Voices
a fast-growing school in the suburbs of Atlanta, in 2011. It was the
same year that the total amount
of student loan debt in the U.S.
reached a whopping $1 trillion,
but when I graduated, I did so as a
completely debt-free individual.
I never accumulated credit card
debt, and more importantly, I got
through a four-year university
without taking out a single student loan. Considering the statistics, coming out of college without a cent in the red sounds like
a nearly impossible feat. But my
positive net worth stands as proof
that it is possible (and no, you
don’t need a wealthy family or a
sugar daddy to make it happen).
Here’s how I managed to escape
college as a debt-free millennial:
I scored scholarships. When I
went off to college, three scholarships that were awarded for academic merit came with me. Two,
I received for scoring the highest
SAT scores in the county where
I attended high school. The third
was the HOPE scholarship, which
was huge for me. Funded by the
Georgia lottery, it was generously
awarded to any student who had
and maintained a 3.0 GPA or better. It was a really good incentive for keeping my grades up to
KALI
HAWLK
HUFFINGTON
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standard in college. Though I had
classes I slacked in, I made sure
my GPA stayed well above the
cut-off for receiving HOPE, and I
eventually graduated with a 3.6.
I stayed in-state and went to a
cheap school. Going out-of-state
was never an option. The out-ofstate fees seemed downright unreasonable, especially considering how many universities there
were in Georgia that I could at-
Out-of-state fees seemed
downright unreasonable,
especially considering how
many universities there were
in Georgia that I could attend.”
tend. And although I had wanted
to attend the University of Georgia, the historic school in Athens
was more than three hours from
my home and expensive. Kennesaw State University, on the
other hand, was cheap and was
close enough that I could live at
home. Kennesaw State’s tuition
was also incredibly low. When
I started, a semester only cost
about $3,000, fees included. My
HOPE scholarship covered the
tuition, while my other schol-