OTHER WAYS TO PAY FOR COLLEGE

If your financial aid and scholarship grant are not sufficient to sustain your schooling, there are some other ways to pay for college.

Work Part-Time for Your School

Some colleges or universities enable their students to settle their bills in sweat equity by working part time for them. For instance, College of the Ozarks in Missouri requires all their students to render 15 hours a week during the school year in return for free tuition. Students in dire straits work twelve 40-hour weeks during the college’s summer program in exchange for free board and lodging for the following school year. Another example: Communication or marketing students can gain working experience in advertising or PR firms.

Outsource Debt

Thanks to crowdfunding sites! People from all corners of the globe can help with your tuition bills. Financially needy students can generate money to pay college expenses through crowdfunding websites, including AngelDorm and GoFundMe. Other sites like PigIt and ZeroBound require students to offer volunteer service or incentives in exchange. Setting up a crowdfunding profile is easy and can be set up at any time, but it takes a successful campaign strategy to make it achieve the funding goal.

Establish an Empire

Facebook founder and Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg did it. You can do it, too. Some of today’s successful websites such as Dell, Facebook, and WordPress began as dorm-based business. Being your own boss makes you work at your most convenient time, earn your own money (if the business becomes profitable), and find a job after graduation. However, Babson College lecturer Dr. Caroline Daniels pointed out that for a business to work out, one should come up with a feasible business opportunity and find a market for whatever he or she wants to do. She added a student should learn to manage his or her time well. A piece of advice though: Creating and managing a business is time-consuming, so it is important to exert extra time and effort to run it.

Work for Your Institution

Several institutions offer full-time employees free tuition as part of their benefits packages, and some employees can even extend those benefits to spouses and/or dependents. However, tuition remission benefits have limitations on the number of credits employees can take per semester or can cover a part of some courses of degree programs. Read the details about it carefully before availing the package.

Look for Scholarships Outside Chosen Path

In some cases, neither grades nor extra curricular activities at school can help gain additional income for your schooling. Although academic and athletic prizes dominate the scholarship spotlight, some grants are also given for exceptional talents. Students can start looking for speciality scholarship by visiting the college’s financial aid office for more details about awards offered through their institution.