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Tag Archives: Education

How to Get Through College Without Drowning in Student Debt

Part v: What about Free Education for All?

woman studying

The cost of your education isn’t just the money you spend. It’s also the long hours you spend studying. It includes the opportunity costs of things you couldn’t do while studying and paying for your education.

This is going to be a short post. Both Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have proposed making higher education free for anyone who wants a college degree. Free higher education will solve the problem of student loan debt, but it is a short-sighted solution.

A long time ago, Robert Heinlein wrote a story about California addressing the income inequality between those with a college education and those without by granting all citizens a Bachelor’s degree on their 18th birthday.

Problem solved! No more income inequality due to educational differences. Continue reading →

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How to Get Through College Without Drowning in Student Debt

I love how graphics always make a process seem so much simpler than it really is. But seriously! Wholesaling is the best way for many people to get into this business. Those who are great at marketing choose to make it the only thing they do.

Part Four: Another Way

You knew I’d eventually bring this thread back to real estate investing. Didn’t you? Well, of course I would. Let’s not talk about the fact that it takes me three posts to describe a two-part solution.

Long after I graduated from university, I started investing in real estate again. I get to meet a lot of wonderful people from very diverse backgrounds. I once met a young woman who wanted to be a lawyer. Her family could afford the tuition, books, and dorm expenses for her, but it put a real strain on her parents’ finances. Continue reading →

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How to Get Through College Without Drowning in Student Debt

Part III: Pay for Your Education Without Sacrificing Your Future

Many people graduate university with enough debt to buy this nice starter house in Cameron, TX. Now add the stress of finding a job and starting a career so that you can begin to repay that debt. There has to be a better way!

One of my younger friends once told me a staggering truth while recovering from the party to celebrate his graduation from the University of Texas. “Yesterday, I knew who I was,” he began. “I was a college student with a 3.7 GPA. I lived in a dorm and had a meal plan. This morning I’m homeless and unemployed.”

Being homeless, unemployed, and facing a mountain of debt with no real hope of ever paying it off is not an uncommon situation in this country.

Unless you are born to wealth, there are only a few options to obtain a degree without also acquiring ridiculous amounts of debt. The most obvious way is to work and pay as you go. That’s what I did. I graduated with honors from both my undergraduate and graduate programs without debt by working full-time while being a part-time student.

Here’s How I Did It

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How to Get Through College Without Drowning in Student Debt

Part B: Decide If You Really Need to Go to College

Declan

Exceptionally smart (but I might be prejudiced), Declan is one of the most creative people I know. Traditional academia did not suit his learning style. Now he is building his own success story in his own manner, without being stifled by a system designed to produce employees.

The first decision you need to make in determining your financial future is whether you really need to go to college or university. I know suggesting some young people don’t need to go to college borders on heresy. After all, I have a master’s degree in Education! But the truth is:

Some people are not temperamentally or intellectually suited for an academic life.
All of our kids and bonus children are whip-smart, but many of them do not learn well in a traditional academic setting. For young people like this, being forced into a traditional education or career path can not only frustrate them to no ends, it can also damage their initiative, creativity, and likelihood of success.
This is not an excuse for academic laziness. But the decision on whether to pursue a university degree should depend on your goals, learning style, and talents. Like everything else in life, this I hope you never base this decision on peer (or parental) pressure or worse: the “everyone else is doing it” excuse.

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Wisdom…at any age

It takes a lot of effort to squeeze out all this wisdom. But at least I have my weird hair to fall back on.

So, Lee and I are both approaching major decade birthdays. Some folks are hesitant to admit it when they arrive at “late middle age,” like we are. But not me. I am pretty proud to have made it to my 60th year in really good health and with my brain intact. And I would not want to be younger! Sure, fewer things hurt, but wow, did I do some dumb things. I was full of the book learning, but lacked the experience it takes to have real “wisdom.”

Of course, I’m still learning, but now that I am old and wearing purple (hair and glasses, that is), I’m no longer thinking about things in terms of absolutes, I am way less judgmental of people of different backgrounds or ideologies, and challenges I’d avoid at all costs are now just interesting things to try. (Note: I am still not going sky diving.)

My younger readers may be saying to themselves, “Shoot, is getting older the only way to gain wisdom? Do I just have to sit here and marinate for a while?” And if you are a real estate investor, I’m sure you want to be getting deals and building your wealth NOW, if at all possible.

Jump starting wisdom

Whew, it’s okay. Hey, you may be one of those lucky individuals who are just born wise beyond their years. Maybe your deity just handed out wisdom to you, or you learned a LOT in that past life.

Granted, that’s probably not the case with most of us. How can you work to become not just smart, but also wise, starting early? Here are my ideas, from the top of my purple head:

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