 What's happening guys? It's Shane here and in today's video we are going to talk about how to keep the cost of college low. Everybody knows college is getting more and more expensive. I think there's 1.85 trillion dollars in student loan debt now. The average person is graduating with almost 40,000 dollars in student loans and it's not getting any better if anything it seems like it's getting worse and worse by the year. So it is more important than ever to keep the cost of college low and most people have no idea how to do that. But fear no more because you have come to the perfect video. I am going to be giving you 10 of my best possible tips. But before we do that make sure to gently tap that like button. Let's set a goal for 1000 likes on this video. And also if you haven't done it already make sure to subscribe. I think only 18% last time I checked in the studio I'll have it pop up on the screen. I think only about 18% of you are subscribed. And also hit that notification bell as well. That's the end of the video. Thank you very much for watching. I will see you guys next time. Just kidding obviously most of us are not going to have access to that. Most of us don't have rich parents. However there are some other ways that you know more normal people can get their kids college degrees paid for. One of those is called a 529 plan and this is something that some people set up right after their child is born and is designed to pay for their child's college. But you don't have to do it right after the child is born and the sooner you do it the better. This is a tax advantage plan so it has some similarities to like a 401k or a Roth IRA. But it is supposed to be used for college degrees specifically. Now there's a lot to be said about the 529 plan. There's a lot of very specific things that make it different than the 401k or the Roth IRA. But I'd have to make an entire separate video in order to go over all of those. And there are alternatives to the 529 like ESAs for instance that stands for education savings account. And there's also the uniform gift for minors or UGMA. There are also certain types of life insurance plans but you really have to be careful with those because a lot of the time they don't end up paying off. So yeah definitely something to look into especially if you are maybe a teenager right now or you're a parent watching this for your child. Definitely look into those options. The 529 plan is great for instance. And then a lot of people just end up saving for their child's college as well and they just keep it in a savings account. But let's be honest most people don't think ahead that far. And most people just simply don't have access to that excess level of savings. I certainly didn't. I didn't have any help at all from my parents. At least no help when it came to the financial side of things. So the next nine tips on the list are going to be for people who are in that situation which is probably most people. So I basically made an entire video where I went very in depth on this on how to get college paid for. I actually go even more in depth in my college 101 course which you can find down in the description below. But basically you know you've got scholarships, grants, and essay contests. And the ones that you want to aim for first are the scholarships that are offered by the school themselves. Right so these tend to be the highest level of scholarship. A lot of the time it's going to be $5,000 for all four years that you're there. So it's really a $20,000 scholarship. Sometimes it's a lot more than that. Sometimes it's $10,000 a year, $20,000 a year, etc. Now usually these types of scholarships are going to require you to have a pretty decent GPA. And sometimes they will also require you to score well on the ACT or the SAT. So that's something you really want to plan ahead for if you can. I definitely think that getting good grades in high school overall is worth it. And so if you're early on in high school and maybe you have like pretty decent grades, I would say it's definitely worth it for you to study hard and get good grades in high school. Surprisingly a lot of the time in college it's not worth it and what's much more important is you know networking and getting work experience. But in high school in my opinion it is worth it to get good grades if you can. And then there's also grants that the school offers. So everybody should always sign up for FAFSA that's F-A-F-S-A. And the reason for that is even if you don't plan on taking out any money or any loans, it's going to automatically apply to a bunch of different grants and scholarships that the school offers. Right? So definitely worth it for you to sign up for FAFSA even if you don't plan on taking out any student loans. And then there's a bunch of different small scholarships and essay contests. These are usually like you know $500, $1000, $1500 sometimes maybe up to two or three thousand. And these are absolutely worth it for you to sign up for as well. There are literally billions of dollars in scholarships that go unclaimed because nobody signs up for them. And so you should really just sign up for as many of these as possible. Usually they are going to take a short essay, you know like a one-page essay, something along those lines. But what you'll find is they all have very similar prompts. And so you can basically take the prompt and once you've written enough of these essays, you can just copy paste in order to apply for many of them. And so an essay contest or a scholarship that might have taken you originally like three hours is probably only going to take you like maybe 10 to 30 minutes. And here is going to be the edit of shame. Here's the part where I put up the school that was the most expensive in terms of tuition in the last year. And that is Scripps College. They charge students $77,696 a year in tuition last year. Absolutely ridiculous. I'm getting the calculator out over a four-year period that is $310,784 for a four-year bachelor degree. I usually don't like to call out like individuals or companies or colleges or anything like that. I usually like to talk about ideas, not people. I try to avoid drama and stuff like that on this channel as much as possible. But you know what? I'm going to start calling some of these places out. That is absolutely ridiculous. It's totally irresponsible. People who graduate from this college are likely going to be weighed down by all of the debt they're going to accumulate for decades. Now, okay, to be fair, if you are able to go to one of these schools and you get like a really nice scholarship, you get grant for it, and so maybe your out-of-pocket cost is like $5,000 a year, that's one thing, right? So, you know, if you're able to do that, that can be okay. But what you really want to do is figure out how much it's going to cost you after all the scholarships, after all the grants, etc. And that is the true cost. Now, a great way to keep your college costs low, and I mentioned this many times on the channel, but it is to go to a community college for your first two years. The average community college is about $3,500 a year, very reasonable, so that would be $7,000 for your first two years. And then you want to transfer to an in-state public college. And usually in-state, that's going to be about $9,000 per year, right? So 9,000 times 2 is 18 plus the original 7,000. That is $25,000 total. That's not too bad. You know, $25,000 versus $310,000. The number four tip on the list is probably the most underrated tip out of all of them on this list, because many people, you know, at least they know about the other tips that I mentioned, they might not take full advantage of it because they don't know how. But a lot of people don't even know that you can do this. And that is you can actually shorten the length of your college degree. So for instance, I was able to get a doctorate in five years and nine months, instead of the usual eight years that it takes. And I didn't even know about all the stuff that you can do when I was going through that process. If I knew about all that stuff, I likely could have done it in more like four years. And that is exactly what one girl that I met when I was in grad school did. She took advantage of it to the max. And she graduated with a doctorate at 21 years old. So there are as many different ways to do this. And I've made entire videos breaking it down. But just to briefly summarize things, you can take extra classes during high school. So therefore, you don't have to take those classes during college. You can also take extra classes while you're in college. And there's many different ways you can do that all the way from just simply taking extra units instead of doing 15 a semester, you can do 18 or 21 per semester. You can also take extra classes during the summer when most people are taking time off, you can take online classes from other universities and then transfer those credits in there are various ways that you can test out of certain classes as well. And then most importantly, you can structure your classes in such a way where you know, there's a lot of the time you have to take a class before you can take B class and B class before you can take C class. And so you have to figure that out, you have to meet with your advisor and structure the way that you take those classes in such a way where you can take them on time to graduate early. So there are many stories out there of people who have shortened a four year degree into three years, sometimes two and a half or two years. And so let's say just to make things simple, you cut down a four year degree into two years, you literally just saved half the money on tuition right off the bat. But more importantly than that, you also save time and even more importantly opportunity cost. Because during the time in college where your peers are still studying and accumulating debt, you are going to be in your first entry level job, you're going to be getting real life work experience, and you're going to be making money. So yeah, there are a ton of different ways to do this. I didn't even mention all of them. Another way is to go to an accelerated program. There are certain accelerated programs out there. You could make an entire video even an entire series on this subject because there's just so many different things you can do and it's going to be different depending on the circumstance and the situation that you're in. But yeah, definitely the most underrated thing you can do. It is incredible if you are able to cut some years off of your graduation. So this is going to be obvious, but this is probably going to be your biggest expense besides tuition. If you're going to a cheap school or a community college, it likely might even be your biggest expense period. But there are many different ways to keep these costs low as well. You could, for instance, continue living with your parents for free. You could get roommates so that you're paying like one half or one third of the rent. There are other various programs out there like, for instance, I lived in a scholarship hall while I was in college that was very cheap. Not all colleges offer that, but some of them are going to offer discounts on dorms. You could also become a resident assistant. And as an RA, you would basically get to live and eat for free in many cases. So there are definitely a bunch of different ways to keep these costs low. So a lot of universities are designed where you don't actually need a car. You can utilize the bus system as well as just having a bicycle and that should be fine. Another thing you can do, and a lot of people are going to laugh at this, but it's actually a lot of fun, is you can get a moped. I had a moped back in college. I thought it was kind of dorky at first, but I had a lot of fun riding that moped around. It was awesome. All right. I'm waiting for the dump truck outside to go away. A few minutes later. All right. So I think the dump truck is gone now. So as I was saying, another great way to keep transportation costs low. If you do get a car, try to get a very reliable brand like Toyota or Honda and five to 10 years of depreciation is really good. The reason for that is because the moment you buy a car and you drive it off the lot, it loses like 10% of its value and it's going to lose another like 70% over the next five or 10 years. And if you buy a reliable brand, it's going to be perfectly good. It's going to work fine after five to 10 years. Another great option is to buy a truck. That's what I did when I was an undergrad. And the reason for that is because it's just so ridiculously useful whenever you're moving from place to place. If you have a truck, you don't have to hire a moving company. You can just move it yourself. When you first move into a place and you have to get a couch and you have to get a TV, etc. Having a truck makes that entire process really easy. You can also use it to do side hustles and make extra money, which is exactly what I did in undergrad as well. Food is likely going to be your fourth biggest expense. And it's worth it to figure out how to keep these costs low. Most people, when they come from high school, they probably ate their meals at home, probably prepared by their parents. And then they went to school where meals were prepared for them as well. So they never really had to worry about making food for themselves. When you go to college, things are different. And so what a lot of people end up doing is because it's not structured, they'll end up eating out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Eating out costs a ridiculous amount, especially if you're doing it every single day. And especially if you're buying like $5 Starbucks coffee several times a day as well, this can easily get up into the thousand plus dollar a month range. I know it did for me at one point. And there is a very easy way to fix this and that is get a crock pot for one. Crock pots are so, so easy to use. You just throw a bunch of stuff together. And then, you know, you set it to go for about eight hours right before you go to sleep. And when you wake up, it's good to go and you've got like three days worth of food right there. And then the second way is to meal prep. So you can basically just take one day out of the week, spend like two or three hours and get all of your food for the week ready. Meal prepping and crock potting are very affordable and they're also much healthier than eating out all the time. Everybody talks about the freshman 15 where, you know, you go to college and you gain 15 pounds right away. It happened to me as well. It was more like the freshman 20 or 25. And the reason for that is because I was eating very unhealthy and I was snacking all the time. Then when I started crock potting and meal prepping, I lost all that weight right away. So not only is it going to help your wallet, but it's also going to help you be much healthier. Number eight on the list is going to be working while you are in college. And this is so important not only because you obviously end up making extra money while you're in school, but more importantly than that, you get work experience. And this is going to look so good when you start to apply for jobs. This is seriously like night and day. It's going to make a much bigger difference than the GPA that you get. It's also going to make a much bigger difference than how involved you were, how many different organizations you were in. The only thing that might be a little bit more powerful than actual work experience is networking, right? So if you're able to network and meet the right people, that can be even better. But networking in my opinion is optional. You don't have to do it, but if you do it, it can be really good. But to me, working is just mandatory. Like even if it's a part-time job, you do a half shift once a month, once every two weeks, do it. Absolutely work while you are in college. And you know, you get extra points if you're able to work in something that involves the future career, something that has to do with the future career that you're going for. So just to keep things simple here, let's say that you work 10 hours per week and you're making $10 per hour. That's $100 per week. There's 52 weeks in a year, so that's $5,200 a year. I'm not sure why I got my calculator out. That was a pretty simple calculation. And over four years, that would be $20,800. So right there alone, just doing a part-time job, you could potentially cut the $40,000 in student loan debt that the average student goes into in half. So yeah, definitely work during college. It is a no-brainer. Now there's some college degrees that are just really good in general. Pretty much doesn't matter who gets the college degree. They're going to give you a good return on investment. The second school of college degrees are kind of in the middle where if you have a really good plan, you know what you're doing and you know exactly how you need to get there, they can be worth it. And then there's a third type of college degree where it's almost never worth it for you to get it, right? So the first two are good, right? The second one's good as long as you really do your research and you know what you're getting yourself into. And then the third one can be okay, but you really have to just like think ahead. And I usually just recommend not doing a third one because you're just taking too much risk. And by getting a good college degree, even if you do end up going $40,000 in debt, you're going to be able to relatively easily pay it off. Now the average student takes 20 years to pay off their student loan debt. And that number is probably going to get even worse in the future because 20 years ago college wasn't nearly as expensive as it is now. So it's becoming more and more important than ever that you get a college degree that is going to give you a good return on your investment. Treat college like an investment because if you don't, a lot of the time you're going to end up unfortunately being in a hole, being deep in debt. It's going to be very difficult to pay that off. It's going to be extremely stressful and it's not going to make you happy. I've seen this happen over and over again. People go to college and they just purely follow their passion. They end up doing something that has nothing to do with their degree that doesn't pay very well. And on top of that, they end up deep in debt, which makes everything they're trying to do, all of their goals even more difficult. So if you want to live life on veteran difficulty, if you want your life to be very hard, go ahead, go to college, get a worthless degree and pay a bunch of money for it, go deep in debt and see what happens. Number 10 on the list is for you to keep living like a college student even after you graduate. And basically what this means is you need to keep your costs low even after you graduate from college. And you should do this at least until you get all of your student loans paid off. And the reason you do this is because there is a common concept called lifestyle inflation. And what that basically means is as you make more money, you also spend more money. And so let's say you're making $50,000 a year, you're likely able to live a very happy lifestyle on about $30,000 per year. But if you make $100,000 per year, your lifestyle expenses a lot of the time will go up to $60,000 a year. And if you make $200,000 a year, your expenses will go up to $120,000 a year. And this is why you see people who make $500,000 a year, but they're still broke. Because as they make more money, they end up spending more money. So it's super important for you to live below your means. And a really easy way for you to do this is to just automate all of your savings and investing. So there's ways that you can sign up to investing websites like Fidelity, Charles Schwab, Vanguard, et cetera. And you can just automate everything to where you're just automatically investing money every single month. And if you never see the money in your bank account, then you're never going to think to spend it. So yeah, that's all I have for you in this video. Check out my other videos right here. I made them just for you. Go ahead, gently tap the like button, hit that subscribe button, ring notification bell, and comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, et cetera, that you have on the video. And I will see you next time.