Is a Debt-Free College Education Possible?

Dig Deep, Cut Back and Get Creative

Andrew Schrage, co-owner of MoneyCrashers Personal Finance

Andrew Schrage, co-owner of MoneyCrashers Personal Finance, earned his degree from Brown University in 2008. He has no student loan debt. He says he used a variety of strategies to “make my debt-free graduation possible.” In his own words, these strategies included:

1. Work Through High School

During my freshman year of high school, I started multiple side businesses of my own. I bought candy wholesale and resold it to friends. I cut grass in the summertime, raked leaves in the fall, and shoveled snow in the winter. I performed additional services on an as-needed basis, such as gutter-cleaning, shrub trimming, and wedding.

I was able to keep up with all of this while staying on top of my classwork, and I invested most of my earnings in CDs, using a layered approach. I got this idea from my parents: I staggered the opening of the individual CDs so that I always had at least some access to my money at any one point in time. It also allowed me to take advantage of better rates when when they became available. This generated a significant portion of income when it came time to pay for school.

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2. Dig Deep to Earn Financial Aid

I visited my school’s financial aid office and got as much advice as possible regarding grants and scholarships. I followed this up with some Internet research, looking for any program I might qualify for based on my age, ethnicity, gender, religion, and so forth. I exhausted all of these possibilities before I even considered student loans.

3. Choose an Affordable School

While I didn’t do it personally, a great option is to attend a community college for the first two years of your education. All of your credits will transfer, and you will save a lot of money by taking core classes at a fraction of the cost of a university. You should also attend summer sessions, which often reduce tuition expenses.

4. Cut Back on School Expenses

There are many ways to cut back on standard expenses while attending college. First of all, I always purchased my textbooks used, and resold them online when I was finished. For entertainment, I kept it simple. Excessive bar-hopping was replaced by free on-campus sporting events, affordable concerts and campus events, and a movie every now and then—and I kept myself on a strict entertainment budget. Although I did use credit cards during college, I never carried a balance and never used them to finance my education. I used the best available cash-back rewards credit cards to increase the savings.

[Related Article: Millenials Struggling With Massive Debt Load]

5. Utilize Alternative Financing Options

I was also able to get a loan from my parents to help pay for school. The interest rate was awesome, and I paid this off as quickly as I could.

6. Generate Income

In addition to working while in school and reselling textbooks, I also sold whatever else I could find to generate cash. This included old digital cameras and unused Christmas gifts, among other things, using Amazon as my selling platform.

Ultimately, rather than viewing student loan debt as a way of life and putting off dealing with it until you graduate, you should focus on minimizing and eliminating it as soon as possible.

Have you managed to complete college in the past few years without taking on massive amounts of debt? We’d love to hear how you did it. Feel free to share your strategies in the comments section below.

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