Re:On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs ...
by munchbunny on Monday June 05, 2017 @05:38PM
(#14492367)
That's absolutely a thing, and the knowledge of that fact is more limited than it should be. At my alma mater, I had friends who were getting almost a full scholarship. They left with only a few thousand dollars of debt (as opposed to tens of thousands) because they were able to pay off most of it with a part time on-campus job like being a lab technician.
It's an example of how inequality along financial or racial lines can be real despite there being no theoretical reason for it: if you don't know that you could attend a top tier university and leave with very little debt, you'll consider applying as a student. If you don't, then you've preemptively rejected a very good opportunity for upward mobility. Too many people just don't know because their families or communities don't play the college admissions "game."
So instead I only applied to in-state colleges, thinking I was being sensible and pragmatic by doing so. But there's a chance I would have paid less at the top tier schools than I ended up paying for local schools.