How to pay for College?

[BPH]

I'm a senior that will be attending UNCW next year. My cost to attend that school is around $16k per year.

I filled out the FAFSA and am currently applying for scholarships. So far the only financial aid I've gained through the FAFSA is a $5,500 Direct Stafford Loan.

So that only pays for about a third of my Freshman year. I'm wondering if any of you guys found a decent way to pay for college that won't put my family in a hole when I'm done school.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Unless you're on scholarship, going to a 4-year school for the first two years is foolish. You're just pissing away $30-50 grand. Go to junior college if you care about avoiding a giant debt.

edit:

Rotc

fwiw that is the easiest scholarship that you can get. They pay for college, then you go in for 8 years, starting out as a 2nd LT. If you are considering the military at all, rotc is the best deal.

 

[speed dawg]

Unless you're on scholarship, going to a 4-year school for the first two years is foolish. You're just pissing away $30-50 grand. Go to junior college if you care about avoiding a giant debt.

Not to mention your grades will better.

I wish I'd have done this. I was not ready for college when I went. Lost my scholarship the first year, nothing but a drunk, etc. etc. Junior college would have eased my transition and helped me mature a little quicker I think.

There again sometimes you learn quicker by throwing yourself to the wolves and fending for yourself.

But anyway, this thread is about money.

 

[5string]

Rotc

 

[MaddXMan]

Check on if your state has some kind of program. Many do. My state - Missouri - has the A+ program. Maintain at least a 2.8 and do so many hours of tutoring and they pay for 2 years of juco.

 

[BPH]

What the hell's a junior college? And no I'm not considering the military.

 

[don't]

it used to be 6 years for rotc. that is WAY too much of your life, and a serious risk of getting killed, to boot. Are you over 21? if so, Sneider trucking will pay for your 18 wheeler school, 4k or so, and you sign a contract to drive for them for a year, clearing maybe 30k if you get a lot of overtime. The next yeaar, buy your own truck, used (40k) and clear 60K, if you go at it right. The next year, you'll have 2 used trucks, and clear 100k, then buy 2 more trucks and you won't have to drive anymore, either. you put teams of male-female Filipinos driving for you, saving you 50k a year compared to using US males, putting a clear "extra" 35k a year per truck in your pocket. You can be "set" for life, monetarily, in 4 years, doing little but checking on the truck's locations, speeds, etc, and the hookups at either end of the cross country runs.

 

[don't]

a jr college is a place that offers only the first 2 years of school, towards a bachelor's degree. Make CERTAIN that any classes you take there are "transferrable" to other colleges! Many are not. Much cheaper to go there, like 2k a semester, instead of 8k per semster for a 4 year university. You can get a 5k a year Pell grant, towards tuition, and 8k or per semester for school loans. Repaid after you finish or quit school.

 

[don't]

many classes can be taken online, on your laptop, while your co-driver runs the rig, u in the sleeping berth of the truck.

 

[Bible_Belt]

WAY too much of your life, and a serious risk of getting killed

My dad is an over the road driver. He sees deadly accidents all the time. The way truck drivers are most likely to die is riding in the sleeper when driving as a team. Team drivers are the least experienced, because it is the easiest job to get. It's been found that most of the wrecks occur during the first 30 minutes of shift change; the driver usually hasn't woken up enough yet to be alert. The tin can of a sleeper cab offers very little protection during a wreck.

When you compare those risks to be an officer in Afghanistan, it seems pretty similar to me. The military protects officers by throwing all of the enlisted people into the most dangerous spots. It is considered much more tactically damaging for an officer to die than a private. If you look at the ranks of any war's dead, almost all of them will be enlisted.


edit: (response to post below)

Loans do accrue interest, but with the subsidized at least the interest begins after you finish school.

And your guidance counselor should be fired.

https://www.dtcc.edu/admissions-financial-aid/tuition-fees

TUITION (for the 2011-2012 academic year)
In-State Students (Day and Evening) $114.25 per credit hour per semester for all catalog courses. Maximum tuition for full-time students--$1,371.00 per semester, 12 credits or more.

http://uncw.edu/studentaccounts/2009-2010FallTuitionandFeeSchedule.html

Total In-State $2,835.78
Out-of-StateTuition Total: $8,746.00

And you are out of state, right? Basically, you are getting jacked for four times the amount that school should cost, just because you are out of state. You're going to go 80 grand in debt and get the same degree that you could get for 10-20k of accumulated debt. Instead of a loan payment of less than two hundred bucks, yours is going to be almost a thousand a month. Good luck with that.

 

[speed dawg]

What the hell's a junior college? And no I'm not considering the military.

Obviously you haven't done one iota of research on this subject if you don't even know what a JUCO is.

And by the way, a loan is not financial aid, at least to me. Any moron can go get student loans.

 

[BPH]

Obviously you haven't done one iota of research on this subject if you don't even know what a JUCO is.

And by the way, a loan is not financial aid, at least to me. Any moron can go get student loans.

I've never heard of a Jr. College. It was never brought to light during school, it was never mentioned to me by my guidance counselor, and therefore I do not know what one is.

I realize the loan is not financial aid, since I had to pay it off - but I believe it does not accrue interest, so that's good. But aside from scholarships are there any other stacks of money just waiting to be collected?

And if trucking works so well why haven't you done it don't?

 

[BigJimbo]

1) Truckers scare me. Most don't seem like they could read the comments under a porn video, let alone study for school. How do I know this? Two words - "Unsolved Mysteries". Can't argue with classic Robert Stack. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOtpXRmdZlk - F---! I dare you to watch that with the lights out!

2) Online schools don't count. They just don't.

3) A college education means little these days. Hell, not much means anything these days in America. America is one big ponzi scheme.

4) Military? If you can't find the war zone on a map and you can't speak the language you shouldn't be fighting. My rule.

 

[BMX]

UNCW lol. Get drunk at 2 p.m. on Tuesdays. Likely getting your a$$ beat by enlisted personnel from Camp Lejeune. Just go to community college. UNCC is more entertaining. UNC's main campus has too many hippies.

 

[BPH]

UNCW lol. Get drunk at 2 p.m. on Tuesdays. Likely getting your a$$ beat by enlisted personnel from Camp Lejeune. Just go to community college. UNCC is more entertaining. UNC's main campus has too many hippies.

I'm from Wilmington, DE. My community colleges are terrible...DelTech and DelState. Neither of which I want to be a part of.

I want to get out of Delaware. So I'm asking if there's a scholarship or grant that I haven't heard of that I can apply for. My academics are pretty good but I do not show financial need, and thus am disqualified from many scholarships.

So does anybody know how I can pay for college rather than offer me alternatives?

 

[Bible_Belt]

So does anybody know how I can pay for college

Sure. If you are going to go the route of loans, then go all out. Max out everything they will give you for every year. If you are serious about working the system, you need to get married. Find a girl in your shoes who can't get aid either, and she will marry you so that she can get loans, too.

Marrying makes you independent from your parents. Now you need dependents. You could knock up the girl you married, but it is easier to just support random unemployed friends and family by letting them crash on your couch. As long as they don't have documented income, and you support the majority of their living expenses for more than half of the tax year, then they become your dependents, the same as kids. You'll pay nearly zero taxes on any income you do have, and they will loan you twice as much money, which is easy to live off of.

With all your expenses paid from loans, all you have to do is keep going to 12 hr/semester of any classes at all, and you can stay in the system forever. You never have to work again. I have met a 75 y/o man who has been a full-time student for 50 years. His loans are over a million bucks, not that they will ever get repaid.

If at some point you want to stop going to classes, hopefully after getting a post-graduate degree or two, all you have to do is never work at a real job. Form a company, get an llc, and keep yourself without any paper income, and you just paid for college

 

[BMX]

Did you run track at your high school? UNCW gave scholarships to a bunch of people on my track team, nothing too special there. Hell, ECU up in Greenville took a state champ who got his offer rescinded from LSU due to his lesser grades senior year.

 

[sageproduct]

I have met a 75 y/o man who has been a full-time student for 50 years. His loans are over a million bucks, not that they will ever get repaid.

If at some point you want to stop going to classes, hopefully after getting a post-graduate degree or two, all you have to do is never work at a real job. Form a company, get an llc, and keep yourself without any paper income, and you just paid for college

That is an absolutely terrible exploit. Wow. I don't follow the news, but that's a shocking illustration of a huge problem.

OP - seriously consider those community colleges. I have a feeling that your financial situation is really not as dire as you're letting on.

For clarification, your direct loan is unsubsidized, accumulates a fixed 6.8% interest, and defers payment, meaning you don't start paying it back until 6 months after you graduate. The man in Bible Belt's post perhaps took advantage of that and just never graduated.

Scholarships and corporate grants are all you have, really. Based on what you've said, I can pretty safely assume that you come from a high-income family, but your parents aren't paying/don't want to pay/can't pay for whatever reason.

Your last resort is private loans from banks. They have higher interest rates but will cover any other gaps. Listen to the wisdom here though - 4 year university for all 4 years, if you're not on scholarship, is not worth it. I'm willing to bet, though, that you will ignore that advice because you are young and have such a strong need right now to become independent and experience "college".

I just finished my second year of college at a 4 year university. If you are not on scholarship and money is anywhere close to being an issue, I will tell you it is NOT worth it. I'm on a D1 athletic scholarship that pays all of my tuition, but I had to take out the same Federal Direct Loan you're getting to pay my rent. Please don't make the same mistake. I would gladly trade my experiences here and "status" of being a student-athlete for going back, doing 2 years at my local community college, and getting my head on straight.

EDIT: Where did you get the figure of 16k a year from? If your out-of-state tuition is $8,700, then your 16k figure is for tuition ALONE. Living expenses (dorm and meal plan, or apartment, food, utilities, transportation, personal expenses) will put you at another 10k at LEAST. You're looking at 27k a year, minimum.

 

[BPH]

That is an absolutely terrible exploit. Wow. I don't follow the news, but that's a shocking illustration of a huge problem.

OP - seriously consider those community colleges. I have a feeling that your financial situation is really not as dire as you're letting on.

For clarification, your direct loan is unsubsidized, accumulates a fixed 6.8% interest, and defers payment, meaning you don't start paying it back until 6 months after you graduate. The man in Bible Belt's post perhaps took advantage of that and just never graduated.

Scholarships and corporate grants are all you have, really. Based on what you've said, I can pretty safely assume that you come from a high-income family, but your parents aren't paying/don't want to pay/can't pay for whatever reason.

Your last resort is private loans from banks. They have higher interest rates but will cover any other gaps. Listen to the wisdom here though - 4 year university for all 4 years, if you're not on scholarship, is not worth it. I'm willing to bet, though, that you will ignore that advice because you are young and have such a strong need right now to become independent and experience "college".

I just finished my second year of college at a 4 year university. If you are not on scholarship and money is anywhere close to being an issue, I will tell you it is NOT worth it. I'm on a D1 athletic scholarship that pays all of my tuition, but I had to take out the same Federal Direct Loan you're getting to pay my rent. Please don't make the same mistake. I would gladly trade my experiences here and "status" of being a student-athlete for going back, doing 2 years at my local community college, and getting my head on straight.

EDIT: Where did you get the figure of 16k a year from? If your out-of-state tuition is $8,700, then your 16k figure is for tuition ALONE. Living expenses (dorm and meal plan, or apartment, food, utilities, transportation, personal expenses) will put you at another 10k at LEAST. You're looking at 27k a year, minimum.

Thanks for being in-depth. Here's what I have to say, after finding out more information:

1. My family is not high-income. According to the FAFSA statements, we gross around $76k and net around $49k annually. The big problem with paying for college is that I have 2 younger siblings that will enter college in 2 and 4 years respectively.

2. Community college is something my parents want to me to do as well. Spend 2 years at Delaware Technical then spend another 2 at the University of Delaware. I could go straight into UD but I really want to get away from this state. Delaware Tech will be full of kids from my current school and I don't want that. My school is very ghetto and a lot of these kids are going to Delaware Tech because it's the only school that will accept them. UD is nice and all but again, I just want to get out of Delaware.

3. UNCW costs $14,128 tuition along with around $7,820 for housing and meal plans. Which would bring the total to around $22,000 for a year. This has made me consider residency at North Carolina to get the in-state cost of around $4,000 tuition for a year. Problem is that I would have to be financially independent of my parents, pay taxes, register a driver's license, receive my mail in NC, along with living in NC for a year prior, which means my first year of tuition would be expensive as hell.

As for Bible Belt's story of expoit. Sounds great and all...but I think I would stop enjoying college around age 30...let alone 70.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Problem is that I would have to be financially independent of my parents

Don't you have to be 25 years old to be considered independent? It was 23 when I went to college. That's part of why I got married at age 21; they consider you independent at that point. Otherwise, I don't think they care if you are independent in the actual sense of the word.