 I want to talk about money. Over the past decade, student loan debt has skyrocketed in the U.S. Like these two British grads selling ad space on their face. Hi, my name is Elizabeth and as of today I owe 108,137 dollars and 48 cents in student loans. All student loans are really messed up. 40, 50, 100,000 dollars in debt in order to get a college education. Getting a higher education is probably one of the most important decisions any young person is going to make. But it's one that often comes with a price tag. This is a complex topic and it's one that has a lot of different angles. But I want to make it clear what I'm not going to talk about today. I'm not going to talk about whether or not college should be free or whether Bernie Sanders is right and should wipe out all student debt. I'm not going to talk about the value of universities necessarily and how much money you should spend. I'm just going to talk about how you can spend less money on college. Regardless of how you feel about U.S. tuition prices and whether you think they're correct or not. One thing is certain, getting into debt is not ideal for your financial future. It's also one of the only kinds of debt that you can't get rid of through bankruptcy in the United States. So if you make the decision to get a loan for college, it's a permanent decision. It's like a financial tattoo. Ideally, if you can avoid college debt, that would be great. I'm Meacham. Today on The Score Channel, we're going to talk about how you can spend less on university and get free money for college. We're going to show you seven ways to keep your college debt down and keep your education up. Look, it's kind of obvious, but if you don't want to get into a ton of debt, then you need to keep the price of your tuition down. So maybe going to the top schools isn't the best idea. Now, I made a video earlier about why college rankings suck and how they're kind of misleading and very inaccurate in general. And the thing is that's related to this topic as well. The most expensive schools tend to be ones that are very high in the rankings. The vast majority of expensive schools point to those rankings and say, see how good we are? And they use those as justification for their prices. So how can you avoid going to these super expensive universities and find cheaper alternatives? Well, obviously just, you know, don't go to the place that's going to make you broke. But there's a way to get the benefits of a top university without necessarily having to pay the full price of a top university education. You could go to a community college for two years and then transfer. Now, I know for some people, the idea of going to a community college may seem like a big waste of time or that you're going to get an inferior education. But I think it's important to stop and ask what courses are you going to be taking? Most of the universities that you go to are going to make you take general education requirements. Does it really make sense to take a whole bunch of general electives in the most expensive university? The average community college has an in-state tuition of $3,340. With a little bit of financial aid, you could be studying for free for your first two years. And even out-of-state tuition isn't that bad. $8,210. Meanwhile, the average private university is charging $35,000. Number two, the FAFSA and CSS Profile. These are basically forms that give you free money. I'm not kidding. It's literally like free money. The FAFSA is for eligible U.S. citizens and nationals. And international students probably won't be able to use the FAFSA, but they still might need to fill it out anyway just because some universities like to see it. The FAFSA is completely free to fill out and file. I don't care how rich you think you are, fill out the FAFSA. With the FAFSA, the United States government can determine how eligible you are for student aid in the form of Pell Grants, generally reserved for lower income families, and student loans straight from the government at low interest rates. There's literally a form that gives you free money and only 65% of applicants in the United States filled it out last year. That's like a third of the population who's in the university right now did not fill out a form for free money. 24% of the people started it but didn't complete the application and the other 11% just didn't even know it existed. If you're not a U.S. citizen, you can still get financial aid directly from universities by filling out something called the CSS Profile. It's something on College Board's website, and while there is a fee to fill it out and send it to the universities of your choice, it's totally worth it. You should absolutely sit down and fill out this form. It's going to take you a couple of hours. It's not easy, but if you need help filling it out and want to see what we can do to make it easier for you, check out prepescore.com. More than 80% of students get some form of financial aid, whether that's from the government or from the university itself. If you did not fill out the FAFSA and the CSS Profile, you're dumb. Like, no, I'm just going to say it, you're being dumb. It's a form that gives you free money. Fill it out. Scholarships can come from anywhere. They can come from the university themselves, the government of the country you want to study in, the government of the country that you're from, and even multinational organizations like the Organization of American States. I mentioned that, for example, in the How to Study in Canada video that if you were a resident of any one of those major international organizations, you could actually get scholarships to help you finish your studies in Canada. Most people are totally unaware of these little scholarships and they're kind of quietly hidden. It's not like these organizations are loudly broadcasting the fact that, hey, we have free money. They're not doing that. But scholarships from countries themselves or from international organizations are a lot more accessible and because they're not so well known, they don't get a lot of applicants. Lastly, you want to look at the university themselves. Maybe they have some kind of merit-based scholarship or need-based scholarship, and you can definitely get some benefits from the university. If you put all of these sources of scholarships together, you might be able to get away without paying for university. At the very least, you can keep your college debt low. Number four is going to be a bit of an unpopular opinion, but wait. Don't go straight to university right after high school. He said it again? I know that what I just said is basically blasphemy and it's the kind of thing that would get you crucified in most schools. Most people seem to look at that year as a lost year. Like, you're wasting time. You've set back your life progress by so much. If you don't go straight to university, you just got to go run and run and run and keep going faster, faster, faster. We're not living in the 1700s where, like, you died at age 45 or 50 and that was the best you could get. Most likely, you're going to live past 100 years. It's just like Ricky Bobby said. The advances in modern science, my high level income. I mean, it's not crazy to think I can't live to be 245, maybe 300. Maybe that year off can be used to save up some money. Go get a job, get some work experience. Maybe that'll help you figure out what you want to do with your life. And then you can actually use some of that cash to help you pay for university. If you can work while you study, you're able to save a bunch of money and offset a ton of your university expenses. Now, whether you can do this as an international student depends greatly on the country you're going to. In the United States, it's very difficult to get permission to work while you are a student on a student visa. The rest of the developed world seems to be a little more reasonable about this because most countries in Europe and even Canada will give you the permission to work around 16 to 20 hours, basically a part-time job, while you study full-time. The program that I found let me work full-time and take classes online during the week, only having to go to class on Sundays. So I was able to actually get my degree while working, which saved me a ton of money. Now, most people look at studying abroad and automatically think that it must be more expensive than the alternative, which is to stay home. Other countries have great subsidies that help offset the cost of university. For example, you could go into Poland and even if you weren't a European citizen, you could study in Poland for like less than 2,000 euros a year. You have to open your m- hold up, go back, go back. Three? That's correct, people. Literally every university in Norway is tuition free, even for international students. Most of the universities in Germany are with the exception of one region where Stuttgart is. So literally all you would have to pay is the cost of living. Alright, let's get back to what I was saying before. You have to open your mind and take a look around. There's a lot of places where you can get a good education for less. Now, I know that we're talking about how to keep your college debt down, but not all debt is created equal. Something that didn't make the cut in the How to Study in the Netherlands video was this information about Duo, which is a Dutch organization run by the government that provides low-cost loans for people who need to study in the Netherlands. Because it's only for Dutch citizens, I didn't really include much information about it in the video, but the point is countries have options like this. There's also a really great source of funding for students who want to go to the United States. If you're from another American country in the OAS, there's something called the Rowe Fund. The Rowe Fund provides a zero-interest loan of $15,000 to anyone who wants to study in the United States. If you're already in the U.S. and you're an international student from any of the OAS countries, you can still get this loan right now if you need it. So there you have it. Seven ways to make it easier for you to pay for university and keep your college debt down. That's what we do here at Score. We try to help you get the most out of your university experience with as little cost as possible. We understand that it's not easy for people to pay for college, and the last thing we want to tell people to do is to run to the bank and get into tens of thousands of dollars of debt. If you want to go to college and you don't want to get into a bunch of debt, check out prepitscore.com and see what we can do for you. Make sure you subscribe to the channel to keep finding useful books like this. If you guys want a video on how to fill out the FAFSA or CSS profile forms, or maybe you want some more information about how to apply for some of these loans, let us know. If you leave us a comment below and tell us what you want to make, I'll make it for you, okay? Like, that's what I do. We're going to be making a video soon on how to study in Spain. So that was requested by somebody here. And we're going to make it for you because that's what we do. I'll see you next time.