Ask HN: How can I pay for college?

When I was a student, I met a guy who would go to school one semester, then work the next+summer in construction. Then back to school. He seemed perfectly happy to pay the school bills this way.

Some years later when I returned to undergrad education in CS, I took advantage of several summer internships and coops. The money I earned through those basically covered the completion of my undergrad CS degree.

Maybe you could do the same? Does this USC program support coops? I would guess that you could make a large portion of the costs through that type of work.

I will say that my first suggestion echoes many other comments on this page. Don't incur a bunch of debt for undergrad education. Go to the cheap school and work hard to do really well. Definitely try to get internships and work experience. I might go so far to suggest that you look at the institutions you are considering and see which ones have particularly well-formed, visible internship programs in place.

My CS undergrad program was incredibly focused on the transition from school to work. It made getting internship and coop opportunities much easier. My (top 25) CS grad school was almost entirely focused on turning out PhD candidates into academia and had almost no real industry network to speak of. As a matter of fact, the several job offers I had in hand when finishing my MS in CS were with companies I had interned with during my undergrad days. My grad school professor network resulted in not a single job lead.

Wouldn't going to USC mean $120,000 in loans, not 150k?

Unfortunately I don't think 120k in loans in tenable. Go to UF and make the most out of a free education.

I'm actually surprised you didn't get more financial aid, if your parents truly do not have any spare income for college (I'm assuming when you said they have no income you mean no income for college; if they truly don't have any income I'd be even more surprised you didn't get more aid).

USC would be slightly less than $120,000 in private loans plus ~$30,000 in government loans.

The reason why I didn't get better financial aid is that my father had a very high income last year, but lost his job. He now owns his own business while trying to find a job, but his business is loosing money. So right now my patents literally have no income, but financial aid calculations are usually calculated based on the previous year's tax returns.

Contact the school's financial aid department and explain the situation. They may not be able to help you much this year but they may be able to help you figure out how to re-apply next year. Unfortunately, financial aid calculations are a mysterious black box and your inputs do not fit into it well.

If you REALLY don't want to go to Florida, then there is always the option of community college for a year or two and then transferring. And again you may qualify for more need based aid that way in a year or two.

Also remember that you may change what you want to do several times over the course of your college career. And then several times in your adult life afterwards. At 150k in loans you may very be better off financially working as a janitor at one of these schools than being a student.

My affordable option would be to go to the University of Florida. Because of my Florida Prepaid plan, the Florida Bright Futures program, and a scholarship I was awarded, I would actually be GIVEN money to go there, at least for my freshman year. However, Florida does not have a partially strong computer engineering program, and I have been told that the department is very theoretical, where as I would prefer a more practical education. (I also have strong personal reasons for not wanting to go to UF, but any economist would tell me that making a decision off of these would be highly irrational.)

So, with the exception of taking out $150,000 in loans that I may not even qualify for, is there any other way I could pay for college? I was hoping to get an internship this summer that could possibly cover part of the cost, but I haven't been able to find one. Are there any programs that offer tuition for a percentage of future earnings? Would any investor want to pay for my college for a large stake in my first startup?

Thank you for any suggestions.

University of Florida would work well for you under those circumstances. You can get the practical side by working on your own GitHub projects--I know young people who have been there and done that.

Gainesville isn't appealing for everyone. For some just as a city [the former "Hogtown"], for others perhaps because of the continued exposure to obnoxious sports rivalries typical in the Southeast.

It can even come down to which fraction of one's graduating class is attending which school and other factors which often disappear once people actually get to university.

My comment based on I also have strong personal reasons for not wanting to go to UF, from the OP,

I lived and studied in Gainesville at two different phases of my life. I have longtime friends who still live there, more who graduated and moved away. I have high school friends who many years ago went and left in their teens because it wasn't the right environment for them.

Now I live in a southern university town and meet young people whose college selection is strongly shaped by sports team affiliation. That's American high school and university culture whether or not anyone thinks it should be. At the OP's age I categorically rejected considering FSU for entirely non academic reasons - my high school class broke FSU or UF in part based on who we did not want to go to school with.

Are there any programs that offer tuition for a percentage of future earnings? Would any investor want to pay for my college for a large stake in my first startup?

No and no.

I sympathize enormously with your predicament here, but your best option is primarily going to be loans. You can also spend the next several months aggressively essay-writing for hundreds of $500 to $2k a pop scholarships given out by numerous private organizations in the US. I did it like a pretty serious part-time job and shaved about $13k off the cost of college.

If the $100k+ in marginal indebtedness gives you pause, consider strongly whether the marginal increase in your employability is different with the degrees. My guess: not that much.

I would take the option to go to UF for free. Maybe it's more theoretical than you want but you might find you like it. Some of my favorite engineering classes were ones I knew nothing about before college. Also Florida is a pretty good school. I wouldn't sell it short.

For most employers, there is little difference between Florida and USC. All things being equal, I think just about every one of them would hire a UF grad with a few interesting open source projects over a USC grad without a Github account. Definitely not worth the extra tuition money in my opinion. Try Florida for a year and transfer if you don't like it.

[edit: I am assuming that the Florida Prepaid Plan and Bright Futures Scholarships can still be used at any of the State's Universities. I know that was the case a few years ago, but with all the financial and political upheaval following the housing bust, it's only an assumption]

UF isn't the only State University with degrees in computing. FSU is fairly well regarded academically in general. It focused on super computing in the 90's [1]. Historically UCF has had solid practically oriented computing and engineering programs because of its strong ties to industry and origin as a commuter school and large number of working students [2].

South Florida and FIU are also options which would be low cost in your situation.

At the undergraduate level you'll get out what you put in. If you confirm computer science as what you want to do and pursue it with rigor, name schools will be an option at the graduate level. One thing about academia is that performance tends to open doors.

It is probably worth visiting these departments and talking to faculty. I'd encourage you to go in with an open mind wherever you go and to form opinions from direct experience- getting better opinions about a field is why we go to college.

Good luck.

[1] https://www.sc.fsu.edu/ and https://rcc.fsu.edu/services/hpc

[2] http://cs.ucf.edu/

> At the undergraduate level you'll get out what you put in. If you confirm computer science as what you want to do and pursue it with rigor, name schools will be an option at the graduate level. One thing about academia is that performance tends to open doors.

Right. If you do well for your Bachelors, with a good GPA, good subject understanding, and a good relationship with some of your professors, you can always get an MS from a better school. Finances may be less of a problem then as you may get a research position or be a TA for an undergrad class when you are getting your MS. For professors you get along with, or if you are particularly interested in their area of expertise, be sure to develop a small relationship with them, go to their office hours even if you don't need to, and maybe they have a friend at MIT, Stanford etc. and can write you a letter of recommendation for them to get into their graduate school.

If you tell people you got your Phd from Stanford and your MS from MIT, where you got your undergrad from is suddenly of much less concern. It's not all about the name anyway, a motivated UF undergrad is probably better off in the long run then an unmotivated undergrad at a slightly more prestigious school. If you spend five months in a class studying assembly and processors and your professor is not so good, read the textbook, write some assembly on your own, read other textbooks and books. I often went beyond the necessary, required reading if the subject was interesting and/or important.

Also look for research lab openings for undegrads at your school. Talk to the other CS students at your school, the department advisors etc., get on mailing lists, go to events, related campus clubs etc.

I was able to graduate with no debt by attending College of the Ozarks, where students work 15 hours on campus to pay for tuition. I worked during the summer to take care of room and board and books. I might be biased, but I still think it's a great school.

https://www.cofo.edu/

It is not much help the first year, but on campus jobs, specifically in housing can help a lot. It can cut $10-20K/year down in cost.

Room and board is typically the highest expense after tuition and if you can cut that down to nothing it can go a long way.

It also doubles as a great way to meet people who are working their way through school.

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