By: Allison K.
The estimated cost of attendance for 4 years of education at the University of Minnesota Duluth is $98,160 including tuition, room and board, and books among other expenses. Student debt in the US has passed the trillion dollar mark and is likely to keep rising as tuition costs continue to increase. Yet, here I am about to graduate on time with 2 majors in Biology and Hispanic Studies and a minor in Psychology with no debt at all! How is this possible?
First of all, the Catch a Break! scholarship was the largest factor in making this possible because it was available every year, unlike many smaller scholarships that are offered on a one-time basis. This is probably what kept me in college on those days when I wasn’t sure if I was a good fit for a 4-year university but I knew that finances were not a major worry. Meeting with the sponsors and other students in the program regularly was a huge motivating factor as we were able to discuss challenges as we progressed through each year of college and encourage one another.
During my junior and senior years of high school, I was able to take part in the Postsecondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) program and take general education classes through a community college for free, which would have cost about $15K out of pocket. Most of the classes transferred to UMD, so I didn’t have to repeat lower-division classes and graduated with an Associate of Arts and an Associate of Science in Health Sciences before high school graduation.
UMD also offers a Best of Class scholarship, which gives 50% off tuition for MN students who graduated high school with a #1 or #2 class rank (or at least had that ranking at the time of application to UMD). What’s nice about this is that because it is a percentage of tuition, the scholarship amount increased as tuition also increased each year. Other 4-year universities often offer similar programs based on GPA and ACT/SAT scores, so they are worth looking into.
Other small scholarships also added up to help cover the costs of books and living expenses that I found from a variety of sources. The high school that I attended had a Dollars for Scholars chapter, so I received a few scholarships by applying there, to my dad’s employer, and to other programs I found listed on the high school career center’s scholarship website. During my junior year of college, I was active in my major departments by tutoring Spanish students and serving as a teaching assistant for the anatomy lab course, so I applied for scholarships through the biology and languages departments and received one from each that went toward my senior year tuition.
Junior year of college was also where I started working a flexible part-time job as a tutor for up to 6 hours per week to help pay for groceries and gas. My credit card that I paid back every month earned cash back on gas purchases and I also saved money on groceries by printing off coupons online and using the Cartwheel app from Target, so those helped save money also. Other ways I saved money included using gas station student discounts, renting or buying used textbooks on Amazon or Chegg rather than buying them from the bookstore, and sharing trips to the store with roommates. During the summer and winter breaks, I was able to go back to working as a nursing assistant at a nursing home where I’d started when I was 16. Sometimes I would work 100 hours in a week and switching back and forth from day shift to night shift was always a challenge, but taking out loans and paying interest was not something I was considering.
Through all of this, I still had a full college experience with being part of the Honors Program, doing undergraduate research abroad in Morocco, taking a medical service volunteer trip to Nicaragua and practicing my Spanish, serving as a leader in 2 honors student groups, completing a leadership certificate program, and volunteering both on and off-campus. The best memories I have are from doing things I never saw myself doing and college is the time to explore new interests, so I tried to say “yes” often!
If I were to give a piece of advice to other students who want to avoid debt, I would say to start looking for scholarships early, keep looking during college for those offered to current college students, and apply to as many scholarships as possible. Read books on how to write good essays, ask for generic recommendation letters from teachers or coaches at least 2 months in advance of the first deadline, and read blogs about getting out of student debt before you get into it. Some of my favorite books were Debt-Free U by Zac Bissonnette, How to Go to College Almost for Free by Ben Kaplan, and Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student’s Guide to Earning a Master’s or a Ph.D. by Robert Peters. I spent a lot of time applying for scholarships (probably more time than I spent doing homework senior year of high school) and I certainly didn’t get everything I applied for, but all that effort has paid off now!
Now, I’m moving on to a graduate direct-entry nursing program with no debt! Setting the goal of graduating debt-free and working towards that throughout high school and college helped keep me focused on my goal, as well as reaching out to others for support along the way. With the rising costs of college tuition, it is still possible to catch a break and avoid student debt through scholarship programs like this one. I will be forever grateful to the program for setting me up for future success and making this educational journey possible!