Here’s a bit of news for you: College is expensive. And it ain’t gettin’ any cheaper.
Between tuition, room & board, books and entertainment, including fees to join a fraternity or sorority, any clubs you might want to join, gym membership and, of course, the occasional party, going to a state university can easily cost you $40,000 for just four years.
So are you stuck with a massive bill for college if you want to get the higher education and a better chance at a profitable career doing what you love?
Community college can save you an extraordinary amount of money and help you continue your education toward a 4-year degree. One thing virtually all universities and their bachelor’s degrees require are general education courses, such as English, social sciences, and basic quantitative and general science courses. These classes are available at most local community colleges and the credit is fully transferrable to the university of your choice.
The beauty of going to a community college to get these basic requirements out of the way is that attending community college is significantly less expensive than attending a university, not to mention probably a lot less distracting as well. Tuition costs for a community college can be as little as $800 for a full time student whereas very few universities will let you do that for anything less than $2,000. Multiply that by four semesters and you’ve saved yourself almost $3,000 in tuition in getting your general education requirements out of the way. If you can also attend the community college close to home and just stay with your parents while you finish your general ed courses, you can save many thousands more in room and board. This way, by the time you and another student who went straight to university graduate, they could be $40K in debt from loans while you are sitting much prettier with somewhere around half that amount. Same degree…much less expense.
