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Is it possible to get a bachelor's degree in today's America without going into debt?

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  • 9 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Yes.

    The students who had/have parents who lived frugally/modestly and started college savings funds when their children were very young and the students who put most of their paid job earnings and much of the gift money they received in savings funds for college and then who choose a college/university that they could afford, tend to graduate with no or at least reasonable student loan debt.

    The issue has become that many, many parents got the idea that they did not have to plan to help fund their children's higher education thinking that their children would have all their higher education costs paid for by the government (even though the parents had moderate to high annual incomes) and instead chose to spend their incomes on houses that were more expensive than they could realistically afford, new and expensive cars traded in every few years, wonderful and expensive family vacations, full channel TV services, etc., instead of living frugally or at least moderately.

    Add to the huge student loan debt issue is that too many students chose to take out high interest private student loans to cover their higher education expenses with no thought of what that would mean in accrued interest and the total cost to be repaid.

    Add to the student loan debt issue has been the mushrooming of for-profit/career/proprietary schools that have tuitions in the the ranges of many private/independent non-profit schools and those for-profit schools encouraging their students to take on tremendous loan debt to pay for some of the questionable education some for-profits provide and then their students not being educated well enough to find decent paying jobs in the career fields in which they were studying.

    On top of all that is the terrible US economy which started long before 2008*, when it became obvious to most of the populace, and the loss of jobs in the USA making it more difficult for recent college/univ. graduates to find employment in their chosen fields of endeavor, and negatively economically affecting many parents of college-age students, as well.

    * The worst economy in the USA since the Great Depression of the 1930s

    Well, so much for my soap-box lecture.

    Bottom line answer: Yes.

    Recent college graduate and author Zac Bissonette has written about it in his book:

    Debt-free U: how I paid for an outstanding college education without loans, scholarships, or mooching off my parents

    Publisher: New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2010

    Librarians--Ask Us, We Answer!

    Find your local Public Library at:

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    http://lists.webjunction.org/libweb/Academic_main....

    Best wishes

    Source(s): Former college administrator + Reference/information librarian
  • Anonymous
    9 years ago

    It's possible but very unlikely for the way most young people live their lives today. If you don't have any substantial savings or help from your parents, you will have to take on debt of some kind. Yes you can go to community college for the first two years then transfer to a university, but unless you're willing to go part-time and work part-time to pay for it, it's going to be tough. That would also mean it would take you a lot longer than 4 years to get your degree.

  • 9 years ago

    I don't understand why everyone is so concerned about debt from school? My mom went to college now she makes 23 dollars an hour and only pays 73 bucks a month back to her college. It's not even a big deal you'll have so much money to spare after that payment it's not even funny.

  • Anonymous
    9 years ago

    If you try your hardest to get scholarships, meet all deadlines for any free financial aid/student, low interest rate, loans/grants/other free federal money, and take out little loans than of course you can stay out of debt.

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  • Anonymous
    9 years ago

    sure, plenty of people work their way through college and accumulate little or no debt.

  • Tyler
    Lv 4
    9 years ago

    You will be atleast 20k in the hole.

  • 9 years ago

    No its not.

    Its not at all.

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