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Comment by FreakLegion | Hacker News Reader

Always, always, always find a school that will pay your way. I racked up a "mere" $10,000 as an undergraduate (thank you, Bay Area, for your insane cost of living), and even that was too much.

As a result, money ended up being a big part of the graduate program I chose. This allowed me to actually make money on graduate school. The lesson being: college is a system, and you should learn to game it.

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This is good advice to give to specific individuals, but it's unrelated to the systemic debt problem. Your strategy can't apply to the broad population, or the universities wouldn't have any money with which to pay your way.

I'm not talking to individuals. I'm talking to a specific, highly motivated group of people, some of whom are pursuing undergraduate or graduate degrees, some of whom are considering pursuing undergraduate or graduate degrees.

Downvote all you like, but I've learned a few things through three degrees at three different universities, and my advice remains the same -- particularly for anyone attending a for-profit school or graduate school:

If you plan on going to college, learn to game the system.

I used to work for a college and understand how what colleges call "enrollment management" works. I told my kids to sell their grades and SAT scores and go to the school that would give them the most money. All got decent educations with minimal debt and all went on to graduate school no matter what college they graduated from. I don't know if it is the egos of parents that want their kids to go to schools that wouldn't have taken the parents on a bet 25 years ago or something else. If it isn't a Ivy school is just isn't worth going into a lot of debt.

$10,000 debt out of undergrad isn't really that big of a burden. $115 per month for 10 years, or $200 per month for 5 years.

This: college is a system, and you should learn to game it.

Same with graduate school. Hustle it.

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