A Sure Way of Paying For College

� 2006 By Kevin Ronkko
All Rights Reserved. Printed with Permission

In short: be careful about the amount of your college loan that is deferred. Deferred college loans - though likely necessary for obtaining a degree in today�s increasingly expensive educational world - can be a major financial problem later on if you aren�t extremely careful. You don�t want to owe more money than you can afford to pay back upon graduating. You want to keep your debt to income ratio in check from the get go, after all. As a result, expenses should be justified in the beginning of your venture.

Scholarships, though nice to dream about, are not guaranteed, and so should not be factored into the initial financial plan. Instead, think of any scholarships that might come your way as a nice bonus. Some people seem to think that at some point, if they do well enough in school, a magical scholarship will come along and solve all of their problems. Though this is perhaps a nice fantasy, until a whopping check arrives in the mail, scholarships aren�t real and so shouldn�t be counted on.

One of the utmost challenges that I personally face as an adult college student, is that of paying for my education. Though college is very expensive, I have one simple strategy that works for me, and can work for anyone. This is the approach of willingness to work for educational expenses as you go. Though college loans are necessary, keeping those loans minimal is the key, as I see it. You can�t go wrong in working hard for success.

You�ve probably heard the old Billy Holiday song �God Bless the Child.� In that song, the lyrics preach �God bless the child who�s got his own.� To keep this politically correct, though, I�d say in a modernistic tongue �� bless the child who�s got his or her own.� When one thinks of people who have had successful lives, from Thomas Edison to Frank Lloyd Wright for example, there has been a common denominator, which has been the willingness to work for success.

In paying for college, the willingness to work for paying college tuition on the fly is the key, in my opinion. Though I might sound like an old vinyl record stuck with the needle sticking, I feel that I can�t repeat this simple concept enough in order that it might help. It is still one of the most gratifying feelings I can think of, to have worked for something and to have paid for something directly from the work.

There are many online resources that can help a person to sort out the many details of which student loans and financial services might be the most beneficial to you. As a result, I am not going to cover those services in this article. Do remember, though, that the goal is to minimize deferred student loans as much as possible. Old fashioned work is the only sure way of accomplishing this.

The goal of importance, as I see it, is to owe as little as possible when graduation finally arrives. If that means going to school part time, and working a day job simultaneously, then that would be the best approach to take. The more you can pay for up front, the less you�ll owe later. So, when filling out the paper work provided to you from your financial advisor, be sure to keep this in mind. Just be sure that you can handle the payments throughout the duration of the agreement between you and the academic institution you will be working with.

So many people forget that success is often based upon hard work, not just in school, but also in the mundane drudgery of the daily grind for the dollar. Many folks would argue with this theory, and I can see why. However, I have been to college a few times now, and this approach has worked for me each time, and the satisfaction of having actually worked my own way through school, and paying for as much of it as I can in real time, has been more than worth it to date and an education in itself.

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Kevin Ronkko is the author of "The Singing Drummer: Add Vocals to Your Beat," published by Windstorm Creative LTD. He is also a member of the Vic Firth Education Team and has taught many students the art of drumming. His web site is https://www.pumpingbeat.com. Kevin, ever a student, is currently a student at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh -- Online Division and plans on earning a BS in interactive Media Design.

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