Work part time for a company with tuition reimbursement
When you go to school it is not free, and many people choose different routes to pay for college, you can get grants, you can get loans, and you can get scholarships, but usually you also have to work to pay for some of school as well. Many people will work full time during the summer in order to take the rest of the year off work and devote their time to school. One great way to make school less expensive is to find a job that offers some tuition reimbursement.
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There are various companies that offer their employees the chance to get some of the schooling tuition paid for by the company. There are typically some minimum hours you have to work each week, or you have to work in specific jobs within the company, but if you meet the requirements they will pay a portion, or even all of your tuition. So, how does this save you money?
If you are planning to work anyway, often, taking a job that offers tuition reimbursement, but pays a little less than another job, is worth it. You might be making $8 an hour for a company that will pay all of your tuition, versus making $9.50 for another company that does not offer any sort of tuition assistance. If your schooling costs $2000 a semester, you would have to work 1,333 hours to make working for the extra $1.50 an hour instead of tuition assistance worth it. This means it would take 34 weeks of working full time to make up the difference. If you only intend to work part time, or just in the summers, it is going to save you money to get paid less hourly, and have help with tuition then to get paid more.
So, you might be asking why more people do not do this then? The reason is simple, most companies that offer tuition reimbursement, are not the most fun to work at. It is usually a call center, or a customer service center where you spend your day on the phone talking to strangers, etc. However, if it can help you to save $2,000 in a year, it might be worth the slight frustration that a boring job brings.
In addition, having a job that pays for your school means you do not have to be quite as disciplined with your money. Even if you got paid $11 an hour, in the example above, meaning it would take far less time to make up the difference, you would have to practice a great deal of discipline to save that money for school, rather than spending it. So, this way school for sure gets paid for, and you still free up some money to save.
If you can manage your schedule well enough that you can go to school and still have a part time job, you can get all of your school paid for by your work, while still earning money to help with the cost of housing, books, etc. while in school, sparing you from taking out loans you will be paying interest on, etc.
