Pamela Yellen over at the Huffington Post gives advice on How to Avoid Graduating College Summa Cum Debt. I’ve read dozens of articles on this topic over the years and none have irked me and impressed me with their proposals and solutions the way Yellen’s article has.

Her main piece of advice is to flat out not head off to college at all “unless or until you can afford it.” Not the standard higher education version of the American Dream. Usually everyone’s telling young adults to do whatever they and their parents can in order to acquire a college diploma, regardless of how many decades beyond graduation both parties will be swimming in debt.

Whether you agree with her or not, it’s interesting stuff to think about:

Four Paths to a Debt-Free College Education
1. Save it first.
2. Postpone it.
3. Do it smarter.
4. Skip it altogether.

Further Reading:

Ways to Kick the Ass of Student Loan Debt
Number-Crunching the Effects of Student Loans
Adventures in Education: Paying for College
The Economy and Higher Education
No One Likes a Recession
Calculating Potential
Investing in Students’ Futures
Extremely Useful Guidance for the Newly Salaried
Fall 2011 Facebook App for Financial Aid
College Grads and Student Loan Debt
Arne Duncan: Direct Student Loans
Increased Tuition Increases Some More

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Along the lines of my previous post regarding the much abhorred Epic Fail, Emily Chapman at Hack College wrote a piece advising one to Refuse to Dwell, Move On, Kick Ass. Well put.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(photo: kick-ass)

Forbes has an article up on the 10 Things College Students Waste Money On. Tuition seems to be the least avoidable item on the list, but textbooks and school supplies are certainly full of frugal options.

1. Textbooks
2. Tuition
3. Automobiles
4. Housing
5. School Supplies
6. Food
7. Socializing
8. Applying for Credit

Also included: excellent advice on how fresh-faced college students can learn early on how to live below their means, which sets them up for a better financial life later on down the line.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(fancy school supplies)

When you’re a fresh-faced newbie trying to make your way through this harsh and unkind world, it helps to have an older, wiser, more experienced hand to hold onto. Standing on the shoulders of giants makes the machete-hacking stumble through the jungle go a lot more smoothly.

Those giants are called mentors, and every chucklehead youngin’ like yourself wants one. The more awesome a mentor, the more sought out they are. This has the unfortunate effect of making them ignore most of the tweedle-dums who come begging for their priceless advice and knowledge. If you want to be mentored by the best, you’re going to have to be better than all the other chuckleheads at asking. Ramit Sethi has some advice for you.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(standing on the shoulders of giants)

It’s painful receiving the short, simple advice that paints one pristine illustration which you will never ever be able to remove from your mind. The kind of advice you understand you need to know, but that you sorely wished you’d never heard, read, or seen.

Lynn O’Shaughnessy sums up saving for college versus borrowing with this vomit-inducing blow:

Every $1 you stash away for college will save you from borrowing $3.

Stupid logical math.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Loathe student loan debt and all the evil it represents? Congratulations! You are super special and we are here to celebrate the unique perfection that is you, you trailblazing badass!

Not really. It turns out you’re just like the rest of us. I thought I’d make better use of everyone’s time by pointing out the practical words of wisdom in Jill Greenberg’s article: How to Combat Student Loan Debt.

[I]f you’re currently a student or will be soon, how can you ensure you don’t end up with enormous debt that you can’t pay off? Here are some things you can do to lighten your financial load:

Think about ways you can reduce the cost of your education. Being a part-time student can help you lower fees each semester and give you time to work while you are going to school. While it may take longer to complete your degree, you can reduce the total amount of your debt by paying for some of your education while attending school.

Talk to your employer to see if they can help with tuition. If your degree pertains to your current job, your employer may offer some type of tuition reimbursement or assistance, so check in with your boss or your HR department.

Don’t borrow more than your starting salary. Financial aid expert Mark Kantrowitz cautions that if you borrow more than that, you’ll have to repay your loans with an alternate repayment plan like extended repayment or income-based repayment instead of standard 10-year repayment and extend the payments even longer.

Consider a job in public service after school. With federal programs like the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, you may qualify for loan forgiveness after 10 years of paying on time. In addition, some universities will also offer similar types of programs. More…

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(image: ninja!)

Summer internship time is approaching. Any college student worth his/her salt is shoving down thoughts of freedom and beaches and all the beautiful things summer break used to mean, and is working any angle he/she can think of in order to land a sweet summer internship gig. Seriously, no one has a summer job delivering pizza any more. There seems to be some theory in the offing that insists there’s a direct correlation between one’s future trajectory and one’s summer break activities.

Lindsey Pollak has some advice about how to turn an internship into a job, and Hack College has a new and improved way to organize your internship applications with a spreadsheet. Get to it, people, or you’ll be looking at a lifetime of trying to survive on minimum wage and the tipping kindness of strangers.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(chicago botanic garden; cubicle; WDIV detroit)

My Ira-Glass crush began years back, while listening to This American Life on NPR. Watching Glass on the televised version only gave proof that my heretofore invisible crush on his brain and voice were physically accurate. (He’s a skinny geek with glasses! What do you people expect from me?! I can’t just shut that down!)

And then Mr. Glass allowed three Roadtrip Nationers to interview him about career advice. His answers were honest, complex, and blew not one iota of sunshine up anyone’s arse. The advice bits could be summed up as follows:

-Do what you love, but don’t expect to be good at it without working hard.

-Talent can absolutely come from hard work.

-There’s a good chance you’ll end up some place entirely different than where your carefully laid out plans were supposed to land you.

Ira’s best quote from the interview:

“I feel like your problem is that you’re trying to judge all things in the abstract before you do them. That’s your tragic mistake.”

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Regardless of who you are or what life situation you find yourself in the midst of, there are bound to be some misery-infested moments. School, work, and just plain day-to-day life have wretched bits that bring on the urge to shake your fist at the sky and demand some answers.

If every day, all day is like that for you, then I would suggest some changes. But if the unpleasant moments are just threads running through a solid, generally happy and contented life, you’ll be fine and can take the advice of Sergeant Felipe Perez (Williams College ’99) to “Embrace the Suck.” You can read his post on his blog, The Accidental Soldier, at his Alma Mater’s blog, EphBlog, or below.

Army port-a-potties the world over (I can speak to the US, Germany, Kuwait, Qatar, and Iraq, at least) are full of some of the crudest, funniest, and wisest graffiti ever. My personal favorite, scrawled or scratched into at least one potty in ever place I’ve ever been, is “Embrace the Suck.”

“Army Strong,” “Army of One,” “Be All You Can Be” aside, “Embrace the Suck” is the real Army motto. The wisdom is simple and powerful. War sucks. Soldiering sucks. The Army sucks. Deal with it. Get over it. Accept it. Embrace it.

I think I’m close.

Just came back from 5 days in the woods. Slept in the dirt. Got rained on. Tore my hands up taking machine guns apart in the dark. Got real stinky. In short, it sucked.

But on day three or four (we lose track), we had hot chow trucked out to the woods. It had stopped raining. The sun was setting behind the North Carolina woods, through a break in the rainclouds. The truck was blaring 80′s R&B as they pulled up, and we convinced them to open the doors and turn it up. Before long, plate full of lukewarm spaghetti in hand, funky buddies at my side, and bad music in background, I was as happy as can be. It wasn’t long before our pint-sized First Sergeant started screaming about something or other, but it was wonderful while it lasted.

Better yet, last night, our field days over, we rolled back into the FOB. I’ve never been happier to see broken showers, a crowded tent, and a dining hall full of bland food. I’m learning to embrace the suck.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

image: Bryce Muir

Catch-22 is safely ensconced in my top ten books list; it’s been there since I read it over a decade ago and I can’t imagine that it will ever be demoted. It’s such a perfect, perfect description of being caught in some bureaucratic, red-tape moment wherein the powers that be are unmoved by your pointing out of the obvious, utterly effed-up impossibility of your situation. You’re screwed because you’ve managed to find a special little corner of Rule Hell in which the guidelines contradict themselves and now there can be no forward or backward motion that might enable your extrication from the situation.

The job-hunting process can definitely be heavy on the Catch-22 nuances. This is especially true for the newly graduated. Your brain is packed full of (mostly) worthwhile information, but you lack any real job experience. Employers would prefer not to hire someone who has ridiculous amounts of knowledge but few real-world job skills. This realization usually makes the young job applicant scream (on the inside) something along the lines of How can I get any job experience if I can’t get an effing job, you freaks!

And there it is: you can’t get a job without experience and you can’t get experience without a job. Right out of college, you pretty much have a diploma and some summer job experience to bullet-point on your résumé.

And that is why god created the internship: the unpaid, coffee-fetching rite of passage that won’t make you much money but will teach you how to do the job you want so badly that you’re willing to work for free to learn how to do it. Internships are also invaluable networking venues; connecting with pertinent individuals in your field will be beneficial to future job searches and career moments.

Searching for internship opportunities is pretty similar to the job search process: search for “internships” on any job search site and a list of possibilities will magically appear. Alternatively, you can apply for an actual job, and note on your résumé that you’d like to be considered for the little- to no-pay internship version of the available position. What fool employer would turn down someone who’s willing to work for free? (This may not work in the law, medical or air traffic control fields).

If you’re still in college and are financially fortunate (or are really good at being poor) you can use the summer to do an internship. It’ll give you an extra bullet point on the résumé and will give you a better idea of what a job in your chosen field entails and whether you actually want to continue pursuing this career. Colleges and universities always have some informed person (librarian, career advisor, department secretary, etc.) who can hook students up with internship links, info, ideas and lists.

Further reading:

Internships a ‘win-win’ to help get job

Resources:

The Benefits of Volunteer Work
Top Eight Tips for Finding an Internship
How to Become a Volunteer to Gain Work Experience
Idealist.org

Posted by Alexa Harrington