Beating the College Debt Trap: Getting a Degree without Going Broke
Alex Chediak
Language: English
Pages: 224
ISBN: 0310337429
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Beating the College Debt Trap presents students with a better way to do college. The radically counter-cultural truth is that students don't have to be totally dependent on Mom, Dad, or Uncle Sam to get the most out of college. Graduation on a solid financial foundation is possible. But it will require intentionality, creativity, hard work, and a willingness to delay gratification.
Chediak gets into the nitty-gritty of how to pay less for college, get meaningful work during college (while setting yourself up for success after college), pay off any loans quickly, spend less, save more, and stay out of debt for good. He also unpacks how to transition from college into career, honor God while achieving financial independence, and use your finances to make a positive, eternally-significant difference in the lives of others.
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and so on. Why don’t we have enough skilled trade workers? Here’s how Manpower put it in their 2012 Talent Shortage Survey report: “As educational systems around the world have focused on four-year university education, this has resulted in the decline of vocational/ technical programs — both curricula and enrollments have eroded over the past several decades. In addition, with fewer new workers to offset current retirements in the skilled trades, many economies will face continued shortages in
football stadium, fitness center, and so forth). Go on a campus tour and see how the tour guide “sells” the college. You can get a rough idea of what a school values by how it presents itself, by how it seeks to attract prospective students. A final way is to query the students themselves to see what they value. You’re only getting a snapshot, so take it with a grain of salt, but ask them about their study habits, what their professors are like, and what support systems are in place to help
renting. In my experience, reselling only gets you a small fraction of what you paid. And you will lose money if you end up needing to repurchase the book. So I suggest holding on to well-written, required texts for key courses in your major, if at all possible. Another benefit of keeping books is that you can mark them up as much as you want. Your markings will save you time if you refer to the books in future courses. A money-saving trick is to buy version 6 of a textbook for which your
strain in the relationship.1 That’s because the natural order is being perturbed. You’ve grown up, maybe left for a few years, are treated like an adult elsewhere in society, and yet live daily with echoes of your childhood. Your parents want to treat you like a full-fledged adult, but it can be easier said than done. Your interaction patterns have to overcome habits ingrained over eighteen to twenty-two years. Over time, you may get a gnawing sense that living with your parents is holding you
first-year students who drop out do so because of alcohol-related problems.” 7. Lloyd D. Johnston et al, “Monitoring the Future National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975 – 2012, vol. 2: College Students and Adults Ages 19 – 50,” Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 2013. 8. Not including the Federal PLUS loan program, an option for your parents. 9. Zac Bissonnette, Debt-Free U (New York: Penguin, 2010), 243. 10. Perhaps far more than 10 percent, depending on how God
