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DailyDirt: Tuition Debt Is For Chumps?
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Crowds of students are graduating (or have just graduated) from college, and they might be a little nervous about how they're going to pay off their student loans. Student debt can be difficult to pay off, so some folks are trying to avoid it completely in a few novel ways. Here are a bunch of examples of students getting financially creative with their tuition bills.
- In 2011, Richard Linder got a college degree from Excelsior College for about $3,000 -- without attending any classes in person. Excelsior doesn't require graduating students to have taken any of its own courses, so Linder transferred credits (many of them free) from a variety of online classes. [url]
- Ken Ilgunas went to grad school at Duke and lived frugally in his van because he didn't want to get into debt again after paying off his undergrad loans. Ilgunas showered in the school's gym facilities, bummed electricity and internet from the libraries, and wrote a book (Walden on Wheels) about his lifestyle. [url]
- Jonathan Hood paid for his graduate education at Auburn University with a TON of mail-in rebate offers. Buying stuff, redeeming the rebates and then eBaying the stuff... it takes a lot of time, but he wrote some automation software to help him keep track of all of it (and he'll likely be able to sell that someday, too). [url]
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$3K used to be what a college degree cost...
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Re: $3K used to be what a college degree cost...
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If you need money for college, ask your parents for a loan they say ... Can't afford college, go to trade school they say. College is elitist and brainwashes you into becoming a democrat they say. What a load of crappola.
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These jobs you speak of... do they require you to say "do you want fries with that?" alot?
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These days, even the jobs for which you don't need a college degree require a college degree. With so many people looking for work, it's a quick and easy way for employers to winnow down the field of applicants.
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Most business positions have no need of what they had to learn for a business degree. Accountants and lawyers being pretty much the only exception.
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And clearly, a job is the only reason to seek higher education ... what a simplistic attitude.
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Excelsior / Regents
Historically, I think their biggest market was US military folk -- who would go to school part-time, get moved around a lot, and graduate from Regents (old name) with a combination of transfer credit and guided-reading-up-on-your-own credit-by-exam.
Linder got a pretty generic Associates with a funny name by transferring credit from a variety of sources. His trick was to find cheap or free classes that he could transfer. If he'd been better at AP or CLEP exams it might have been even easier.
I expect Excelsior is watching and considering MOOC developments very closely, and could be one of the pioneers in transforming MOOC completions into degrees from an accredited institution.
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I learned that before college though... but college would have likely fixed it if I hadn't.
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Things that are not proper science or the application of it though? They're better taught in trade schools or learned on the job. Spending years and thousands of dollars on a degree for them is foolish beyond belief and does no good for anyone except the universities.
The humanities? They're another discussion entirely; a fair number of their degrees have no career path whatsoever outside teaching them to the next batch of students.
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Re: $3K used to be what a college degree cost...
If investors recognize that this bubble could pop just like home mortgages, you'll have all hell breaking loose.
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Not that hard
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If you are clever as that
Unfortunately, most people are not that clever.
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