College DAPers, need your input.

Hello DAP.

I was wondering something.

How were some of you able to go through college, work, and able to pay off all debts like rent, bills etc.?

Is it simply working full time, somehow pulling 12+ credits a semester, and never taking any free time? (I believe someone here called these individuals Super Saiyans...)

I am in a dilemma where I am starting college, but part time work won't be enough as my $3000 semester can turn into $6000+ if I have to use some of my saved money in getting through each month that I have to work part time.

Full time work may work, but I would probably have to find a job that allows 2 of my work days to be the weekend days, so I have more of the weekdays open to allocate college classes to....but I may most likely have to do full time anyway to cover living expenses and take 3-6 credits per semester + 3-6 credits in the summer, giving me 18 credits per college year. This would give me a 6 1/2 year graduation timeline.

Can anyone give some tips or some info from experience?

I work what I call 3/4 time. I basically work 30 hours a week and I make sure that two of the days are Saturday and Sunday so I can dedicate more time to school during the week. I also live with my parents, so I don't have any expenses besides school, eating out once in a while, and entertainment. But working and going to school does limit how much free time you have.

Hmmm 30 hours, I wonder where I could find something like that. Usually its 20/40 hours or bust, with the jobs I am looking around at.

Nevertheless, with possibly only The Dream Act passing, there will be a deadline of like 6 years for example for me to get my degree, so I may have to sacrifice free time to save my future.

Are you living in a state where you are able to pay in state tuition? I live in California, so I was lucky that paying for school was not as expensive. for 12 units I paid roughly $300 and about $360 for 15 units. This was back when tuition for community colleges was $20 a unit. However, during my last semester it more than doubled to $44 a unit, so I paid about $570 for a 12 unit load. Now that I am at a CSU, tuition is about $3700, which I only have to pay $800 thanks to financial aid.

Anyway. The most important element that helped me pay for tuition and other living expenses was living with my parents. They did not require me to pay rent, food, or any utilities so as long as I went to school and paid for it on my own. This was definitely a good trade off for me.

As for work. I would average about 20-22 hours through the school semester and during the summer breaks I would do anything from the same 20-22 hours up to 40. The key to saving up for college and other living expenses is to be very cautious of how you spend your money. For example, I am a big coffee addict, so I would spend about $20 on coffee a week, that is about $80 a month and $1040 a year. After I brought this crazy expense in my life, I started to make my own coffee and I would treat myself to coffee once a week, or I got myself to just drink straight black coffee which only cost $1 at McDonalds.

Paying for college is definitely doable. You just need to come up with a game plan and do your best to stick to it. If you can stay disciplined, you can definitely accomplish it

I am eligible for in-state NY, thats $240 per credit. A 12 credit semester would end up around $2800, but there seems to be something where a full time student can pay a flat fee of around $2865 and increase credits which won't increase the tuition...So you're looking at 15 or 18 credits etc. at the same $2865. But the more credits you get the less time you have for a job, therefore in effect complicating your semester expenses making it come out to more, when you thought you were saving money in the long run.

Financial aid? Yikes...was trying to avoid that. Was any of it loans? Or were you getting grants etc.?

I would have to pretty much pay all my living expenses with some help from my father as we live together to cut down expenses, no way can we pay 2 separate rent, separate bills etc.

Yea, the planning with me is tricky as myself and my father are pretty much the ones with the expenses...not much help from anywhere else.

There is always going all out and taking a loan out for tens of thousands of dollars (Not even a student loan as I think you need to be a PR/USC for that) and hoping that what I graduate in helps me pay it off in my after years. But this is a longshot, and a recipe for disaster.

I am certainly in a predicament though, but I have some savings in the bank and DACA for now...but the last thing I need is to bleed out those savings in 1-2 years when I could've planned it out to keep me going for many years.

What I got from financial aid was a "CA Dream Act Grant" so I do not need to pay it back. Your situation does seem a bit more complicated. But if I were to take a positive out of it, I would say that if you are able to overcome this situation and you find that you have chose the right path without regret, it will definitely define your character and it will prepare you for further obstacles in life that you may encounter. Either way, I think you will make the right choice. Based on all of the responsibilities you have and how you have been able to make it this far, I have no doubt in my mind that you will succeed and be happy either way

Such a boss reply, Thanks......

I've worked in the fast food industry for the past 3 years, so it's pretty easy to get a job where I can work weekends and evenings. And it also helps that Oregon has the second highest minimum wage in the U.S.

I would suggest looking into whether your schools has an appeals process and figure out how to complete that process. It is not always advertised but many schools have this in case there are students that are unable to afford their education.

They do not always anticipate situations that you are facing, or situations common to undocumented students, so when they give you an offer for tuition assistance they oftentimes assume that you will be able to make up the rest with federal student loans and scholarships, in this case you cannot get federal student loans and scholarships are limited. So an appeals process would allow you to let them know of those challenges, how much you are actually able to afford and armed with that situation they may be able to make an exception, whether it be a more affordable payment plan extended over a longer period of time, additional money they may have set aside for this situations, or options where you may attend college part time or take leave of absence.

I started my school year paying roughly 9k per year, by the third year the increasing tuition had raised my costs to almost 20k per year before I found out about the appeals process. Went through it and they reduced my tuition to less than 6k per year with additional scholarships based on what I was actually able to contribute to the costs. Before then I was pretty much depending on a lot of family members helping me pay for college. But what you have to take into account is that the college already made a commitment to have you as a student, and they based this decision based on skills that they thought you could bring to their school, so they might be more interested in working something out with you that keeps you as a student and allows you to graduate sooner without many obstacles, after all, a lot of universities depends on their graduates to donate money after they graduate and get into their higher paying careers.

NY Minimum Wage - $7.25 I will probably end up with $120 every week working 20 hours after taxes maybe...and this may work if the workplace doesn't stress me, and my father can maintain the remaining living expenses we will have.

This is awesome information. I will definitely research this...and I have a feeling I can pull this off within 4-6 years...