How to Go to Graduate School and not go Broke in the Process

September 13, 2007 By Matthew Paulson

After attending college, most people go out into the real world and start a job to pay for life and take care of all the student loans that they piled on in college. A small percentage of college graduates decide they just can’t get enough of school and continue on to medical school, law school or some other graduate degree. Attending college beyond an initial four of five year stint can get rather expensive. In most cases, students just don’t have the money to do so, so they borrow as much as they need to so that they can get by while in school. Quite often students end up in close to six figures of student loan debt before they graduate, this isn’t a winning game plan. Here’s how to get through graduate school without winding up in $100,000 of student loan debt.
Go to The Right School. If you go to a Yale or a Harvard, you’re going to easily pay $25,000 a year or more to participate in their graduate program. If you participate in a public college with in-state tuition, you can probably get by paying a lot closer to $10,000 a year. A big ten school might provide you a little bit better education, but it’s not worth $15,000 a year. It’s not where you go that matters, it’s what you learn when you’re there that matters.

Get an Assistantship. Most colleges have decent graduate assistantship programs which enable you to go to school for a reduced tuition rate and give you a fairly good stipend while you attend if you agree to teach an undergraduate course. For example, graduate assistants in South Dakota get a $30,000 annual stipend and only have to pay 1/3rd of the normal tuition rate.

Slow Down. If you’re strapped for cash and don’t have enough to pay for the next semester, take a semester off and work somewhere. Build up some more cash reserves so that when you go back to school a semester later, you can have enough money to pay for your tuition without having to borrow a ton of money.

Scholarships. Remember when you applied to all of those scholarships before you entered into college for the first time? The same thing applies to getting a graduate degree. You can find a number of scholarships specifically for students attending law school, medical school, and other graduate level degrees.

Work. It’s not a winning game plan to be a full-time student and think that’s all you should be expected to do to get by. You need to be able to make enough money to pay for an apartment, gas, food, and insurance while you’re in school. Otherwise, you simply cannot afford graduate school. A small amount of student loans are fine, but you don’t want to use them to finance your life school for the four years it takes to get yourself a graduate degree.

There are plenty of ways that graduate level students can make their education much less expensive, however many fail to do so. Follow some of these tips so that you don’t wind up in six figures of student loan debt!

One option for saving money on a Graduate Degree is by earning an Online MBA. Many people have taken advantage of Distance Learning to get ahead and, with a reputable online University you can have the degree you’ve always wanted.

Many people are utilizing online universities as an inexpensive way to earn their graduate degrees. It is entirely possible to earn an online MBA that can help you advance in your career or to get the qualifications you need to get the job you’ve always wanted.

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