This guest post from Crystal is part of the “reader stories” feature at Get Rich Slowly. Some stories contain general advice; others are examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success — or failure. These stories feature folks from all levels of financial maturity and with all sorts of incomes. Crystal writes about finding the balance between paying the bills, saving for the future, and budgeting for the fun stuff at the aptly-titled Budgeting in the Fun Stuff.
When people learn that I managed to avoid college loans, I’m often asked how that happened. It was a mixture of work, luck, and help.
Planning for College
For as long as I can remember, I knew I’d go to college. It was a given. I can’t remember my family overtly pushing me that way, but my grandparents and parents went to college, so I was going to go too.
My family is also open about money, so I always just seemed to know that college would be expensive. So, I started babysitting and pet-sitting when I was twelve years old so that I could save for those magical four years of college education.
I also planned to get a “real” job as soon as I turned sixteen. My plans changed, though, when we moved overseas. Because of my dad’s job, we lived in Holland for six months and Argentina for more than two years. I wasn’t old enough to get a work visa.
At that point, I assumed my parents would probably help pay for college. I also knew that I’d need to get a job as soon as we got back…but good plans sometimes just aren’t enough.
We moved back nine months before I was scheduled to start college, and I still had long-distance courses that I needed to finish before I could graduate from high school. I churned out those assignments, applied for scholarships like a crazy woman, and signed up for my first year. That is also when I applied for my first “real” job — as a help-desk attendant for the 24-hour assistance desk in my future dorm.
Putting the “Work” in Work-Study
Luckily, I received a few scholarships, including a very large Academic Achievement Award that covered a big part of my actual class expenses. But my parents covered my dorm room and food for that first year. I also worked at least 20 hours a week at the help desk and applied for other on-campus positions.
By my second year of college, I was engaged. (We met while I was working the help desk!) I was still trying to pay my own way through college, but I kept falling short about $1200 every semester. I was lived as cheaply as possible, splitting a room for $288 to save money, and even staying under $3 a day for food. But making $5.25 an hour just couldn’t cover everything my scholarships left behind.
I worked part-time in the Games Room on campus throughout my last three years in school. During my last year, I was a blackjack dealer for office parties (the legal kind of gambling in Texas, where the players could win raffle tickets for prizes). I also found a third job as a tax-office receptionist during my last semester. I took loans from my parents for whatever my scholarships and my paychecks couldn’t cover.
A Final Piece of Help
By the time I graduated from college (with honors), I was working Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at the tax office; Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 5pm-1am at the Games Room on campus; and I was a blackjack dealer Friday and Saturday nights.
In short, I working almost 60 hours a week in three different jobs, commuting to campus every Tuesday and Thursday for my last twelve hours of classes, and ended up owing my parents a little more than $8000.
The week after graduation, we had our fantastic $3000 wedding. I had to give up my two main jobs, so I took the first salaried position I was offered. I’m still there.
A few months after all of that, my parents forgave my $8000 in loans as a late graduation present. I was really broke, but at least I didn’t have any loans. As I said in the beginning, having no student loans was a mixture of work, luck — and help. (I know I’m lucky to have received the help from my parents.)
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First of all, let me commend you for all your hard work to get those scholarships and working those three jobs.
That being said, and I’m just curious, but do you feel that working all those different jobs resulted in you missing out on that “college” experience?
I’m not necessarily talking about getting drunk every night, but that sort of freedom that you only get during your years at college.
I’m not saying you should have taken out 100k in student loans or anything. I’m just wondering that, looking back on it, do you regret working SO many hours?
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Crystal, good for you!!! Great story. Best wishes to you in your future life. Kudos for “getting it” at the beginning—you will go far.
Josh, living the life of a rich trust fund kid for 4 years when you aren’t won’t get you anywhere but in debt. I’m not sure what you think she missed out on?
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It is so refreshing to hear someone who worked their way through college. I did the same for the first 2 years at a community college and then transferred to a big state school (couldn’t work since my commute was 4 hrs per day).
Nowadays I hear so many people say “Students shouldn’t work, they should concentrate on their studies.”
This just show that it CAN be done! Good for you.
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My husband and I avoided student loans through scholarships, work, and parental help. But we were in college in the 1980s when things were a lot cheaper. We were despairing being able to do the same for our sons, but it looks like it’s going to work out for our older son who starts college this fall. He’s been awarded academic scholarships to cover most of the tuition to an excellent private college nearby, so he can live at home to save on housing costs. A work-study job will cover the remainder of his expenses, so we won’t have to use any of the money we’ve saved for him for college. He can use that money later for graduate school or a large down-payment on a house.
Now if only his younger brother will do the same!
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Karen,
Nowhere did I say she should “be a trust fund kid”…
I wasn’t saying she shouldn’t work through college…but I do believe that there is some sort of “life experience” that you get in college that is very difficult to replicate once you’re out of that environment.
Again, I’m not advocating taking out money to cover every single expense of college, just enough to maybe lighten the workload so she didn’t have to work 60 hours PLUS school.
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Every choice you make costs you something. I, too, paid my own way throughout college and graduate school. Luckily, I “only” had to work 30 hours a week to do it, and I quickly figured out that working for a temp agency paid more than typing for a professor. What I gained in self reliance and problem solving ability did cost me something, however.
There was no time for extra-curricular stuff that might have forged future connections in the field, no time for late nite yak sessions with people that might have become colleagues, no time to take the low paying job with a prof who might have become a mentor, and no time to really THINK–too busy rushing to the next thing. My last term of grad school I landed enough scholarships/aid not to have to work–it was academic heaven.
I’m not against some work–tends to focus you on time management skills. But too many hours really do cost you something. The immersion in intellectual stimulation in a peer community that is (should be) focused on learning is not easily replicated once you get out of college. It’s an opportunity that won’t come again.
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Kudos to you!
Not everybody can work three jobs in college and still graduate with honors. As a professor who sees the results, I would definitely *not* recommend that strategy to the average college student– many of them would be much better off in the long-term taking on more loans and failing fewer classes. Most kids can handle 10 hours/week of work without hurting their schoolwork, very few can handle more than 20.
Just as a warning to parents thinking that if Crystal can do it, then so can any kid. Crystal is smarter than the average bear. Most kids trying to work 60hrs/week on top of school will take longer to graduate (try 7 years!) *if* they get through at all. A transcript of 2 years of C-Fs and no degree doesn’t help much of anything, even if there’s little debt attached. Especially if they jump from a lucrative but difficult major (engineering) on down to the gut major of the school (communications, political science, liberal arts etc.).
Much better to graduate in 4 years with some debt and live on rice and beans once they’re making a real salary instead of minimum wage. Obviously there’s balance. I like Liz Pulliam Weston’s heuristic to only take out the amount of loans that is the equivalent to one year of the average first year salary for your major in your school.
(Also: I totally overextended myself working first semester in college– got straight Bs. If I had kept that up I would not have been able to get into the graduate program I got into and would not have been guaranteed a job after graduation and might not be making the big bucks now… though who knows, maybe if I hadn’t gotten a PhD I’d be making more, but in a different job. That semester still kept me from getting Phi Beta Kappa.)
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Congratulations to Crystal! You remind us that it CAN be done. Even if you had had to pay back that $8K to your parents, that’s a comparatively small debt compared to the huge sums most students leave college with these days.
Better off missing a little bit of that classic (and probably overrated) “college experience” and having the financial security later to enjoy your life unencumbered by massive debt.
I’m a college professor, so I have a front row seat for observing this. Many undergrads are unwilling to rough it even a little bit during college. Some live very, very well on borrowed money: they travel extensively, have nice cars, up-to-the-minute gadgets, etc., and a lot of them also emerge from college with tens of thousands of dollars in loans. My university caters to this luxury mentality by constantly upgrading campus facilities, at great cost to the student, who must make up the difference in increased tuition and fees. Most students would be better off living a little less well while in school so that they could live better later. I think the loan industry capitalizes off of young people’s inexperience and fear of reduced standards of living by encouraging loans well beyond what a student should really take out. Parents are often a terrible influence, too, in that they’re sometimes unwilling to let their babies toughen up about money while in college, which only delays the inevitable day of reckoning until later.
College is supposed to be a temporary experience and a transition into the working world. The dormitories were never supposed to be luxury apartments, but rather temporary housing that met your basic needs before you graduated and moved on. My college dorm was uglier than sin, but it was sufficient, and I’m not still paying for it today.
OK, enough of my rant! I’m impressed by Crystal’s experience and tenacity. It will serve you well in life.
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If I had to do it over, I’d get a part time job and work 30 hours or so a week to cover school expenses.
It would involve me not being a part of music ensembles, but that’s the sacrifice I’d have to make not to have debt when I graduated.
Glad to read about your success in avoiding old Sallie Mae!!
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The poster had $8K of loans from her parents, which was eventually forgiven. It’s misleading to say she went through college without borrowing (she had student loans from her parents). As the parent of one done with college, one still in college, I wouldn’t want either one to have to work 60 hrs a week to get through school (for either of their baccalaureate programs, it would be mathematically impossible, in fact). Also working so many hours precludes being involved in valuable extra-curricular activities, which helps when applying to grad school or for jobs after college.
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As someone who worked through college and grad school and who had life experiences in both I have to say that Crystal did a good thing by leaving school without debt. That’s a great bit of peace of mind to enter the work force with. I do, however, also advocate Josh’s point. College, esp. larger colleges and sometimes being in a larger city, offers a lot of things other than parties. From networking socials that will pay dividends when you’re looking for work. To doing things like different sports or cultural activities that would be next to impossible to do once you’re graduated. I do some work with a martial arts club at the university I work at and their club dues are about $10 a month versus the $100 a month they would have to pay going to a regular martial arts studio. Students also benefit from rush tickets to the symphony at some places and have deep discounts or get in for free at many major museums. This is as much a part of the college experience as coursework. Again, I think it’s a very good thing to work through school. I did it, my wife did it, and most of my friends did as well. I think Crystal did the right thing–and she may well have done these things too, which would make her even more remarkable. If anything, if it sounds like I’m advocating burning the candle on both sides and up the middle in college, I am. College often offers the most access to everything our country has to offer at discount prices and I think taking advantage of it is important.
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@Josh, yes, I do feel like I missed out on alot in those last 3 years. My freshman year was pretty normal. I wasn’t a drinker, but I did hang out late with friends, watch movie marathons in dorm rooms, and enjoyed a few Dungeon and Dragons campaigns. I didn’t know who Monty Python was until my senior year of high school, so I caught up, lol.
I couldn’t get FAFSA help since I wasn’t on my own long enough for their rules and I never even really thought about personal loans being a viable option. Looking back, not having tens of thousands in debt allowed my husband and me to buy our house 2 years after graduating with 20% down and still have an emergency fund. So I wouldn’t change a thing. But yes, I do slightly regret having to work so much to accomplish that.
Thanks for your kudos!
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@Karen, thank you! I was lucky to have parents who taught me about debt and staying out of it as much as possible early on.
As far as missing out on some stuff, I did but it was a good trade-off overall for me.
@twiggers, yes, it can be done. I think working so much actually pushed me to study on a schedule as well…I felt like I was doing better (and was making 4.0′s) while I was working 35-60 hour weeks.
@Marsha, good luck with your youngest!
@Danielle, you’re right, it does cost something. But I am sort of getting to reclaim my youth with young-at-heart 40 year old friends and through blogging. Now, in my own house that is 6 years from being paid off, I have movie marathons on Saturday nights, potlucks, and late night yak sessions with my very awesome friends. It did take me 3 years to build up these relationships, but it is possible even if I did have to take a 3 year break from socializing much in school.
@Nicole, you may be right. I have no idea if working kept my Cum Laude from being a Magna or Suma Cum Laude or not. But I will fully admit that I am smart, but I am not a genius or anything like that.
I think what I did could work out for a ton of students IF they had the same circumstances as me – a business degree did require less study time than engineering for instance AND all of my part-time jobs were enjoyable to me so they didn’t feel like work all of the time.
So no, I wouldn’t suggest all students trying to get as many jobs as possible, but a single 20-hour-a-week job during college may keep a student on track – it definitely kept me to a study schedule that I followed much more closely than I did my freshman year.
@Michael, thank you! It did serve me well and I appreciate the support. I feel a little bad for the people who take on a bunch of consumer debt in college because those are the people who are going to have it tough when they can no longer get help from parents or easy loans. It’s a trade-off no matter what way you go.
@Tim, thanks! Try having zero regrets – sure, less loans would have been nice, but we all ended up where we are because of past decisions and you seem to be a pretty blessed guy based on what I read during our blog swap last week!
@BB, yep, I definitely “avoided student loans” but I didn’t avoid all debt…my parents were just kind enough to write it off…
@Daryl, I envy the people who can balance it all in college – no debt, “the college experience”, and great grades. I met a few people who pulled it off and they did seem truly happy. But we all just do what we can with what we have to start with, right?
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> How I Avoided Student Loans
> I took loans from my parents
There is a little cognitive dissonance here …
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Interesting story, Crystal.
I can’t imagine working 60 hours/week while doing an engineering degree. On the other hand, I remember a lot of wasted time when I was at school.
I love the saying “If you want something done, give it to a busy person”. Maybe a part-time job would force students to be more organized?
I find this to be true for my business – when I don’t have much time, I tend to get things done efficiently. If I have a whole day to “work” – I don’t get much more done.
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@Josh I worked 40+ hours each week through college. At the time, I went to school with a number of kids whose parents felt that working a job would distract them from their schoolwork. I also went to school with a number of trust fund kids who simply didn’t have to work.
During my four years of college, despite working overnight shifts and every spare hour I could fit around my classes, I still found time to socialize and goof off like my fellow classmates. Did I have as much time available for working on my assignments? No. But I actually found that I often produced more work in a given week than my fellow classmates. While it seems counterproductive, severe limitations often sharpen creativity and output. If you have all the time, money, and resources at your fingertips, it’s hard to decide where to begin. But if you’re told you have two hours and limited supplies, it focuses you very quickly towards the options of what can be done, so you start producing work sooner.
In addition, while I held down a few different jobs during that period, my various bosses and coworkers recognized that I was clearly a dedicated hard worker. This developed a network of people willing to go to bat for me. When my fellow classmates and I graduated into an extremely tight job market (in my field, it was worse then than it is now), my previous employers introduced me to a number of people who helped me out, both with finding work to tide me over and with ultimately finding work in my field. While the trust fund kids were fine no matter what, since they generally had housing and allowances to tide them over, many of my classmates struggled to pay their bills for years after college, since they were dropped into a tough marketplace with few contacts outside of school.
In my opinion, while there were times that I resented having to get up and run to work while my friends were able to do what they pleased, ultimately the jobs I held during school helped me out dramatically when it came time to branch out on my own.
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Great job Crystal! It is obvious you can do anything you set your mind to given the success of your writing too!
I paid for every dime of my undergrad and graduate school. I worked like crazy (not 60 hours though) while going to school full time. During Christmas and Easter breaks, I worked 14 hours a day to make money for the next semester. I did not feel like I missed out on anything. (Others went on spring break trips that I obviously could not go on.) Referring to Josh’s comment, I didn’t feel like I missed out on anything. You do what you gotta do to attain your goals. If we all sat around thinking about the things we ‘missed’, everyone would be depressed!
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Lucky that I live in Slovakia (Central Europe, borders by Czech Republic) where universities are free of charge and parents paying for my food and rent is considered an ordinary standard and not something exceptional…
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Great story. Nice to learn where your tenacity comes from. How did studying abroad affect you? That must have been challenging as well.
Missing out of the college experience, perhaps, but you avoided some situations as well. My first year at the dorms, did everything BUT study, almost flunked out! Had some sense, pulled myself out, and put studying first. So depends on how you look at it, glass half full or half empty?
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Congrats
That’s an awesome feeling, to have no student loan debt. I wish I could say the same.
But that said, I know I couldn’t have pulled off that amount of work in addition to my classes and extracurriculars. As it was I worked about 15-20 hours per week in engineering internships or waiting tables, and still managed to get on academic probation one semester. I turned it around by the end, making the dean’s list, but the amount of time studying outside of class that I had to do for 5 classes increased dramatically (from 10 hrs/wk to roughly 30, not even counting the 20 hrs/wk I already spent in class).
Not everyone can work that much in school – 6 days/60 hours a week while also attending classes, doing homework and projects, and meeting with professors – thats just crazy! Kudos if you can pull it off, I’m just doubtful that it applies to most student situations. Besides, if I had spent all my time working I would never have met and married my husband!
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Great story Crystal and congratulations on avoiding student loans. I worked my way through college too, although I didn’t work as many hours as you did. I was fortunate that my parents let me live at home and I commuted to the local university which also saved a ton of money. Was it easy? No. Was it worth it? Definitely yes.
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One of the biggest regrets of my life is taking out student loans instead of working my way through college and grad school. I had a toddler and a long commute to school, so at the time it made sense. Now, though, five years out of school and staring down $40k in student loan debt, I could kick myself. I’m starting a second job next month in hopes of paying off the student loans before I’m 35. Congrats to you, Crystal, for making incredibly smart choices!
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I also worked my way through college (full-time, minimum wage) and also feel like I missed out. I lived off campus because it was cheaper (though this was the 80s, I was at a Seven Sisters school). So, no late night talks, no extracurriculars, and studying time was crammed in on work breaks and meals at home.
But I got to go to that college, and I loved, and made the most of, my classroom experience. I’ll never regret it.
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First – congrats!
Second, as someone who did the work and go to school nights program, I’d like to offer some further options.
If your family is willing, do an at-home “gap year,” working on earning and saving as much money as possible to build up a cushion for your college years. If you want to keep your toes in academically, online classes are a good choice. Harvard has a continuing education program which offers online for-credit classes at about the same per-credit cost as in-state tuition most places. And they are very transferable (especially if you hunt down the ones that are the same class the Harvard undergrads are taking).
There is a tradeoff between low-wage jobs where you are basically hanging out or able to study and higher wage jobs which need your attention. I got a clerical job where they supported my studying (boss was cool with taking vacation days for exams or paper writing) and I even got some tuition reimbursement. It was a position which had had a lot of turnover and I committed to stay for three years until a big project of theirs was done. I would try to get at least one part-time job with a non-minimum wage salary. Saying that you want something lasting four years should help.
Also, I would recommend Cal Newport’s Study Hacks blog/books. He wasn’t around when I was in school, wish he had been. He has very good tips and strategies for getting your studying done in small, focused chunks of time. He does it to be able to do outside projects like blogging and writing books, but the same principles apply to any job where you are mixing short and long / personal and external goals and tasks.
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The fundamental concept of Crystal’s story — that it’s better to do anything you have to do to finish college without any loans in spite of whatever you may have to sacrifice — seems a bit wacky to me. I recognize that this blog is about money (and I love your blog, JD), but some experiences are very valuable and irreplaceable. You can’t really do college twice. If you don’t do study abroad while in college, you’ve missed out (and I’m one who missed out and very much regret it).
I would be interested to hear about how having student loan debt has taught people to be more strenuous in their financial management. It is certainly the case for me, and I am proud of my debt because it represents a financial sacrifice in the interests of educating myself, improving my intellect and exposure, and making myself more marketable.
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What was your major? I would not have been able to work 60 hours a week AND do well in school as my engineering classes each had about and hour or more of homework on top of classes, some of which were 5 days a week. I worked 15-20 hours a week and went to summer school. I had a scholarship and some assistance from my father and did graduate debt-free. I usually took between 18-21 credit hours a semester – engineering is truly more of a five year program – I finished in 4.5 years…..26 years ago.
Even then, I spent every extra hour focused on my homework – time between classes was spent doing homework. Not much socializing as compared to peers in other degree programs. I took summer classes every summer.
For graduate school, I worked during the day and had classes at night. My graduate program paid for my schooling plus gave me a stipend, however, I had to tailor my thesis to something of use to the people paying my way. Graduate school was actually a bit more easy for me as I was intensely interested in my program and had worked for about 4 years before attending, so knew about 60-80 hours work-weeks doing stuff for someone else. I loved graduate school.
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I agree w/ Nicole that most students who work too much in college tend to fail or perform at mediocre levels. There are some outliers out there who are capable of feats of superhuman strength, but usually those with too many responsibilities tend to suffer academically.
20 hours of work a week seems to be a good maximum (it is the legal limit for international students), and if it’s on campus it’s even better, and if you can study while warming up a chair at work it’s even better (I used to be a building supervisor late at night– I just sat at the front desk reading, waiting for trouble to happen, until it was time to shut the doors).
I can see someone burning the candle at both ends in the last semester with one foot out of the door already, but it’s not a sustainable scenario for longer than that.
This is of course a completely different setup than college studies geared towards working professionals. Those assume you already have those responsibilities (and more) and make a point of accommodating a busy life. Which is I think the more viable model for a lot of people. Might take longer, but you can pay as you go.
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I think the easiest way to avoid loans is to prepare for standardized tests in early high school. I got a full-ride (tuition, room and board, and a book stipend) at an in-state (public) university largely for being a National Merit Finalist. By taking the time to work through practice tests and preparation books (a couple of months of serious effort, or a year of occasional effort), it’s possible to go from 70th-80th percentile scores to 98th-99th percentile scores. Obviously, this strategy is unlikely to work for someone starting out with below-average test scores, but it’s a relatively low-effort way for above average test-takers to gain scholarship money enough that they don’t have to take out massive loans or do part-time work during college (though I decided to work part-time anyway to save up for a car).
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no parental help/support here in any sense of the word. but after all the hours (3-4 jobs at at time) and the semester course overloads to save money (i finished in 3 years), i finished my bachelor’s degree with only $5000 in student loans. i absolutely wouldn’t recommend that kind of life to anyone though. if i were someone that had to work really hard for the grades, i would not have done well.
the long hours and self-denial were good preparation for graduate school, i guess.
end result though? with my education, i make roughly 6x the hourly rate i did as a student. i paid off those student loans quickly and relatively painlessly. the me of today would gladly give the student version of me another couple thousand bucks if it meant the student could take a couple days off here and there.
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I am curious as to when Crystal graduated and how much her total bill for tuition was at the time. There are a lot of commenters saying, “This just goes to show that anyone can avoid student loans if they eat rice and beans all the time,” but the cost of tuition has inflated crazily in the past few decades. While it may be a realistic plan for people attending a state school, for a private institution (or even if you want to go to a state school in a state where you’re not a resident) it’s simply too. damn. expensive to avoid taking on at least a few loans.
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JD – can you remind me how we go about submitting reader stories to you?
J.D.’s note: Here are the GRS submission guidelines. We’re thinking of adding an actual submission page, too.
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I also graduated with no student loans AND had no parental support. I had scholarships, grants, work study jobs and off-campus jobs but never worked more than 20 hours a week. I graduated with honors but also had the dorm experience, fun activities, many professor mentors and made lifelong friends. I went to a University of California campus over 25 years ago when tuition was extremely reasonable for in-state students. It wasn’t that unusual for people to pay for school and their room and board without getting student loans. I cringe when I see how the cost of a college education has massively outstripped inflation.
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Nicely done! I wish I had been able to do the same. Still paying off my old student loans. Impressive awareness at that age of what those loans could cost you. I didn’t even think about it. It was just a fact that I accepted “everyone has student loans”, its no big deal. If I had just worked through school and put the money back into my education, I could have graduated with much less in student loans.
Pat
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@28 Ashley–
High SAT scores is a big part of the reason my son is getting a scholarship that will cover most of his tuition at a private college. He had pretty good scores on the practice tests, but a few weeks of intensive study brought the scores up 20 percentile points. The extra work is paying off at over $1000 per hour.
You’re right, though, that this works only for someone with above-average scores to begin with.
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I think this is a grand exception, and certainly not anything that MOST people should expect–or even strive for. I missed out on a LOT of the college experience (and no I’m not talking about partying and drinking all the time), and I’m still suffering for it. I have one friend from school, no friends from any of my lackluster jobs, no extra curricular activities on my resume (which has certainly impacted my job prospects in a negative way), and health problems that could have been avoided if I had taken the time to get on an exercise routine while the gym was still covered by my tuition. I also missed out on a lot of scholarships because my grades weren’t good enough (B average) and–again–no references or extra curricular activities.
And no, I’m sorry, loans that you get because you are a student are “student loans,” it doesn’t matter who loans the money–parents, family, or bank. I really dislike how misleading the title is. I expect better from this blog.
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@Brigitte. I don’t know how old you are but there’s still time to get healthy. Lots of people did not work out during college but do so later. As for extracurriculars, it loses value as you work longer AND you can still volunteer and join groups when you’re out of college. Frankly, in my job search, it was my part-time job that helped me land my first job not college extracurricular activities!
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That is just fantastic! Congratulations, Crystal! America would be so much better off if more youth had your work ethic rather than the amount of entitlement that I see in our culture. I’m so impressed with you!
I worked all through college (though only about 20 hrs per week), still had an awesome college experience, and it probably helped me do better in school and after school. Work teaches valuable lessons and helps students structure their time and stay out of trouble. It also helps immensely on the job market. Graduating with a list of jobs on one’s resume, as well as workplace SKILLS, gives someone a major head start on someone who just has a degree and a blank resume.
I love this post. I get so tired of the endless list of excuses so many people give as to why they can’t work more, can’t work while in school, have to take out debt, etc. What a great model this woman is!
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@Brigitte: Your post is full of excuses that make little sense. You don’t have health problems because you missed out on using a gym while it was free in college. Endless forms of exercise can be done without a free gym – try free running, walking, exercise DVDs from a library or garage sale, free yoga in your living room, jumping rope on the sidewalk, etc. A lack of extracurricular activities on your resume are not keeping you from getting a job! The JOBS that are presumably on your resume from working during college should be much more impressive to employers than random student clubs or other non-work activities. And I’m guessing that there are other reasons related to your personality for why you only have 1 friend from college and no friends from your jobs. Many people make friends at their jobs. And many people who work during college still make plenty of friends. Your personality seems bitter, and if you stop making excuses for your failures, I’m guessing you’ll have more success in life.
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I also worked 30+ hours per week throughout college and graduated with honors. I agree with Nicole though that not everyone can do that.
To answer Josh’s question, I definitely feel like I missed out on “the college experience” but the truth is you can’t have every experience in life, and that was one I knew I couldn’t afford. I was the first person in my family to graduate from college and I never thought it would be a party.
Like the writer, I worked to pay all my own expenses and had some scholarships, but my parents paid the rest of my tuition – about $10000 total over 4 years.
I took loans for grad school and I feel fine about it. I think there’s a big difference between taking loans for tuition and taking loans for housing etc. I would recommend to anyone that they at least work enough to avoid borrowing to pay for living expenses, and if working would have a negative affect on grades, just work full time in the summer and live cheaply all year.
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@Mike, exactly – I accomplish more when I’m busy than when I have a ton of free time.
@Everyday Tips, you had way more interesting jobs too! Don’t you have a post about working at a candy factory?
@Valerian, wow, that is pretty cool.
@Buck, long-distance courses taught me to budget my time. How do you think I balance all my sites and my job now, lol.
Plus, optimism helps. I may not have had a really big social life, but I did maintain an some great friendships and was able to hold on to a great guy. 
@Jen, lol, if I hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t have met my husband. Life is just funny.
@Dana, my parents offered to let me stay at home too, but we lived about 75 minutes away from my college one-way, so I opted to work my way through as much as I could.
@Andrea, thank you. I’m in awe of anybody who makes it through college or any other big goal with a child. A good kid is a HUGE success so CONGRATS! Good luck with those loans.
@Annemarie, I lived off campus those last 3 years too. I just made sure to fit in as much time with friends as possible.
@Mary, good alternate choices!
@A Knight, this was just literally my story. It isn’t what I think is best, just what happened. Being proud of debt seems odd to me, but if you think that the debt pushed you, then congrats!
@Deserat, oh yeah, I couldn’t have done this if I was an engineering grad. I got a BBA and did not go to grad school. My husband just worked his way through grad school while balancing teaching 8th grade science and it was just painful to watch – I tried to support him as much as possible but it was even harder than what I did.
@El Nerdo, yeah, I didn’t see many other kids doing what I was…I’m an outlier for sure…
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@Margot–when I have had multiple interviewers looking over my resume or application say “No extra-curricular in school?” and then pretty well dismiss me when I said “No, I was working at *insert career-related job here* doing *career-related skills/activities*,” yeah I’m going to say that part of my frustrating job search is lack of those entries on my resume. Even now as a manager who interviews people, I want to know what they did with their time. I’ll accept working as an answer though, unlike many managers I’ve come across. I had one guy tell me that not taking advantage of the free and cheaper opportunities for socialization/life lessons granted to students makes someone too stupid to work for him. And frankly it was difficult to argue when I agree with him on some level.
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@leigh, if you ever do find a way to go back in time to your younger years, let me know. I’ll drop off real food to college Crystal…
@Christina, I went to an in-state public university from 2001-2005. The total cost of tuition and fees was approximately $30,000 and room and food was at least another $40,000-$50,000 for one year at a dorm and 3 years off campus.
My younger sister is now attending University of Texas and it is about $45,000 for tuition and $50,000-$60,000 over 4 years for room and food off campus. She’s covering it with scholarships, summer internships, and a little help from Mom and Dad too.
@Nancy, congrats on getting a great education at a reasonable price!
@Pat S, I just didn’t think of the possibility of a bunch of loans. I think it was more luck and stubborness on my part than intelligence, lol.
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I’m surprised the title is offending anybody. I thought JD did pretty well. I tried to make it very clear that I indeed got through by working, getting scholarships, AND getting $8000 of help from my parents. It wasn’t supposed to be misleading.
@margot, wow, thank you! I think a 20 hour a week part-time job really is a good idea for a lot of kids.
I definitely would not suggest 60 hours to most students though since it was really hard and I was really lucky to be able to make good grades with a couple of hours studying instead of 4-5 hours per class.
@sarah, it sounds like you had a plan and went for it, congrats!
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I, too, managed to get through undergrad with no loans as well as minimal parental support. I did it through a combination of scholarships and working, but would I do it again? Probably not. I’m well aware there were a lot of things I missed out on, not the least of which is being somewhat carefree for awhile, not rushing through just to get a job.
Also, I find the parental support angle of this very interesting. Few people have actually no support from their parents, assuming they go home at breaks, etc. If parents have the means and the child is a motivated student, I think they should be willing to help without the facade of “paying back the loan”.
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Good job Crystal! I did think the title was a little misleading-I have no debt from my undergrad, and will be debt free when I finish with my masters in 2012. That’s not because THE DEGREE was debt free though…my parents took the final $16,000 in debt (the first two years paid for by scholarships). They took the loans because they knew I was going to pursue my masters, and would presumably have to pay for it. Luckily, I got an assistantship, providing full tuition and a (very) small stipend. And it’s a good thing too-my husband has $21,000 in student loan debt from his 4 years (where he earned 2 degrees and worked about 20 hours a week).
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@Karina, JD explained his title reasoning in the earlier comments. I’m glad you were able to get through debt free yourself as well! Give your parents tons of hugs, lol. I do.
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I got through four years with no debt at all. My “luck” was not through parental loans but through grants and scholarships. I qualified for nearly a “full ride” because my family was impoverished, my mother on AFDC and my father deceased. Hardly the “easy” way to get through college! HA! I’d much rather had a financially stable home. I worked 20-25 hours per week, 40-50 in the summer and lived on the cheap to make it happen.
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I know that this story is supposed to help people think about their lives and potentially how to avoid student loans. But as someone who has student loans, this whole story just made me feel bitter. Despite everything Crystal did (and it’s clear it took a LOT of hard work, I don’t mean this to diminish her success), I don’t think that her story means that avoiding student loans is achievable for everyone. For many people in college, working 60 hours a week would be almost impossible. (Forget about finding a room to split with another person for $288!) The system is just bad. I would like to see more posts on unique or new ways of tackling student debt, not ones that remind me that I have it.
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@Sarah #46, I know exactly what you mean. In my situation, I worked part-time while in school and that totally screw me academically. Having a learning disability, health issues, rocky home life, and a very poor academic foundation, I had no business working while in school.
Now that I’m in my mid 30′s, I’m almost determined to do the impossible. It would be nice to have articles highlighting people who do/did go to college as ADULTS with challenges such as disabilities, no financial cushion (parents) and/or who is not as sharp as Crystal and have to struggle.
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Good job Crystal.
I worked part time through college, got scholarships, help from parents and some loans. Personally I don’t think theres any problems with taking on *some* loans. I think I had about $5-6k total in loans when I graduated. Course college was cheaper then too. I worked at most 30-35 hours one quarter. That was doable but only barely. Theres NO way I could have done full time engineering / comp. sci. courses at my schools and worked 60 hours and gotten decent grades. That is unless the job in question was a ‘non job’ where you sit at a desk (reception, security, etc) and study and they pay you. I have had those at college once or twice and those are pretty good gigs if you can get them.
I do have one point I’m curious about:
Could your parents have helped more? Or did you want to do it on your own as much as possible without their aide if you could help it?
Crystal said: “I couldn’t get FAFSA help since I wasn’t on my own long enough for their rules and I never even really thought about personal loans being a viable option”
Financial aid is primarily about the parents finances. Did you actually fill out the FAFSA? Or were your parents income/assets too high to get need based aid?
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Crystal did really well. I don’t think I would have done what her parents did with the loans, because she was working really, really hard, unless the parents had a sudden windfall. I guess I don’t like the idea of borrowing from parents, although it might be a bit better if the parents announced in advance that they would forgive $2,000 a year for each academically successful year.
“I had one guy tell me that not taking advantage of the free and cheaper opportunities for socialization/life lessons granted to students makes someone too stupid to work for him.”
Brigitte, as Bugs Bunny says, what a maroon. That was a really lucky escape for you not to work with him! That was not the path that I took, but you have to be pretty dumb not to understand what kind of focus, discipline, and organizational ability it takes to both study and work big hours at the same time.
I went to USC (AKA University of Spoiled Children) in the 1990s when it was $25k a year tuition, room and board. The first three years, I had full support between academic scholarships and need-based, but by the last year, my parents were doing much better financially, so we had a whopping bill the last year (probably something like $19k).
As a freshman, I tried to work 10 hours a week at the library, but I was in a super intensive honors program (nicknamed “the traumatic option”) with hundreds of pages of hard reading and a paper a week, I was 16 years old, and I was not a model employee (when I had paper deadlines, I tended to call in and skip work). I eventually quit the library job. Although I didn’t work during the academic year, I was carrying two majors (Russian and print journalism), I had a wholesome, inexpensive and rewarding social life, I did a semester abroad in St. Petersburg, Russia, I did my required volunteering for the Peace Corps, I took full advantage of the wonderful resources of the university library, and I had a GPA of at least 3.8 (can’t remember exactly). That said, during the summer, I worked very hard in my parents’ business which was just getting off the ground. For my level of organizational skills, it was easiest to do one thing at a time–either work or study. Looking back, it might have been better to be able to do unpaid internships in journalism, but the way the industry has gone, there probably wasn’t much point. I got out with $6k in student loans. I didn’t pay those off until a few years back, which isn’t wonderful, but it didn’t wreck my life. On the other hand, after my two years in the Peace Corps, I had a free ride to graduate school, so there were no additional student loans. I didn’t do a PhD, but no loans, no regrets.
I’m a SAHM these days, but my husband works on campus and we live near campus, too, so I’ve seen a lot of current student life. I went to a fancy pants school myself, but things are totally different than they were 15 years ago. While tuition is much more expensive, it’s also true that a lot of students live at a level that would have boggled my mind, either as an undergraduate or a graduate student. At move-in time, there are lots of moving trucks on campus, rather than the suitcase and a few boxes in the mail of my day. Locally, there are really posh new student rentals (as well as a lot of expensive dumps). Also, I keep hearing about people who live on student loans, which is a really horrible idea. At most, student loans should cover tuition. You should be able to pay for basic living expenses out of wages.
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