I know there are a lot of scholarships out there but can some people name ways to pay for tuition because I don’t want to wait until age 60 to pay off all my student loans.
mega tl;dr choose an affordable school
“affordable” defined by me as: “being able to pay through a combination of school grants, scholarships, federal direct loans, and whatever your family can afford”
You go to a school that is affordable meaning you do not take out any loans or your look for schools that offer good financial aid either need-based or merit based. How much can you and your parents afford to pay for college each year?
I mean, the federal direct loans are not a bad deal. But the limit is around ~27k for a reason: because taking more can and does often land you in hot water, really fast.
So I advise students to stick to the federal direct ceiling as a hard maximum for their loan-taking.
If you’re a US citizen, you can only borrow ~$5500/year, so you won’t be paying off loans until you’re 60. Most students do some combination of the following: the parents pay, they get merit awards directly from the school for their test scores and GPA, they get need based aid from the school due to their family income, they take the ~$5500/year federal student loan, and/or they work to help pay the costs.
Have you applied to any colleges yet? How much can your parents pay per year?
@LKnopeforanime Have you applied to colleges yet or are you at the research stage? If it’s the research stage, some things to consider are whether you may be a National Merit Finalist (some colleges give scholarships to semi-finalists also.) Have you/ will you take AP tests? Some colleges will give you credit for certain AP test scores and some colleges will not give credit but consider it for advancement purposes. Depending on which AP tests you take and your major, if you consider schools that accept AP credit, it can be quite the savings.
The best scholarships come from the colleges to,which you are admitted. (Unless younare one of the small number who get one of the big national,scholarships).
So…apply to,colleges where you can get scholarships.
Also, apply to colleges where you can afford to pay the costs to attend.