Student loans are a serious problem. You should know that you can graduate from college without having to go into debt and I’m going to share with you how in this video.

In this article I’m going share with you the $40,000 mistake that I made in college. What was that? Well, it was taking student loans for my bachelor’s degree. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Man I know I want to go to college. I want to get a good education and I want to do well. You know they tell me that the college that I go to is going to determine what kind of job I get.”

Let me tell you that’s false, straight-up false. You don’t have to go to the Harvards or the Yales or the Princetons of this world. You know, the schools that are advertised to you as, “Oh go to this school and you’ll get paid the most, you’ll make the most money.”

First off, making a lot of money is not the goal, all right? Finding what you love and getting compensated for what you deserve is, and I really want that to drive home with a lot of people because if, especially the young generation, if you can make $50,000, $60,000 or $70,000 and if you follow a lot of the tips that I talk about here on the Habesha finance platform, and on the website, then you’ll do very, very well.

Choose an Affordable College

Now, the first key in order to avoid $40,000 of debt is going to a college that you can afford, obviously. So don’t think about trying to go to an out-of-state college if you’re not going to get it fully paid. Does that make sense? So unless you have a lot of money in the family or you’re getting X amount of scholarships to cover four or five years of school, then there’s no reason for you to go to a college outside of your home state where you might have the opportunity to go to college for free.

I know in some states, community college is free! Tennessee is one of those States where community college is free, and for Georgia residents, if you live in the state of Georgia you have access to the HOPE scholarship, where you can actually go to a lot of great state schools for free as long as you maintain a certain GPA. So don’t think about going to a college that you cannot afford, especially if it’s out of state and you’re going to have to come out $50,000 or more in student loan debt. It’s just not wise. I want you to be the best you can be and having $80,000 when you graduate with a bachelor’s degree is only going to set you back.

Avoid Credit Cards

Another way to avoid the $40,000 of student loan debt that I had when I graduated is not using credit cards until you’re the age of 25. When it comes down to it I’m not a fan of credit cards anyways, but if you’re one of those people who wants to build their credit and just get the points and build, build, build all these points up for, you know, your own purpose, your own game. Well, what I’m going to tell you is wait until you’re the age of 25. Now I’ve heard, and there are studies that show like the parts of your brain that do a lot of the responsible decision making don’t develop till the after the age of 25. This makes a lot of sense because some young people make very bad choices and just very unfortunate choices.

A lot of really important choices are made between the ages of 18 to 25 and if you can avoid the use of credit cards, then that’s going to keep you from being reckless with a credit card than if you had one. So many young people are experiencing defaulting on credit cards, going bankrupt, having to deal with collections on debt that they owed. Avoid $40,000 of student loan debt. Avoid using credit cards and just avoid having that stress of all this debt on your back when you graduate. All right? Don’t be like me when I graduated from college.

Get a Job and Earn Income

Another thing you can do to help you avoid taking $40,000 of debt is work through college, all right? Especially doing internships or co-ops or just having a part time job that you have after you finish classes that you can go to to help pay for any tuition or fees that you have. Getting a job and working through college is really a great way for you to be able to not have to pay so much money out of pocket or, you know, from your parents or whoever is helping pay for your school that isn’t a bank or student loan and gets you to that point where you can graduate and not have any debt that you’ve accrued over the four or five years.

Take a Break From School

Now one way you can also avoid taking $40,000 of student loans is taking a break. This might not be a popular decision, a popular opinion, but taking a year off to work and save money so that you can go back to school and pay for that tuition, pay for those fees, I think is really a great opportunity and it’s really not a bad decision when you think about the longterm impact, if you can work.

Save that money. Be responsible and use it for your tuition, for your fees. I guarantee you that when you graduate, you will be a lot better off because you won’t have student loans. You’ll have experience working in the workforce, understanding taxes and seeing what a real paycheck looks like.

And that way you have a little bit of real world experience when you graduate. So when you get that career job that you want, you understand some of the in ins and outs of what real life working is all about.

Get Cheap Housing

Now a final tip to avoid $40,000 of student loan debt is living at your parents’ home. Of course, this has to be okay with mom and dad or mom or dad, and I really think that they would be understanding if you made this decision, because that’s going to save you a lot of, you know, money.

When you think about how much it costs to rent an apartment, how much it costs. To rent a dorm, you know, on campus, and if you can avoid some of those costs, that’ll save you several of thousands of dollars. Okay. Take it from me. I’m in my mid thirties and I graduated with a bachelor’s degree, a four year degree that took me five and a half years to graduate. I accumulated $40,000 of student loan debt that thankfully I’ve paid off after 10 years. And I really don’t want the next generation to go through this too. Find a way to get through your first four years of college debt free.

Get that bachelor’s degree without taking student loans. Bottom line, I don’t want to see anyone who see this go to a four year college and accrue $40,000 or thousands of dollars of debt just to get that bachelor’s degree. Learn from my mistakes, take it from me and make sure that you get through that four years of school without any debt, by going to community college, by working, by living at home with your parents, and just taking time off when you need to say you can save a little money and pay for the next year.

This is your future. This is your life, and I want it to be the best that you can be.