Financing your education
- University of Southern California
One of the most important investments a person can make in their lifetime is an education – it can keep you from needing payday loans. However, one of the biggest hurdles that people face when contemplating matriculation at an establishment of higher education is perhaps the biggest hurdle that you can face when it comes to actually getting a degree, and that is the financing.
A two year degree at a community college can run you a few grand per year with ease, and four year universities will double those tuition costs. Oh, and we’re only talking about public schools. Private schools – forget about it. To be able to pay for private university you’d have to work full time to be able to come close to affording it, and it would have to be a job so good that you wouldn’t need the education to get a better job in the first place.
So, where does that leave most of us? In debt with student loans, and possibly credit cards to boot is where it leaves us, but that is considered a good debt – it virtually ensures that you will earn a decent living. So – how to minimize those costs, or at least offset them becomes the problem.
Some tips and tricks
Well first off, don’t get hooked into using a student credit card. That leads straight down a bad road, and it just isn’t a good idea to use those things very much anyway. You’ll be forced to give up your food and shelter habits to afford the payments, and you definitely can’t look at payday loans as an option. Instead, here are some good things to do about those student loans.
Paying some upfront:
Student loans all come in a state of deferment, meaning that you don’t have to make any payments until a particular time period after graduation, or whenever it is that you leave school. You can arrange to make some early payments so that you can pay down the balance before the interest even starts accruing, and lower the balance. Even if you only happen to pay a thousand dollars in total before you graduate, that is a thousand less dollars in debt that you are – which helps. The average student walks away with about $20,000 in debt on the average these days. How can it be done? As it turns out, very easily.
- Image by Daniel Y. Go via Flickr
Keep a change kitty:
Save the leftover change that you get from your cash purchases, and then at the end of every month or two, cash it in and put it towards a loan payment. May not add up to much every time, but it will add up over time.
Donating plasma:
Donating blood plasma is a college student tradition. Those who have never resorted to this valuable public service (it saves lives, and you get paid for it) have never really lived the student life.
Every Little Bit helps
Make every payment on time for the first 48 months. If you can go 2 years without a missed, deferred, or late payment then they usually will knock a few interest percentage points off the top, and that will save you over the long run. A four year degree will serve you well, and you may never have to think about payday loans as long as you live.
You are definitely right on that one, Perky. Every little bit counts. A lot of people don’t realize how much they can actually save by making smart purchases and saving the smallest amount of money. A dollar can easily turn into $2, and then $4 becomes $8, and so on and so forth. The next thing you know, your pockets will be overflowing with cash!
I am glad to hear there are tricks to paying down a college loan and I know that the average person gets out with around 20,000 in loans but that is if you go to a public school. If you are one of those who go to a private school you are looking in the range of 100,000 dollars and you might want to think about this when you are applying for colleges as to what you want to do and another thing to look at is maybe going to community college for a few years and then transferring to a University which will save you even more money.