Going to College

Average cost of a College Education is about $40,000 for tuition and another $12,000 for room and board making the total cost about $50,000 a year and it takes 4 years to complete a college degree so the final cost would be about $200,000...  or about the cost of an average home.  The average salary for a college graduate is $50,000 annually or after taxes about $3,334 each month.  And, the average cost of living about $2,500 to $3,500 depending upon one's location and their style of living.

NOW...  if one were to borrow $200,000 to buy a home and agreed to payments for 30 years, the monthly charge would be a little over $1,000.

If you are a single college graduate earning $50,000 a year and living with monthly expenses of $2,500, you would still not have enough money to pay $1,000 on your student loan debt.

However, you have choices:

• Find a job where you would earn more than $50,000 a year
• Extend you student debt loan to greater than 30 years
• Share your expenses with a roommate

Of course, there are other ways to make the financial burden of college work.  You could first spend time in the military and use the GI Bill to attend college.  You could work during the day and go to college at night either in the classroom or online.  You could go to a Community College for your first two years and attend a public college near where you live where the in-state tuition is much less.

In TN for example, if you attend a Community College, you pay no tuition for your first two years which can save an enormous amount of money and then transfer your credit to another College or University for the last two years.

OR...  you could select a profession where you do not need a college degree at all...

OR...  you could join the military after high school and spend 20 years there where you could use the military to help pay for your education...  If you joined at 18, you would be 38 when you could retire and either use your military training or education or both to work another career for 20 years, retiring a second time at 58...

The point is that a College Education is not always the best direction to take...