How to Pay for College
As it’s now mid-May and high school graduations quickly approach, college choices and paying for tuitions are certainly on people’s mind. The annual cost of attending college can be around $40,000. The actual cost may vary significantly from ten of thousands to close to hundred of thousands of dollars depending on your choice of school. Since typical undergraduate degree often takes 4 to 5 years to complete, that equates to a substantial sum of money.
Here are some ways that may help to pay for the costs of attending colleges.
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Financial Aids: Both federal and state governments have different programs to give out grants to college students. Those grants are usually based on financial needs. Since they don’t have to be repaid, they are great sources of help to finance college expenses. Interested students should fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) as early as October 1st to be qualified for grants of the following school year.
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Scholarships: Each year there are thousands of scholarships, both from the public and private entities, available to qualified applicants. Some scholarships may offer full-ride to a college degree; some others may offer ten of thousands of dollars. Those scholarships attract lots of applicants and much harder to get. Nonetheless, many communities and private organizations do offer smaller awards with much less stringent requirements. Since scholarships are like free money to qualified applicants, you should try to apply as many as you can find. Any amount helps, right?
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Work Study: Do you have few hours of free time between classes, in the evenings, weekends? Convert those hours to real bucks $$$ by doing some work-study. Most colleges often have plenty of work opportunities around the campus. Those jobs like cashiers in the cafeteria, lab attendants, tutors, teacher assistants don’t require much experience. Moreover, they also have flexible time to fit into the students’ schedules.
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Student Loans: If there’s still a gap to close the budget for college expenses, one can consider taking out student loans. These loans may have payment deferment while the student is still in college. Nonetheless, loans are not free and need to be repaid. Thus, one should only consider student loans as the last resource.
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Help from Parents: Some parents with strong financial positions are often willing to help out their college-age children. Few will be able to do so by simply giving cash supplement; Other parents may also tap into their home equity as another alternative. A mortgage loan, in most cases, has more favorable terms and advantages than a student loan. If you need more advice on a cash-out home loan, give us a call (877)743-8539.
Going to college is an exciting life journey as you are expanding your library of knowledge and preparing a future career. At the same time, it also inherits an opportunity cost. All students should carefully consider the financing aspect of college costs. After all, you don’t want to bury yourself under a mountain of debts after graduating from college.
