Is it possible for me to graduate college with 0 debt?

[pakmingki]

ok, so here's the deal.

I got some financial aid, but not much cause there's a priority deadline at my university to be considered for financial aid, and i applied way later than that date.

My parents have been saving money for my college. My family isn't very wealthy, but I am sure that the money they have saved up will ATLEAST last me one entire year with tuition, books, room/board, living expenses, etc. What can i do in that one year of no debt to keep on bringing in money so i have no debt when i graduate?

Is it possible to get full rides while you are in college?

 

[hage567]

What can i do in that one year of no debt to keep on bringing in money so i have no debt when i graduate?

1. Get a job.
2. Study hard to get good grades and apply for scholarships/bursaries.

 

[math_owen]

Not often can you graduate with no debt. Don't worry about the debt. And if you're American, take this lesson to the bank and fill you FAFSA out in Jan. next year, seriously.

Don't worry about the debt though, really, we ALL have debt in one way or another.

Do good in school and keep your eyes on the markets and/or the next step when you become a junior. Debt is a part of the human culture. Just learn to manage it wisely.

 

[ice109]

aside from a really good internship a job waiting table at a decent restuarant is your best bet. easily 20$/hr on a good night. bartending is good too, lots of money in that. if you're really lucky maybe you could score a waiting job at a really fancy restaurant. my friend is working at a hotel right now making like 2k/week, 50 hours though. i payed for 2 years of college + 2 cars + a broken ankle and independent living on about 1 year of steady restaurant work.

i'm on financial aid now though and I am happy to go into debt.

 

[mr_coffee]

I get paid to go to college, when its all said and done I get 2,000 back actually, but I live off campus so now its not included.

I also get fin. aid because my parents arn't well off. But what I did was get good grades of course, and signed up for as many scholarships/grants as possible.

Now that I have a co-op for IBM and make 790 a week and I love my job. I would do this job for free! My fin. aid is going to be screwed though! but I don't care, I enjoy it. I also only have 3 more semesters and I'm a free man!

 

[turbo]

Look at your skills. I worked summers in construction and/or millwork, and during the school year, I played rock/blues on weekends for frat parties for pocket money, and bought and sold guitars and amps for more serious money. It's pretty pathetic how many kids would get really pricey musical gear from their parents and drop them for about half of their value when they discovered that you can't practice 15 minutes a day and sound like Hendrix. I had NO debt when I graduated, though if I had owned a crystal ball, I would not have traded that '59 Strat for a new Les Paul Custom and $300.

 

[JasonRox]

Look at your skills. I worked summers in construction and/or millwork, and during the school year, I played rock/blues on weekends for frat parties for pocket money, and bought and sold guitars and amps for more serious money. It's pretty pathetic how many kids would get really pricey musical gear from their parents and drop them for about half of their value when they discovered that you can't practice 15 minutes a day and sound like Hendrix. I had NO debt when I graduated, though if I had owned a crystal ball, I would not have traded that '59 Strat for a new Les Paul Custom and $300.

Wasn't tuition really cheap back then? Not sure about the US because in Canada it was.

 

[ice109]

I get paid to go to college, when its all said and done I get 2,000 back actually, but I live off campus so now its not included.

I also get fin. aid because my parents arn't well off. But what I did was get good grades of course, and signed up for as many scholarships/grants as possible.

Now that I have a co-op for IBM and make 790 a week and I love my job. I would do this job for free! My fin. aid is going to be screwed though! but I don't care, I enjoy it. I also only have 3 more semesters and I'm a free man!

what is that

 

[turbo]

Wasn't tuition really cheap back then? Not sure about the US because in Canada it was.

Yes, in about 1970 I attended a state college for probably $600/semester with another few hundred for books, and probably $150/month for a shared apartment and extra for food. Of course, I was only making about $1.70/hr for my summer jobs and maybe $15/night for playing the frat parties, so I had to work my butt off to cover school costs and took all the overtime I could get. You should realize that wages were really poor years ago, so the "cheap" tuition, rent, food, etc, were pretty big hurdles.

 

[JasonRox]

Yes, in about 1970 I attended a state college for probably $600/semester with another few hundred for books, and probably $150/month for a shared apartment and extra for food. Of course, I was only making about $1.70/hr for my summer jobs and maybe $15/night for playing the frat parties, so I had to work my butt off to cover school costs and took all the overtime I could get. You should realize that wages were really poor years ago, so the "cheap" tuition, rent, food, etc, were pretty big hurdles.

I totally agree with that, but think about it just a bit more.

To cover tuition alone, you need to work atleast 360 hours at $1.70 an hour for $600 tuition.

Today, to cover tuition alone, you need to work atleast 560 hours at $9 an hour for $5000 tuition. For someone to cover tuition in only 360 hours, he or she would have to make atleast $14 an hour and that's like impossible to get around here unless you choose to go permanent full-time.

Kids these days work there butts off to and don't forget that. In the end, today even after working your ass off, you're still in debt.

 

[ice109]

I totally agree with that, but think about it just a bit more.

To cover tuition alone, you need to work atleast 360 hours at $1.70 an hour for $600 tuition.

Today, to cover tuition alone, you need to work atleast 560 hours at $9 an hour for $5000 tuition. For someone to cover tuition in only 360 hours, he or she would have to make atleast $14 an hour and that's like impossible to get around here unless you choose to go permanent full-time.

Kids these days work there butts off to and don't forget that. In the end, today even after working your ass off, you're still in debt.

but you're forgetting that turbo had to work 10 miles in the snow with only cardboard boxes for shoes.

 

[turbo]

I totally agree with that, but think about it just a bit more.

Even with all the overtime I could get filling vacation vacancies at mills and working extended shifts, I still had to be pretty sharp at buying/selling musical gear to cover the gap. The trick was getting financially set to the point where I could walk around with at least a 1/2 semester's worth of tuition in my pocket so I could jump on the hot deals when they came up. Students can help themselves much more than they know. One guy (who I patronized regularly) was a European immigrant who baked wonderful breads with his parents, and brought a knapsack-full to school every day. He was always sold out by lunch-time so you had to catch him early. Wonderful, toothy, pumpernickels, rye, sourdoughs, etc. I used to pack iced-down vegetables, cheeses, mustards, etc with a large sharp knife so I could make sandwiches at lunch-time. Later, I economized by baking my own whole-wheat bread every weekend. If you are willing to work, you don't have to graduate as a debt-ridden wage-monkey.

 

[seanistic]

I have heard through the grape vine that there are certain loans you can get and as long as you graduate with a 3.0 or higher you don't have to pay them back.

 

[turbo]

but you're forgetting that turbo had to work 10 miles in the snow with only cardboard boxes for shoes.

In elementary school, my sisters and I walked nearly 1/2 mile to home and back to school each lunch time so we could eat at home because my parents could not afford to pay for school lunches. No big deal. Lots of the kids that lived near us had no running water, and although we had running water, we did not have any running hot water when I was young. We heated it up on the stove, and it took a lot of time to fill a tub to the point where you could take a bath. We lived in shabby housing built for laborers who were recruited to build a hydro-dam in the late 1920s/early 1930s.

You may have grown up in great circumstances. When I was in late elementary school, JHS and HS, I worked full-time plus overtime every summer. Joke if you want. Lots of foreign kids today had it a lot tougher than I had it as a kid, though I can never remember a single time when I thought that my life was terrible. I had loving parents and a supportive family and luckily I had older male cousins whose parents could hand down some good shoes, coats, etc.

 

[ice109]

In elementary school, my sisters and I walked nearly 1/2 mile to home and back to school each lunch time so we could eat at home because my parents could not afford to pay for school lunches. No big deal. Lots of the kids that lived near us had no running water, and although we had running water, we did not have any running hot water when I was young. We heated it up on the stove, and it took a lot of time to fill a tub to the point where you could take a bath. We lived in shabby housing built for laborers who were recruited to build a hydro-dam in the late 1920s/early 1930s.

You may have grown up in great circumstances. When I was in late elementary school, JHS and HS, I worked full-time plus overtime every summer. Joke if you want. Lots of foreign kids today had it a lot tougher than I had it as a kid, though I can never remember a single time when I thought that my life was terrible. I had loving parents and a supportive family and luckily I had older male cousins whose parents could hand down some good shoes, coats, etc.

a whole half mile each way


joking , just joking. i couldn't help myself.

 

[ice109]

I have heard through the grape vine that there are certain loans you can get and as long as you graduate with a 3.0 or higher you don't have to pay them back.

where are these loans?

 

[mr_coffee]

ha,that sounds like BS for sure. Doesn't even make sense. Loans like that aren't called LOANS they are Grants or Scholarships.

 

[turbo]

a whole half mile each way


joking , just joking. i couldn't help myself.

No biggy, but when it was below zero with 30-40 mph winds and blowing snow (not too rare then during Maine winters), today's society would have judged our parents very harshly. To have had to shell out 15 cents for lunch tickets for each of us every day was not realistic. The people who fought WWII (including my dad) and came back to build some kind of life, did not always have it easy, and a lot of the kids in my town were in far worse shape than my sisters and me. We did fine, but if you looked at people living the way we did then today, you would classify us as far worse than "poor". My parents grew up in the great depression and they had it a lot tougher than we did.

 

[ice109]

No biggy, but when it was below zero with 30-40 mph winds and blowing snow (not too rare then during Maine winters), today's society would have judged our parents very harshly. To have had to shell out 15 cents for lunch tickets for each of us every day was not realistic. The people who fought WWII (including my dad) and came back to build some kind of life, did not always have it easy, and a lot of the kids in my town were in far worse shape than my sisters and me. We did fine, but if you looked at people living the way we did then today, you would classify us as far worse than "poor". My parents grew up in the great depression and they had it a lot tougher than we did.

i think the point is that the preceding generation will always have it tougher. I am sure my kids will have it easier than i did.