How to Pay for School (With No Money)
On average, a bachelor’s degree boosts your income by 63 percent, and a master’s degree can raise it an additional 20 percent. Investing in your education makes good sense, but there’s just one problem: how are you going to pay for school? You aren’t even sure just how much money you will need, but college must have a price tag that’s completely out of your budget, right? Wrong. With a little time and research, you could pay for school with little to no damage to your wallet.
How much does college cost?
Keep in mind that the cost to attend college is more than just tuition. At the very minimum you’re going to see some extra fees tacked on to your bill; and you’ll need books and supplies, room and board, and transportation. Recent trend analyses in college pricing show that the average price to attend a public four-year institution was over $13,000, while private four-year institutions averaged over $32,000. Public two-year institutions were significantly less at approximately $2,000 to $3,000. When you consider that these averages increased by 4-7 percent over last year, it’s easy to see why you need to plan carefully for your college costs.
Is there really “free money” for college?
The truth is that everything comes at a cost, so there’s really no such thing as “free money.” Many grants and scholarships are available to students each year, but the good news is that grants and scholarships do not have to be repaid. The total cost to you is going to be the time and effort that you spend researching and applying for them.
Where do I begin?
Start by visiting the financial aid office where you plan to attend college since they will have the most knowledge about any institutional grants or scholarships that may be available to you. Next, do some online research to see what outside scholarships are available. Yes, there are some very reputable web sites that offer free (be wary of any site that asks you to pay for a search) scholarship searches. In a matter of hours you could have a great start to finding the aid to help you pay for school.
