By working my ass off. I have a degree in Healthcare administration. I went to the city college for classes from 7 am till 8:30 am, then went to work at the hospital from 9 till 6pm,
From 7pm till 10pm were classes at the university, I did my home work either at work, when my boss was not around, or on Friday nights. On the weekends I also worked at a Starbucks style coffee house from 2pm till close (10-11pm) this went on for 4 years. You can do it if you set your mind to it. What happens is you get into a busy all the time mode. Its difficult to get out of that once you graduate, I had such a momentum going that I actually considered going straight for my masters without taking a break. I also remember thinking “Are you NUTZ!”
I worked all throughout college and got loans, grants, and scholarships. I worked part time and my lover, who had graduated, worked full time. I paid rent, bills, etc. My parents did not help at all. It was a pain even trying to get them to give me the W2’s that were needed so I could even apply for financial aid since not being married or over 23 (I think) made me a dependant student.
The many different part time jobs helped with rent, bills, and transportation but were definately no enough to cover the tuition also. I don’t think I ever had more than a 100 dollars in my savings account at all through college and I often worried about overdrawing my checking account (luckily, I never did).
I got out of school with about 20k in student loans even though I had some hefty scholarships and grants. Most of my friends were taking about 40-50k because they opted to live in the dorms and take out that living expense in loans as well. The student loans, scholarships and grants paid for tuition and books with a few hundred dollars left over which I would use to buy other school supply types of necessities. If I had any extra it would go to the previous bills.
It was tough and I was poor. My lover worked it out like more of a roomate type of situation and during my last semester dumped me, though we finished out our lease before going our separate ways (luckily it outlasted the school year and was a 2 bedroom place).
I was working as a reactor operator in a chemical plant when I decided to go to college the following year. That was a relatively high paying job, and I was able to save enough to go most of first year without working.
That was great, as it allowed me to focus on being a student and establish a good GPA. Towards the end of that first year, I began working in a restaurant. As with most providers of menial jobs anywhere near the campus, the place was overstaffed and couldn’t schedule anybody for enough hours to live on.
A non-student friend of mine was a cabdriver and suggested I give that a try. Come summertime I did, and after a few weeks I knew it was my ideal college job. I got a car loan and bought a retired police car, transformed it into a taxicab (only car I’ve ever painted - all those years of building model cars paid off, as it came out just fine - if you like lime green cars with red roofs) and was ready for the fall semester.
While I alwys considered it a perfect student job (made enough to pay for school and living, schedule changes were under my control and other guys drove it and made me money when I wasn’t driving), I never did meet another student cabdriver.
Anyway, I graduated with honors and got out with no student loans. I recently needed a transcript and discovered that I’d owed the student health center $20 for the last 23 years.
I just graduated from UCD in June with my bachelors degree. I spent the last four years taking 20-23 units worth of classes per quarter, and working full time to boot. I almost never had a day off in four years. My parents paid my tuition, as their income on paper is slightly over the limit allowed for financial aid. Note “on paper”–my father ran a small business for a while, and his actual net income was… not much. So they couldn’t afford to help me out in any other way, but they did pay my tuition which I’m eternally grateful for. Everything else, books, food, rent, electricity, all came out of pocket. My parents could only afford to pay for four years, so I had to finish in four–my first year I was working at minimum wage nearly 60-70 hours a week sometimes, so I was taking a minimum number of units. By my senior year, I had to make up for it and up the course load to 20-23 units of mostly upper division work per quarter to make it out in four.
I seriously do not recommend doing what I did. I feel like I lost a lot from my education, I wasn’t ever able to devote myself fully to many of my classes, didn’t do a lot of the reading, and was often so exhausted after each ten or twelve hour day that I’d just come home and pass out. I got a degree and finished my education, but I don’t think I got as much out of it as I should have.
I graduated with a very small amount of student loan debt, again thanks to my parents and because I worked so many hours through college–but I’d have gotten a better education had I worked less, and incurred a bit more debt. Would have been f*ked at this point though, since my degree seems to be actually keeping me from finding a job. Sigh.
I did my undergrad with loans and scholarships, with a part time job for spending money. I did the graduate degree with a teaching assistantship for the first 2/3 of my credit hours. After that I got a job and worked full time while going. It took forever. Working full time even with a small class load is extraordinarily draining, I found.
bump. i may flunk out of my current program and have to go into another (id rather not talk about it). so im thinking of switching to chemistry or engineering. chem might be a 3 year degree for me if i go year round. however it’d be $20k for the college then another $12k a year for living expenses to i’d be 60k in debt when i graduated. Thats assuming i never work. if i work part time i might be 45k in debt instead.
After her first three years or so (long before we even dated), my wife moved out on her own and got a full-time job that offered tuition benefits. She worked full-time and went to class to varying degrees of part-time. It took her a long time to graduate, but did so with no debts.
Locally, UPS has a hub and offers free tuition to a number of local colleges and post secondary voactional/professional training schools, as well as a part-time job and some other benefits (rent and book stipends). Move to Louisville, KY and you’re in. Last I heard they were really needing part-timers.
Undergraduate worked two jobs (one full time and one part time) and took many, many night classes. My last semester I worked nearly 50 hours a week AND took 21 credit hours just so I wouldn’t have to go to summer school. I had my waking hours planned to 15 minute increments some days.
I also worked full time during graduate school, but so did my ex-wife (God bless her).
Right now I’m in my sophomore year of college. Freshman year, my mother lost her job, so whatever expenses that were leftover after scholarships were covered by what she could afford to spare (housing) and I covered the rest with my savings. I couldn’t find a job that year (it’s really difficult to find a job freshman year unless you’re willing to work shite hours for almost nothing), and therefore went crazy over money matters. This past summer I worked at the only job I could get, busting my ass while getting cut on hours every couple of weeks. Right after I got back up here, I got hired as a Night Staff employee (night time dorm security), in which I stay up all night however many nights a week I feel I can handle for $5.40 an hour. This is 25 cents more per hour than any other entry-level job in housing at my university. I’m probably going to have to take out a loan for next semester to make sure bills get paid on time. (Mom got a job again in June, but I lost my biggest scholarship due to a GPA that was just barely under, so I’m just trying to make ends meet.) At least my winter break job is going to pay well, and I might have the opportunity to work the same job over the summer months.
My mother wants to provide for my education, but can’t afford to pay for most of it anymore. I try to pay for as much of it as I can because I don’t want to be a burden on her, but it gets difficult when you’re at a level where you get shitty scheduling times and don’t have a car in which to use to get to work/school, etc. At least I’m doing better in classes now that I am not completely freaking out over money.
You can do that here in Knoxville though. Other places I’ve lived, it couldn’t have been done.
During undergrad, I worked, but that was mostly for book and spending money - the rest was covered by loans and parents. I did end up working about 20 hours a week, because anything I wanted to do, I had to pay for.
Now, as a grad student, I work (well, it’s an assistantship) for my tuition and a monthly stipend. I also work one day a week in the library, which gives me a little extra. I take out some in loans each semester - the excess funds I’ll get in January will be set aside for the anticipated move in May or June. I live on about $650 a month, of which $450 goes toward rent.
I’m 20, been out of HS for 3 years, and still not in college. (Truthfully, my career choice doesn’t really require school).
I have NO money for it. Rent is currently late this month, heh. Owe late bills. Already had to move across the country to make more money once. Ug.
My mom won’t be giving me any money for college. She currently owns 3 houses - two well over $100,00, and just under. Could pay them all off right now with how much money she has saved.
But help me with college? Lord no. And everytime she sees me, she tells me how I need to be going to college. Sigh.
My dad will pay for one semester (my 18th Bday present), but after that, I’m on my own (I’m thankful for that much, since he doesn’t have as much money as my mom).
I don’t want any student loans. I don’t want to go through college just to be $30,000 in debt.
Probably during the spring or summer, I’ll take a few (2 or 3) classes. But . . . I never was good at school, hehe.
But I salute all of you who’ve done what I haven’t been able to yet.
First year, he’d pay for all tuition and course materials.
Second year, he’d pay tuition, I’d pay course materials.
Third year, I’d pay tuition, he’d pay course materials.
After that, I’m on my own.
Since it took me six years to get my degree, I ended up paying for four years’ worth myself: that is, I paid everything in years 4, 5, and 6, and another year’s worth divided between years 2 and 3.
By that last two years I was working full time and taking classes over lunch and in the evenings. But it paid off. I managed to graduate with only one $8000 student loan, which was taken out jointly by me and my wife.
And oh yeah, we managed to squeeze in (and pay for!) a wedding, too. A small wedding, obviously.
I got scholarships and Pell Grants and paid work study. In addition, I took AP courses in high school, and ended up with college credit for all my math and science and half my English.
I figured it out once…between my two jobs and my school I was working full time and going to school full time.
I have no idea how I did it. If someone told me now I had to do it I’d shriek, but when you’re in the situation, you do what you have to do.
I went to school full time, played sports full time, took out gargantuan loans (along with Pell grants and a few small scholarships), and worked part to full time during the school year and summers. I did everything from janitorial and maintenance work to lifeguarding to delivering pizzas – which by the way was a fantastic job for a student, as long as you don’t mind working Friday and Saturday nights. I averaged about 5 hours of sleep a night for 4 years.
I can remember one summer when I interned during the day (for no money) and was a bouncer at a bar at night (for $5 an hour). At one point, I sat down and figured out that the only way I could afford all my bills (rent, water, electricity, etc.) was to forgo all social activities that cost money, and limit my spending on food to about 50 cents per meal. Using what can best be described as “hideously poor logic,” I decided that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were the cheapest meal that I could eat that would give me all the nutrients I needed to survive. So I ate PBJs every meal – breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks – for 6 weeks.
Wow, you guys really sucked it up and sacrificed. I went to an in-state school, lived at home, and worked as a waitress at a Bob’s Big Boy at night and on the weekends. I didn’t have any student loans, which I’m grateful for. I’m so glad my parents insisted I go to college right out of high school because I’d hate to go to school at night and work a full time job during the day.
I put myself through school – full time classes and full time job.
I was able to load all of my classes into 2 days a week (15+ class hours per quarter) and worked the other 5 days as a waiter/bartender in a local restaurant.
Once I got used to the schedule it wasn’t too bad. I would spread out my classes on school days so I would be on campus from 8 or 9 am until 10 or 11 that night. That gave me significant gaps between classes so I could do most of my studying while I was there.
Finally graduated after 13 straight quarters. It was nice walking out of school with no student loans to pay off.
I worked my way. No loans. I worked as a private investigator and occasionally sang in bars. Of course, this was back in the days when I had a voice instead of the frog-croaking I do now.
Mr Nvme did it- I admire him for it. And like many of you he was undecided and it took him about 8 years. He worked as a driver for Pizza Hut and Dominoes and earned a BS in MIS. And he liced on his own, with roommates and sometimes on his own.
Our kids will have to come up with some pretty amazing reasons as to why they can’t work and study at the same time.
I worked and paid my way. It took 4 1/2 years, plus 2 summer sessions. Jobs included sales in men’s clothing, life guarding, running smug pot lines, tune-up mechanic, and nursery man. I was married the last year and a half, and my wife worked also…so that was a big help
And I finished with no debt, which really gave us a better start than we would have had otherwise.
My sons both worked their entire 4 years at Stanford. They had huge scholarships, but Stanford had a policy that all students had to work if they got any money from the university, or from their parents, which they did. They would both say that having to work was a good thing.
Last I heard they were really needing part-timers.