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Figures (for 2016) from the midwest university I went to: 14 credit hours: $4206/semester in-state $11,159/semester out-of-state 14 credit hours of

• JoshTriplett 10y ago
  Figures (for 2016) from the community college I went to for my first two years: $1267/term in-state $2815/term out-of-state
  • daveguy 10y ago
    Damn. Sounds like the smartest students would go to community college first. The degree you get after transfer is the same regardless. You just have to make sure those credits transfer -- probably the biggest concern. Otherwise you're just paying a premium and repeating courses. Did yours transfer?
    • JoshTriplett 10y ago
      All of my credits transferred. I went to university in the same state as the community college, and the community college specifically had it as a goal that everything should transfer. I'd recommend talking to advisors at both the community college and your planned university to confirm. One other excellent property my community college (https://www.pcc.edu/ https://www.pcc.edu/) had: because they also catered to high-school-completion students, and students transferring in with gaps or inconsistencies in their knowledge, they had a placement exam for math and English as part of the application process. That exam could place you anywhere from "you need a few years of remedial classes" to "you can go directly to second-year classes".
    • IndianAstronaut 10y ago
      One program at my old high school let you get community college credits for the classes you took. It was a fantastic idea that let people start their careers early and come out with far less debt.
• soylentcola 10y ago
  Similar for the one I went to on the east coast. State school, in-state rates. Around $10k or $11k each year although it was closer to $8-9k when I went. Either way, between working part time through high school I paid for the first year or so. Worked basic service-type jobs back home during summers (retail, restaurant, etc) to pay for the next year's rent and food budget. Worked very part-time during the year (like maybe 6 or 7 hours a week at the computer lab) for bullshit money to spend on stupid stuff like $4-a-head keg party cover charge on the weekends because I wasn't just confined to school and work. The rest was taken out in loans and after all was said and done, I probably owed around $25-30k in low-interest loans with an insanely low payment rate for the first year or so out of school. So yeah, I owed the equivalent of a decent new car and when I was still scraping by as a recent grad I had to make <$80/mo payments before moving up to the "full" minimum payment of <$120/mo. That at least allowed me to keep up with payments while getting settled but incurred no penalties when I started paying much more than minimum once I was stable. I guess my experience was that I financed the equivalent of a new car while gaining that much more each year in salary after a few years due to having that degree. Was it rough right out of school? Definitely. I had roommates for a good few years after graduation and never got to blow thousands on stuff like Spring Break or shopping trips. Still, I'm glad I didn't end up like so many people I've met who went to schools that cost 2-5x as much, owned a car, went on trips, and didn't start paying for any of it until after graduation.