Purita Ramos.

So…you are now ready to embark upon a journey through college, and, with some luck, come out of it 4 years later, with a BS or BA degree, in the major of your choice. Things are different now for you, then they were in I first began college, back in 1980. There were more choices. Financial aid was more abundant, and it basically paid for your college education. While there is more financial aid in terms of actual dollars…college tuitions have gone up faster than the increases in financial aid. For you today, it means having to borrow more money. More disturbing is that you will look toward your own family…or yourself, to make the amount of money necessary to graduate from college.

The reason is distressingly simple. With the increase in college tuitions has come a larger and larger gap in the amount of financial aid available vs. college tuition. For you…it means having to come up with more money. If you’re already working and living on your own here in Boston, it means your situation is all but untenable. It means you probably don’t have the means to save the money you need to pay the tuition. It might not matter right now…but it will matter once you’re in your 3^rd year of school. It is about at that point that you will run out of borrowing ability from the federal government’s Direct Loan program. It is then you will come up against the dilemma of how to cover your tuition payments. And it will be a dilemma; one best figured out now, rather than later. If you’ll live at home, you’ll have a special advantage. But…what if you can’t live at home? Your options become poorer and poorer. You could live with roommates. In fact, you might not have much choice, if you’re going to pay the rents in this city and come up with the tuition, books and fees required of you—and pray your financial aid doesn’t dip (and I figure it will dip, as more and more of the Congress’ tax cutting laws come into effect.). If you try to make it alone, no doubt you will find yourself in an even more uncomfortable position.

There is the private educational loan, but you’ll find that you won’t get it, unless your credit is very good. If you have no credit, or your credit is otherwise bad…you’ll need that co-borrower. If you have no co-borrower, you are out of luck—that's it. They will no give you another look. Otherwise…there will be no more money, unless you get a credit card that has a very high credit limit, a job that pays more than you need to spend, or a job that will pay your tuition (more jobs are offering that, in an attempt to maintain a highly educated workforce, abreast on the latest developments on the job.). That credit card won’t really help; you’ll still have to pay that bill every month. You can make them chase you…but it sacrifices your credit history, which can then affect your ability to buy a house, a car, or even rent another apartment. It can even affect your chances of getting work; at last count, about 35% of all employers take a credit report on their future employees. But that’s getting ahead of the analysis. Bad credit invariably leaves you with the inability to get a private educational loan—and with that, your chance of finishing your education without some sort of support, including a good-paying job, becomes nil.

We advise you look for all the private college scholarships you have the time to look for. If you have a public library within easy reach, use that—and their computers—to aid in your search. If you’re a high school senior, there are scholarships specially suited for you. Want more information? Click here.