Is college really important?

Answered

Depending on your situation, college's costs can be really misleading when you look at them especially for those looking at high tuition cost universities (80k per year) as a low-income family... A lot of people don't realize the extent of financial aid you recieve from state schools and private institutions off grants.

For example, my family has only one parent working who has a middle class salary and we do not own property, assets, etc... Thus my expected family contribution (how much federal gov expects your family to pay for college a year) is around 10k per year when I filled out the fasfa (gov application to receive money or loans), which still sounds scary but I'll move on...

At the school I'm going (which is a selective private college), they are known for great aid and I'm getting 70k per year in grants (free money in my case) so I'm whittled down to that 10k per year the government calculated for me... Then, on top of that, some colleges will offer you work study, which is just a job they give you on campus to make up to around 3k a year you make untaxed... I got offered something similar at my institution so that's down to 7k a year if I take it... If I take a summer job too, I can probably make another 3-5k easily too if I am okay giving up my summer fun plans :(... That leaves me between 3k-5k a year to pay for a school that is a dream to me, instead of the marked price of like $79,920 a year!

Combined with whatever your family can give at all, if you get any scholarships (those are still hard but if your smart you have a shot), and any other income, I can likely walk out of college with not much more than 5-20k in loans which is not great, but manageable...

Note, the best schools that offer you aid are in your state, or in my case some neighboring states give you good deals (WI & MN schools do this so Twin Cities would be bargain for me too), and private institutions since they have solid funding... I will admit some of my private institutions did cost me a lot more money in the 10k-20k range.

As long as you fill our your fasfa early in October when it comes out, and you get a low efc number, you can do this!!! However, I do have a friend with two parents as doctors and is a lot richer so he likely has to pay 30k-40k a year...If your family owns your home or other properties, that brings your efc up. Also, if you have siblings in college, that will bring down your efc...

LASTLY, IF YOU JOIN THE MILITARY OR ROTC, THEY IF YOU QUALIFY, WILL PAY FOR YOUR ENTIRE COLLEGE COST SO YOU COME OUT DEBT FREE - that being said, you have to qualify and maybe go to one of their schools.

Also, check out Questbridge: https://www.questbridge.org/

Hope this helps!

P.S. If you come from a specific background/special circumstances, one of the best shots people have for scholarships is to go to groups that only give scholarships in those groups (veteran family, Chilean immigrants, low income etc.)

You could apply for financial aid, look for schools with lots of scholarships, apply to private scholarships, get a student loan if really needed although it should be avoided, and also look for schools that 100% meet the need of students meaning they will give you aid as you need it rather than having set packages of it for different types of students. You could also apply to full ride scholarships but those are harder to win and require you to have an outstanding profile.

Hi, if money is a problem you can use the website raise.me to get a lot of small scholarships based on your stats. it also shows you how much each college would give you for what you have done in high school. don't think that you have to be rich to go to college.