would happily pay to have you because they aren’t highly competitive academically, they don’t have enough students from Florida, and they’re looking to expand their music program.
What about paying for expensive post-graduate programs like medical school and law school? While the costs of these programs may be insurmountable (by the time you saved up enough to pay for law school outright, you will have wasted many years of your potential career), you can at least try to ensure that the cost will be worthwhile by getting some practical experience in your chosen field before you commit your time and money to another degree. If you think you want to be a doctor, try working as a receptionist in a doctor’s office, as a volunteer in a hospital or nursing home, or even getting a less time-consuming and less-expensive nursing degree before committing to med school. Postponing your educational plans by a few years isn’t such a bad thing when you’re gaining practical experience in the field. Most importantly, if you discover that you hate it, you won’t have wasted all that money and effort on school, and you’ll be one step closer to figuring out what you really want to do. If you really want to go now, don’t expect Harvard to foot your bill for law school, but as in the example above, a lower-tier school might give you a scholarship, or at least have lower tuition costs.



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