How to Minimize the Cost of Getting a College Degree

Many high schools offer Advanced Placement courses that qualify for college credit at hundreds of colleges and universities. Earning AP credits can cut the time needed to complete your degree to as little as three years – reducing your total college cost by more than 25% and getting you into the workforce faster. The long-term impact is significant: two identical graduates who both save $500 per month at a 10% annual return will retire with a $1.1 million difference if one entered the workforce a year earlier. You can also earn college credit while still in high school through Study Hall, an online platform that lets you take college-level courses from Arizona State University on YouTube and earn transferable credits for $400 per course.

Freshman year of college consists primarily of general education requirements that have nothing to do with your major – courses you can take at a local community college just as effectively. By attending community college for two years, you earn an associate’s degree that guarantees admission to a four-year state school in almost every state. You will still graduate with your bachelor’s degree from the four-year institution, the name that will appear on your resume and you will cut the cost of college nearly in half.

Free college degrees are more widely available than most families realize. Free associate’s degrees are available at community colleges in 35 states, and 25 of those states offer free tuition at four-year schools as well. Among elite private institutions, MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Yale, Vanderbilt and Johns Hopkins all provide free tuition for financially eligible students. At MIT, students from families earning under $100,000 per year receive free tuition, room and board, books and personal expenses. It used to cost $86,000 per year to attend MIT; for most of its students today, it is completely free.

Thousands of employers across the country offer tuition reimbursement to employees who pass their courses. Among them are Amazon, Boeing, Chase, Chipotle, Disney, Fidelity, Home Depot, JPMorgan Chase, Starbucks, Target, T‑Mobile, Verizon, Walmart and many others. The arrangement: you work full-time, attend college part-time and your employer pays for it. Some companies require that you stay for a period after graduation; details vary by employer, so always ask before accepting a job offer.

Enlisting in the U.S. Armed Forces is one of the most comprehensive education benefit programs available. Active-duty service members receive up to $4,500 per year to take courses off-duty, applicable toward associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees. Veterans receive the Post‑9/11 GI Bill, which covers full public college tuition, a housing stipend, and $1,000 per year for books – benefits that can be transferred to a spouse or children. The Yellow Ribbon Program pays additional costs for private or out-of-state schools. VA Work-Study provides paid part-time work at VA locations while you are in school.

Transportation costs are easy to overlook until you calculate them. At minimum, you will make four round trips home each year for Thanksgiving, winter break, spring break and summer. Add family visits, and the cost of attending a school thousands of miles away can easily exceed $15,000 over four to six years – money no employer or institution will ever reimburse.

Room and board represents more than half the cost of college. Living at home while commuting eliminates that expense entirely. One in five young adults ages 25 to 34 already live at home. If you plan to live with your parents after graduating anyway, it is hard to justify spending $50,000 or more on housing while in school. The money saved can go directly toward savings and investments from the moment you start earning.