How the **** do I find $150,000 for college tuition?

My Japanese is coming along nicely, so that way I'm going to be triligual by college (English, Spanish, and Japanese). I was definitely going to get like multiple jobs while up in New York, so thanks for giving the tip about the bank teller thing. I'm already going to get a job as a sales representative for this small roofing and siding company down here in northern Virginia, so maybe I could use that as job experience perhaps. Plus, I'm going to work so that I can save up for living expenses (not including tuition and dorm).

Edit: Ok. Now my sister is giving me this crap about how a person can't go to school and work at the same time. And that I'm going to be miserable in New York because I won't have time to do anything with school and work and that I'm going to be living like a homeless person. What do you all think?

I worked almost 30 hours a week during most of college and bumped down to 20 hours a week during my last two semesters. It's definitely possible. It does take a toll on your social life though. It seems like I never had time to do anything. If I wasn't at work or school, I was studying. If I wasn't studying, I was sleeping. But, not working was certainly not an option for me.

Also, I'm not trying to discourage you from your plans, but there are much, much cheaper colleges that you could better afford with federal loans, PELL grant (if you're eligible), and scholarships that universities offer. All universities have a financial aid page where you can find out about scholarships available and how to apply for them.

Don't shy away from loans either. If you come from a poor family like I do and you can't get a full scholarship, a low interest federal student loan is a necessity. You have six months after you graduate before you have to start paying them off. Ideally, you wouldn't need a loan, but that's not reality most of the time. Completing your degree is worth the loan. Also, while you're in school you'll probably come into some scholarship monies during your first or second year so you can then decrease or cancel your loan amounts all together. That's what I did. I finished with roughly $9,000 in debt. If I hadn't gotten a student loan, then I never would have finished school. That simple.

New plan: I go to UVA for 2 years (which I have a pretty good chance of getting into by the way) and then transfer to Columbia. However the race card may come to be less effective in those two years, due to a possible greater influx of minorities into that college. I also don't know if there's a financial aid problem with this plan. Does anyone know if the FAFSA tells you the raw amount of money that they can award you or the percent of tuition they can pay off?

Edit: I will pay in-state for going to UVA (which is the more important reasoning).

I don't know really. Get a part time job and save some of the wages up in a high interest savings account. You could try a Scholarship to meet the costs, which could be the best option really.

Originally Posted by erokk121

Does anyone know if the FAFSA tells you the raw amount of money that they can award you or the percent of tuition they can pay off?

You have to provide your parents' financial information from last year's taxes as well as your own if you filed. After you complete your FAFSA (you do it online now), the Department of Education assigns you a number and provides it to your school. Based on that number, your school will send you something telling you if you are eligible for the PELL grant, federal work-study, or federally subsidized loans. Best thing to do is to get it filled out as soon as possible!

Good luck. ^___^

Originally Posted by Awkin

Yes: Because loaning thousands of dollars cures problems indefatigably and absolutely . It's not really a solution, Ranny -- you'd have to spend decades paying that off :<.

Like every other college student that goes without having the money too. In fact, about 70% of all college students are going to college off student loans.

Trust me, it can get payed off. 150,000$ alltogher seems like a lot, but it's a mere 37,000 a semester, which is pretty average for a bigger university. Yeah, you'll be paying for student loans till your mid thirties, but hte idea is to get a degree that makes it worth while.

If you really want to go that bad, you must accept the fact you will need student loans, and yes, you'll be paying them off for awhile just like the rest of us.

blowjobs

thousands of them

or

job

two of them

also, ranil, you're ****ing wrong

My total college expenses will go up to at least $200,000 for all four years. Unless Obama somehow gives us college kids a break and comes up with some high-ownage higher education policy, I will probably have to pay 110% of that.

New issue. I still have to convince my parents to let me go out-of-state, so any advice for that stuff would be greatly appreciated. They think I'm incompetent and can't work and go to school. And they won't LET me work right now because they're worried about my grades, which are pretty under control right now.

It seems like your only options are to stalk celebrities and take their pictures for magazines or rob a bank.

Originally Posted by erokk121

I'm talking about around $37,500 a year, making my total that much. It's still alot. Schools in New York are expensive. I was also looking at NYU.

If you are looking for an exemplary school in NYS that is cheap (17,000 a year for in state residents), I would suggest looking into SUNY Geneseo. It is probably one of the best schools in the state, and at that price, there's no reason not to check it out. NYU is very expensive, not to mention you may not even get in. It's hands down the best public school in NYS. I guess it might be too late to apply to any more now, but I thought it would be worth a mention

(I go there : p )

I wanna go to a college in NYC. And Columbia and NYU are from what I've researched some of the most elite colleges in the country, which are both in New York City. I know people have argued that the name of the college doesn't matter. Plus, they have a really good engineering program and social science department from what I've heard.

Edit: Good news. My county is probably going to pass this new grading policy in which they change from a 6-point scale to a 10-point scale, and make the weight for AP/IB classes a 1.0 instead of a 0.5. Translation: this will put my current 3.4 GPA on some serious steroids. Hopefully this'll get me a scholarship.

Online poker.

Wow, this is interesting. Apparently, Ivy League schools don't make you pay tuition if you have a total family income of less than $100,000. This may help me out, or this may come to show that they like to accept more rich people than middle-class people like me.

Such schools are generally need-blind, meaning your application is considered separate from your need. Go to the undergraduate admissions section of the university you are considering to research this.

But yes, that's one thing I've found when browsing fine universities: they generally have very generous need-based scholarship programs. Don't let a college's perceived expense keep you from applying, you may get very good aid to make it worth your while.

Working Front Street?

What's Front Street?

If your family is eligible for financial aid, there will be some universities that will be happy to cut some slack and knock off a few thousand dollars off tuition costs. It also helps if you're financial aid-eligible and ethnic, especially if the student population is overwhelmingly white, because some would even pay off the entire tuition (and if you're far away, pay for your passage to the school), just to have one more non-white kid in a predominantly white school.

My college tuition is free. Retired military dependents get free tuition to all University of California and California State University campuses. :>

Originally Posted by erokk121

What's Front Street?

*sigh* do I really have to explain this?

Front street is usually where you pick up hookers...

Columbia has 11% hispanics, 11% african americans, 17% asians, and 38% white. I don't think they are too worked up about getting hispanics into their school, more so possibly due to the fact that they are a private institution. But everywhere else has a hispanic percent way lower and they are of a lower caliber (UVA, NYU), so Columbia, at this point, is my ultimate reach.

Originally Posted by Captain Cornflake

Plus there's the fact that just because you go to a good college doesn't guarantee that you'll immediately end up with a high paying job to pay off that loan.

This is the one fact most people tend to overlook.


The so-called "importance" of college is pretty overestimated, really. But that's a whole other topic that's probably best saved for another time.

I like how this post takes a realistic synopsis on things.