How to Pay for Your Dream School

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The Voice presents: a no fail guide to how to pay for your dream school! Follow each step and there’s no way you’ll be leaving college with debt like 58% of Americans graduating from public universities :)

Ahhh. College. Beautiful lawns with students laughing, recreation centers with climbing walls, a tall white tower of some sort, and state-of-the-art technology. Sounds perfect, right? But one look at the price tag—with housing included, even the UCs are $36,000 a year, and privates are usually $70,000+ a year—can make you reconsider going. In some cases, colleges don’t offer you enough aid, or you’re too poor to not notice the academia-shaped hole in your wallet. But never fear, because I’ve put together a list of no-fail methods to ensure that you don’t pay a penny for college. 

  1. Sell an organ or two.

Make an easy buck by selling a kidney! Even better, sell your heart, which can reportedly be worth a million dollars (source: hanniballecterishungry.com). You’ve already sold your soul to get into your dream college, so what’s one less organ to you?

  1. Sell your house and empty your parents’ retirement funds.

When applying for aid, the FAFSA and CSS Profile are the two applications for colleges to receive information used in calculating financial aid decisions. The FAFSA doesn’t ask for home equity and value, but the CSS Profile does. It’s possible that colleges take into account the value of the home you live in and the worth of your parents’ retirement funds. The solution is simple. Sell your house to both take advantage of the rising housing market in Fremont and to get enough money to cover your college expenses! While you’re at it, drain your parents’ retirement funds too—don’t mind the 10% withdrawal fee, it’s an investment for the future. Your parents might be facing homelessness, but hey! At least you can afford USC!

  1. Invest in Bitcoin and Gamestop. 

Dedicate some time to learn the ins and outs of stock market trading, and you might be able to make a fortune (or lose a fortune). Luckily, Irvington has its treasure trove of business people willing to help you out! Ask any DECA or FBLA kid for advice on buying or selling stocks, and you’ll earn enough money to cover your four years of tuition, guaranteed 🙂 Another strategy: after the 30th time they explain the stock market to you, they’ll probably pay you enough money just to go away. 

  1. Start a Gofundme.

It’s the backbone of the American healthcare system already, so who’s stopping you from making it the backbone of the education system? Send out a few insightful tweets to attract tens of thousands of likes, and when you have your five seconds of fame, whip out the link to your Gofundme page and hope for generous donors (please Mr. Elon, I am starving for higher education)! Not sure what to tweet? Go for the gusto—maybe your cousin’s uncle’s fish’s nephew has cancer and you can either pay for his chemotherapy or for college. You can even tweet out an insightful banger about politics or life in general.

  1. Move to another country. 

The United States has once again proved itself to be special. It has sky high tuition, but in other countries, this is far from being a norm. Countries like Norway, Sweden, and Germany have no or low tuition fees at all, so hop on a plane to one of these European countries to take advantage of these steals. Make sure to learn the local language with Duolingo (or rely on the two years of French you learned at Irvington), pack some winter coats, and off you go! You might not be able to understand what your professors are saying, but at least you’ll learn how to plan a party in German. 

  1. Beg your representatives.

Some are already fighting for free community college, so ask them to extend their efforts to free undergraduate tuition as well! If the government is too slow on this promise and if all else fails though, you could end up with thousands of dollars of debt. So, beg your representatives to cancel your student loan debt. You can either protest with other students that are broke (there is an endless supply of them, trust me) or try to woo them with an Edible Arrangement or two. If your local representatives are already convinced, sneak onto a jet to other states and lobby the politicians there too! Hmm… you could make a career out of this. If your degree turns out to be useless, or if the job market is trash, that won’t be a bad idea.