Most college students only dream of the idea of graduating college debt-free. Well for me, it wasn’t just a dream, it was a reality. My journey in graduating college debt-free didn’t start in college (although it could have), it started in high school. Knowing that I didn’t want to owe anybody money after college, I started to think of ways I could go to college and get out without oweing anything. I came up with a lot of different ideas, but the easiest was…to simply get good grades in high school. 

So I began my high school career with the decsion to do my best so that I can be offered a scholarship. The desicion to get good grades in high school was not the easiest one, it required me to do a lot of work, studying, and other extra correcular activities (which I hated). But I was focused on the outcome…debt-free after college. Surprisingly I did a lot better than I expected, I recieved a 4.0 GPA (Grade point average) six-teen semesters in a roll (my whole high school career) and graduated number 8 out of my senior class of over 600 students. This was surprising to me because I had always been a C student (never really applied myself) in middle school. This alone taught me the importance of having a purpose in life. Whenever you have a greater goal that you are after that is bigger than your current curcumstance, it’s amazing how you always come out a winner!

Needless to say I recieved one of the most prominent scholarships that anyone can recieve, I recieved the Gates Scholarship . This scholarship was going to cover my room and board at any college that I decided to go to. This was great because I basically had about 80% of my college expenses covered. Thinking back to those nights of studying while my friends where hanging out and partying, I can say to myself that it was worth it. The next challenge was trying to figure out how I was going to make up for the 20% not covered by my scholarship.

My freshman year at Towson University I lived in the honors dorm (Richmond Hall) and was very invovled. My extensive involvelement at Towson University allowed me to meet people of value my first semester which would enrich the rest of my experience at Towson University. Towards the end of my freshman year, i decided to become a Residence Assistent (RA) during my sophmore year. As an RA, you where responsible for policing about 20-40 students who lived on your flow (or residence hall), but also, you didn’t have to pay room and board. SWEET! Although my room and board expenses were already covered by my scholarship, I knew that this would be an opportunity for me to recieve my room and board expense (about $4,000) as a reinbursement check.

After applying for the RA position, I recieved it. As planed, I also recieved my room and board cost as a reinbursment check since my scholarship had already covered it. You are probably wondering…so what did you do with the money? Well I used that money for three things. First I started to invest some on that money into penny stock to make some extra money, that way I can pay some of my monthly expenses (cell phone ($100), car insurance ($250), gas ($100), others ($300)). Secondly, I used this money to pay for other expenses not covered by scholarship like books and materials for class. Third, I uses this money to start an online business that helped me to create some more extra money, while in college.

Thinking like an entrepreneur (even though I started my college career as a biology major) allowed me to provide income for my expenses, which helped me to focus on my grades so that I can maintain my scholarship until graduation. Money-wise, that would have been about 80K dollars that I would have had to worry about paying back if I didn’t think ahead to exactly what I wanted after college.

Everyone’s story is and will be different, but I encourage you to seek way to graduate college debt-free. If not debt-free, seek ways to reduce the amount of student loans that you will need to pay after graduation. Why? It’s not fun to work very hard during the week, only to give your money away to students loans. Don’t forget what it feels like to be FREE!

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