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Comment by slackingoff2017 | Hacker News Reader

slackingoff2017

Nothing in there about money? Here's one I figured out a couple years too late...

You got average grades and nothing unusual about you that would lead to scholarships? If you go to school the "normal" way you're likely to end up in huge piles of debt. Even if you go to community college first.

An open secret is location. Find a place in the country, or even another country, where college is subsidized for residents. Instead of going to community college in your home town, prioritize moving to that location ASAP.

Get a part time job, a crappy apartment, and start community college there. Pay close attention to their residency requirements to make sure you meet them as quickly as possible. Then transfer to the college of your choice and save tons of money

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This. I did this accidentally - that is, I didn't move to a new place, because my state already had a system that works really well for this.

The Virginia state schools are very inexpensive for the quality, and I did two years in the community college system and then transferred to James Madison with guaranteed admission (because of agreements between the state universities and the community college). JMU wasn't a noteworthy CS school at the time, but I also had the option to head to Virginia Tech or University of Virginia, both of which have great programs (JMU offered a minor in music business, which is what made my decision).

Tuition was <$4k/semester for residents at the time (class of 2011).

I know a guy who did this. He went to a state college for 3 years and then transferred to a super expensive private college for his last year and graduated from that school. So he can put on his resume that he graduated from the prestigious school even though he only went there a year.

good luck affording an apartment pretty much anywhere that is anything like that with a part time job these days.

This sounds unreal, but I found a place that was $210 a month about 6 years ago. The area was sketchy and the place was crap. Best thing about it was that it didn't have roaches.

Since college funding is usually on state level you have some latitude with where you initially move. Going to a community college in a farm town doesn't sound like a blast but it's probably the easiest way to make things work from a cash flow perspective.

Your friends/family are likely to think your "master plan" is crazy too lol

Soooooo fuck over the town for selfish, egotistical means. Got it.

I fail to see how moving to a place with better benefits is either one of those things.

Isn't that the reason that pretty much everyone moves? Better jobs, better schools, less crime, etc...

I guess it can be seen as egotistical and selfish if you're the kind of person that doesn't like anyone to build housing that spoils your view. The NIMBY archetype

I'm assuming The town/state people are taxing themselves to provide affordable education for people in their community, not for random exploiters.

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