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dukeimre t1_iyckib5 wrote

In the long run, you'll be much better off financially trying to find ways to increase your hourly wage. E.g., if you went to college, community college, or trade school while living with your parents. Working more than 40 hours per week would make you a little money in the short run, but it may or may not help with this goal.

Check out this article, which mentions that the median salary of folks with college degrees is $26k/year higher than for folks without.

If your parents don't make a high income, you could be eligible for a lot of financial aid for college.

The risk with a 4-year college, if you don't get a ton of financial aid, would be that you don't finish and wind up deeply in debt without anything to show for it. In which case, community college or trade school is much cheaper and would still lead to higher-paying jobs.

But obviously school isn't for everyone -- and you can always come back to it later, if you need some time to decide what you want to do.

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silveroranges t1_iyd90gc wrote

Another path would be to work for a company that offers tuition reimbursement and attend school while working there. That's what I did, I only paid for the fees and books (most of which are findable online) and everything else was paid by my job. My specific company doesn't have anything regarding repayment if I leave, but a lot of companies stipulate you must work there for 1 or 2 years after graduation, which usually isn't a big deal as long as the company isn't horrible. Find a cheap community college to get as many credits as possible then transfer them to a prestigious school, or what I am doing is getting a B.S. at a cheap school then taking it to a university to get my graduate degree.

I feel for my friend who is almost 100k in debt for a 'fast track' for profit college where he got his degree faster than me but is in so much debt right now and won't repay it for many years.

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