Here’s a tip that I definitely recommend from personal experience. If you’re a grad student, get a job while you’re in school. I didn’t work for my first two years of grad school, and that’s the main reason for my $20,000 hole. If I would have been more proactive, then I could have avoided getting into this much debt in the first place.
Depending on your college or university, there will be different policies regarding graduate student workers. At my school, if you are a graduate student doing work related to your field of study, the school covers your tuition in addition to the pay from your job. You’re basically going to school for free and have additional income to cover regular expenses like rent, food, etc. It doesn’t get much better than that for a grad student. Even if that’s not enough to eliminate the need for student loans, it will greatly reduce the amount you have to borrow in the first place.
There are two types of jobs I would recommend:
Graduate assistantships - Assistantships include a monthly stipend, which varies in amount depending on the number of hours required for the assistantship, student status, source of the funding, or nature of the assistantship assignment. These are intended to facilitate progress toward a graduate degree. In general, there are two types of graduate assistantships: research and teaching. For research assistantships, you will do work for a professor or professors related to their research. For a teaching assistantship, you help out professors by being a TA for their courses. Talk to some of your professors and see if they have any positions available.
On campus jobs -If you can’t find a graduate assistantship, the second best option is an on campus job. I recommend an on campus job, because they are usually more flexible with your work hours. They understand that you are a full-time student as well, so they won’t force you to work extra hours or ask you pick up hours for someone else when you need to be doing school work. The other reason is that an on campus job may be required to qualify for your school to cover tuition. Check with your school’s financial aid office to find out.
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