myUsearch blog

College is often the most exciting four years of a person’s life, but it’s also the poorest. According to CNN, the average college student graduates with nearly 30,000 dollars in debt. (more…)

Renting a home in college is very much a rite of passage, like your first kiss or learning how to drive a stick shift. In fact, even if you plan to live in the dorms, the odds are you won’t live there for your entire four years: many colleges require you to live in the dorms your first year, but after that, you’ll likely want to find your own housing.

When the time comes to do this, it can be stressful: finding the right location, finding something you can afford, and finding a place that doesn’t look like it’s violating every section of the local health code can all be stressful. (more…)

You may have graduated with honors from your college of choice and obtained a great-paying job but you’re not out of the woods yet. The specter of student loans can follow you for many years after graduation, costing you hundreds each month depending on the amount you borrowed. Nearly 75 percent of graduates owe at least $25,000 in student loan debt, according to US News and World Report. Even if you did get a great-paying job out of college, you may still struggle with this debt. If you’re still looking for a job to match your newly framed diploma, you will have an even harder time paying down your debt. Here we take a look at ways to pay off your student loans. (more…)

A year’s tuition and room and board, even at a state school, often adds up to more than $20,000. If you’re planning to attend a private college or university, you could pay more than $50,000 annually. For decades, smart students have exercised the college choice of community college to cut down this cost, yet there are other ways to save both money and time in college. Let’s take a look at your college choice options:

• Option one:  Earn college credit for knowledge you already have.  You have several options to choose from, including AP exams, CLEP exams, and DSST/Dante exams. These evaluation tests offer different options for earning credit for advanced work or knowledge you already possess. Check them out carefully.

• Option two:  Take courses online.  StraighterLine, for example, offers college courses that you can take online at a very low cost.  Another option is to make use of StraighterLine’s innovative Partner College Program. It offers a streamlined college admissions process to students who have completed StraighterLine courses online.

• Option thee:  Attend a college that offers a three-year degree program. Hartwick College and Wesleyan University are now offering three-year programs for certain college majors.  More colleges are joining them.  If you search online for the key term “three-year college degrees” from time to time, you can monitor this trend and find schools that are starting to offer three-year degree programs. Remember that many of these schools still charge pretty hefty fees for the three years while you attend, but if you can trim one year from the process, that will translate into pretty significant savings.

After that college acceptance letter arrives, you are likely to hear, How am I going to pay for this? from students and parents alike.  With the rising cost of college, more and more prospective freshmen are faced with the very real quandary of how to finance their college choice.  It can take determination, sacrifice and a good amount of creativity, but below are five creative ways to help cover the cost of your college choice.

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