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Ask HN: Help me hack college education cost

3 points by stud 15y ago

Subject: Help me hack college education cost! Greetings all, I'd like to start this post of my little introduction of myself. I'm 19 a student (High-school pass-out),developer and entrepreneur from India. I have an ambition to study CS in abroad but i do not have the financial capacity pay fees nor do i want my family to me for it or take up a loan/ debt. I'm just an avg student with around 70% percentile in high school so meritorious scholarships are hard to me. I'd like all of you to give the best possible suggestion how i can pay for my college education. Also interested in opportunities where i can work as developer and your start-up pays for college :P

bartonfink 15y ago
Some large companies in the US have tuition reimbursement programs where they will pay for you to go to college while you work there, full-time. There are frequently strings attached to these programs (e.g. you have to remain there for some period after you stop getting reimbursed), but that might work. Your problem will be getting hired as a developer at one of these companies. Either you have the programming chops to get hired or you don't. If you can get a development job, your ? should not be "how to pay for college" but "why go to college". If you can't, then you might have to do tech-support or QA work for a while as a means to an end. This sucks, but it's a better option than not going and not getting paid.
- stud 15y ago
  But isn't it required to have H1B visa to work full-time for the and as far as i can think of it requires a bachelors degree for H1B.
canterburry 15y ago
Well, I heard a story once of a student who brought in his entire year's tuition to the payments office of his school in pennies...in a large barrel on a trolley. The office refused his pennies and said they wouldn't spend their entire week counting them and that he should pay in a different fashion. Well... apparently according to some law, if you refuse payment in legal tender, the person is not obliged to pay you...not sure if this is true or not but may be worth researching. You could see if your school wants to count all those pennies.

3 points by stud 15y ago

bartonfink 15y ago

Some large companies in the US have tuition reimbursement programs where they will pay for you to go to college while you work there, full-time. There are frequently strings attached to these programs (e.g. you have to remain there for some period after you stop getting reimbursed), but that might work. Your problem will be getting hired as a developer at one of these companies. Either you have the programming chops to get hired or you don't. If you can get a development job, your ? should not be "how to pay for college" but "why go to college". If you can't, then you might have to do tech-support or QA work for a while as a means to an end. This sucks, but it's a better option than not going and not getting paid.

stud 15y ago
But isn't it required to have H1B visa to work full-time for the and as far as i can think of it requires a bachelors degree for H1B.

canterburry 15y ago

Well, I heard a story once of a student who brought in his entire year's tuition to the payments office of his school in pennies...in a large barrel on a trolley. The office refused his pennies and said they wouldn't spend their entire week counting them and that he should pay in a different fashion. Well... apparently according to some law, if you refuse payment in legal tender, the person is not obliged to pay you...not sure if this is true or not but may be worth researching. You could see if your school wants to count all those pennies.