I made financial mistakes. Cringe worthy financial mistakes. Admittedly voluntary because I had no financial intelligence. Being a money moron started when I was considering college. In my previous post about the top 5 financial things to consider when applying to college, I did not fully provide my point of view. I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason.
HERE ARE 3 THINGS I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY WHEN CONSIDERING COLLEGE. The honest truth.
- Be open minded about in state colleges, out of state colleges, and community/junior colleges.
I felt like I needed to branch out, get away from the bubble of my area. That is where out of state university came in.
Community college was an automatic no go. I felt going to a community college was beneath me.
Looking back I would have saved a boatload of money to take core classes at my local junior college, stay at home to save money, and reset my eyes on transferring to a 4 year university perhaps after a year or two. I paid dearly for the student loans mostly because of more money moron moments that I put myself in after graduating college.
2. Apply for scholarships (not paid scholarships) like it was a full time job
I can say with absolute confidence that I would have quit my part time job to apply for scholarships while still attending high school. Even those $200 max scholarships. Every little bit counts to reduce the student loans.
3. Take side hustling seriously or work part time to reduce student loan debt
Now I honestly cannot decide if I would have worked part time while going to school. I am not sure I could have handled the work load and school work. Nowadays there are an incredible amount of side gigs to take on such as reselling on ebay or finding gigs on Fiverr.com.
Another option of course is working a part time job. I can only share experiences from others that working part time while going to school is tough. You will really need to know how to manage your job and course work load. Personally I do not think I would have been able to handle that.
For you college graduates, would what you would do differently financially to help out future college grads?
