How to Go to College 100% Debt Free in 17 Easy Steps

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I saw a statistic today that just hurt my soul. According to Nerdwallet’s 2021 Household Debt Study, “The average U.S. household with student debt owes $57,520.” That’s absolutely outrageous. But hopefully you haven’t gotten that far yet.

If you’ve clicked on this post, my hope is that you’re getting ready for college and haven’t borrowed an insane amount of money for school. If that’s you, in this post, I’m going to show you how to go to college 100% percent debt free.

However, I want to preface this fact first – it’s not going to be easy. In fact, getting through college without any debt is going to be one of the hardest things you’ve done in your life up to this point. But I promise you that it’s going to be worth it.

So I have good news for you: in this post, we’re going to be highlighting why it’s important to graduate debt free and the easy, 17-step guide for going to college debt free. Are you ready for this? Yep, let’s go!

Why it’s important to graduate debt free

1. Decades of debt

One of the most important reasons to graduate without debt is to avoid decades of debt repayment and struggle. You don’t want to be trapped with debt for 20+ plus years, so use this guide and my other two resource posts shown in tip #17 to help you do just that – avoid horrible school loans.

2. No debt

If you can stay out of student loan debt, you’ll have more income to spend on things you want. So you can either buy stuff in cash or save up, instead of using other forms of debt to pay for things. So stay out of student loan debt so that you can completely stay out of all debt!

3. Build wealth

Lastly, you need to avoid student loans and all other debt so that you can use all of your income to start saving and investing to ward wealth-building. You want to be able to do this as soon as possible. And it’s extremely hard to build any real wealth if you’re saddled with tens of thousands of dollars of student loans and other debt.

So do everything you can from this point forward to stay out of debt while you’re going to college. If you can do that, you’ll be way ahead of most college grads today. If you want to know how to go to college debt free, let’s check out the 17 tips in the next section of this post.

How to go to college 100% debt free in 17 easy steps

Before you go

Step 1 – Start planning early

Plan. Plan. And plan some more. Planning out EVERYTHING is the key to staying out of college debt. You want to start planning as early as you can, preferably as a freshman in high school.

Now I understand why a 9th grade freshman might not start planning for college. I mean, they JUST started high school. As I write this, my brother is preparing for high school. When I talked to him about college a few days ago, he had no idea of what he wanted to do or whether he even wanted to go to college.

But still try to start planning as early as possible because it gives you more time to make well-researched and informed choices, more time to visit schools, more time to get scholarships, and more chance to be successful and graduate college completely debt free.

The planning process can can take awhile and comprises of completing scholarships, picking and visiting schools, picking a major, figuring out how much parents are going to contribute, figuring out how much money you have to pay for school, how you’re going to pay your portion, and saving up for college.

As the great Benjamin Franklin once said, “if you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail.”

Step 2 – Set scholarship goals

Step 2 is to start setting scholarship goals. These are going to be mainly short-term (a few days to 3 years) and medium-term goals( 3 years to 10 years), but can be longer depending on your career track and degree pursuit.

For more about how to set goals, check out this post: “How to Make More Realistic Financial Goals in 2022”

Here are some common scholarship goals that you’re going to set:

Apply for at least one scholarship per week during all years before senior year of high school.
Apply daily, or as often as you can, for scholarships during senior year of high school.
Set a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) of having college completely paid for with scholarship money and cash.
Continue to apply for one scholarship per week while you go to college.
Have at least 25%-50% percent of all college paid for with scholarships.
Or any other custom scholarship goal that you can think of.

Don’t be afraid to set tough scholarship goals. I mean, I want you to have EVERYTHING paid for so that you don’t have any debt when you leave college. So while you’re in high school, try to apply for a scholarship EVERY SINGLE DAY.

If you did that for 4 straight years, you could apply to 1,460 scholarships in that time span. That would almost guarantee that you went to college debt free. Even if you just did one scholarship per week, that would be 208 scholarships applied for over your high school career. That’s still good. You’ll probably still win a few thousand dollars for school.

Step 3 – Read this book: “Confessions of a Scholarship Winner” by Kristina Ellis

If you’re looking for a FANTASTIC book on how to win college scholarships, check out “Confessions of a Scholarship Winner,” by Kristina Ellis here on Amazon.

Aside from the steps you can take from this post, Kristina’s book is a masterclass on how to win scholarships. In fact, during her years in school, Kristina won over $500,000 dollars in scholarships, helping her get a degree and stay out of all college debt. Check her book out if you really want to accelerate your debt-free degree progress.

Step 4 – Decide on an affordable school

Next up, I want you to start making a list of schools so that you can decide on an affordable school for yourself.

Sit down and start making that list of schools now.

I would try to find at least 10-15 schools that might be of interest to you. Then narrow that down to 10 or less. Out of those 10, find which ones are the most affordable. A good list will comprise of about 5-7 good, affordable schools.

Next up, physically visit each and every school. Find which ones fit you and which ones don’t. Then put in applications to every school that you like. It can be as little as one or two, but up to 5-7 schools. The more you can visit, the more thoughtful your decision will be for your school of choice.

Next, find your fit. Pick the schools you REALLY want to go to and apply to all of those schools. Then wait for your decision letters. Hopefully, you’ll get into all of them.

However, if you don’t get in, or you don’t want to go the traditional 4-year college route, consider starting with community college. Community college is a great way to at least start your schooling and/or get a 2-year associate’s degree. This is what I did. After I racked up tens of thousands in school loans, I stopped going to the 4-year college I was at and enrolled in a state community college. I graduated there and cash flowed my last two years of school to get my bachelor’s degree.

Trade school is a great option, too. It’s EXTREMELY affordable and you can get a great paying job right out of school once you complete the degree/certificate requirements.

But if school isn’t for you, don’t take out loans JUST to get a degree. That’s pointless. Try going straight into the workforce. Work a few years and find something you’re truly passionate about. Then you can save up and cash flow a degree (if it’s even needed).

Step 5 – Try to pick your major

Before heading off to college, you need to commit to picking a major. If you have no idea, it might be wise to start with community college classes. Otherwise, pick a major before college and start working toward it

And I want you to try to decide as early as possible…as in freshman year (1st year) of high school and NOT junior year (3rd year) of college. That’s going to cause you to make mistakes, which could keep you in school even longer and cost you more money. So decide early.

While preparing for college, start thinking about what you’re passionate about and what you want to do for work or a career after college. Think about a couple of things and start narrowing it down. Does criminal justice interest you? What about math and engineering? What about science? Try to find at least 2-3 things that interest you and start reading and researching those majors. You don’t have to pick before college, but if you can get a pretty good idea of what you want to do, you’ll have a much better idea once you get there.

If you graduate debt-free, you can do just about anything you want. You have more options and don’t have to take a poor-paying job just because loans are due. You have the opportunity to choose whichever job you want when the offers come in.

If you’re slammed with debt, you might be forced to take the crappy job just because you have to start paying back loans by the sixth month after you graduate. Having loans makes this transition period stressful.

So try to pick your major before you get to college so you can have a set schedule and you can graduate on time for no more than what you have to pay for your 4 years of college (or however many years you go to school).

Step 6 – Set a BHAG

If you’ve never heard of a BHAG, it’s simply a Big Hairy Audacious Goal, or an INSANELY HUGE goal that you hope to achieve in your life.

Now that you know what they are, I want you to start setting some BHAGs for college. You can set as many goals as you want, but I really want you to start with at least the following three:

A BHAG of getting into college.
A BHAG of getting your college degree and…
A BHAG of graduating college completely debt-free.

All of those are huge goals and you need to work hard toward each and every one of them…especially getting through college without debt. That’s tough. But I know that YOU CAN do it.

Step 7 – Determine how much parents will contribute

Now that you’ve made it through steps 1-5, it’s time to start getting serious about your college finances. The very first part of figuring out how you’re going to afford and completely pay for college is to determine how much your parents are going to contribute.

First, do your parents have anything saved for you in a College 529 Savings Plan? A College 529 Savings Plan is a great way to save money for college and your parents might have some money for you in one of these. If so, determine roughly how much you’ll have each year for college. I should have about $80,000 to $100,000 saved for my son in one of these accounts.

Next, will your parents be able to cash flow, or pay out of pocket, for some of your schooling? Cash flowing is basically putting cash money toward whatever you owe. We cash flowed my wife’s masters degree at $500 bucks a month, every month, for 3 years until she graduated. It sucked, but we didn’t owe anything when she was done.

Find out how much parents can help and then work together on paying for college. If you all put in the work to do everything you can to pay for school, you will surely graduate debt-free.

Step 8 – Make a “Total Cost Estimate”

Now this step is fairly simple, yet ridiculously important for figuring out your finances while in college. The “Total Cost Estimate” is a complete estimate of everything that you’re going to be paying for in college: tuition, room and board, fees, books, meals, and everything else that I haven’t listed. You will add it all up to get a yearly and total cost for all 4 years.

Like this: the total cost for everything in one year is $18,400 dollars. The next three years will probably go up each year so it’s safe to say $20,000 per year for 4 years. That means you’ll need about $80,000 dollars in total for college. That’s a lot but let’s break it down in the next couple of sections.

You need to know exactly how much school is going to cost. So do a total cost estimate and know how much you’re going to spend.

Step 9 – Develop a proper financial plan

Take your total cost estimate of how much school is going to cost you and start developing a plan for how you’re going to pay for it all.

Add up all of the money you’re going to have every year so that you can subtract from your total cost estimate and go from there.

The formula is (how much it’s going to cost) minus (how much you have to put toward it) = the remaining balance you have to make to pay for school.

Let me show you:

You know your schooling is going to cost you about $80,000 in total over 4 years. Next, you want to look at how much you will have to pay each year – easy, $20,000 bucks per year.

Add up all money that you’ll have going toward that amount – the $20,000 you owe.

You have the financial aid Pell Grant of $5,000 per year, parents addition of $5,000 per year, scholarships of $3,500 per year. This means that you have $13,500 dollars going toward your schooling each year and you’ll simply need to figure out how to cover the other $6,500.

So year 1 – you owe $20,000 dollars.

You have $13,500 dollars to put towards that.

$20,000

Minus

$13,500

= $6,500 dollars needed per year.

So you only need $6,500 dollars per year to pay off school completely!

If you break that $6,500 dollars down, that’s only $541.67 per month…easily achievable if you do a couple of things: cut expenses to the bone, manage and budget your money, work as much as possible, and find every way to save money on your education.

Whatever your total cost estimate and financial plan is, figure out how much it ALL costs, how much parents will contribute, and how much you’ll be getting for school in scholarships and grants. Once you do that, you’ll know exactly how much you need to work and contribute to your yearly tuition costs!

Once you start college

Step 10 – Cut expenses to the bone

This is pretty simple. While you’re in school, cut back on every single thing you can to save money. This will help you use every dollar to pay on your college tuition so that you can graduate debt-free. This will also teach you to live frugally, or “like a broke college student,” because you are a broke college student.

For more on how to cut expenses, check out this post – “101 Ways of Creatively Cutting Expenses to Save a Ton of Money.”

Step 11 – Budget your money

If you’ve never done a budget, it’s time to learn. Because budgeting is one of the most important financial concepts you’ll ever learn. Now I know you might be against the concept of budgeting because you’ve been told it’s “hard to do” or it’s “too restrictive.” But I promise you that it’s none of those things.

A budget allows you to control your money so that it doesn’t control you. It’s also permission to spend your money. You need to know where every dollar of your money is going, especially while you’re in college. So implement a budget in your personal finances.

So how do you budget? Simple. Add up all of your expenses every month and total everything up. Then subtract that amount from the money you make every month. You can do that using a zero-based budget, or a budget that helps you track every single dollar. Using the zero-based budget can also help you to not waste money in college and reach your financial goals faster (you know, like going to college debt-free).

So get on a budget today and watch what it can do for your finances.

For more, check out this post – “7 Ways a Zero-Based Budget is the Best Budget for Your Money.”

Step 12 – Work as much as possible

In order to have money to budget with, you have to work. And in college, I want you to work as much as possible so that you can pay for school. I highly encourage you to get a job, a second job, a side hustle, and start yard sale flipping. The more you work, the more chance you have to graduate college completely debt-free. It’s going to be hard, but you can do it!

A regular, hourly job is perfect for those who don’t want to go out of their way to start up a side hustle or yard sale flip. They’re plentiful and easy to get, but you won’t make as much as you’d like to make. These jobs are normally $10-15 dollars per hour and require set hours.

A second, part-time job can help to bolster the income from your first job. If you can handle it, work multiple jobs. You’ll make double the money and close in more quickly on your goal of a debt-free degree.

Adding on a side hustle like mowing lawns, cleaning houses, walking dogs, tutoring, or pressure/power washing can be tough to start, but it’s a job that can make you $30-40 dollars an hour or more if you start getting clients! That’s good money for a college student and it can add up really fast.

Lastly, I want you to think about learning how to yard sale flip. It’s simple. You go to yard sales on the weekend, find items on the cheap, and then turn around and sell them for more on sites like EBay and Mercari. It might take some know how, but once you get the hang of this, you can easily make a few hundred extra dollars per month.

If you do all of those things, you can easily make enough to offset any tuition that you have left to pay each semester or each year.

Step 13 – Study hard

Making sure to study hard while you’re in school does a couple of things for you:

First, it keeps you busy so that you’re not doing too many stupid things while in college. You can have a little bit of fun, but the majority of your time needs to be spent studying and working. Here’s a breakdown of how you should spend your time while in college – 50% going to class and studying, 40% working, 10% having fun.

Second, studying hard helps you to get good grades so that you pass your classes and graduate on time. Graduating on time means no flunking classes or taking extra classes. Doing that stuff always costs more money. So study hard. Pass your classes. And save that money!

Step 14 – Find free or cheap ways to have fun

There are almost unlimited ways to have fun for little or no money…you just have to find them. Fun things like hiking, cycling, disc golf, and exercising can all be free or inexpensive ways to have fun and save money while you’re in college. For more, check out this post here on my site – “101 Free and Cheap Things to Do As a College Student!”

Step 15 – Continue applying for scholarships

Just because you’re in college, that doesn’t mean you should stop applying for scholarships. The scholarship opportunities almost never stop while you’re in any kind of academic program, but especially while getting any undergraduate degrees. Keep applying, because any money given from this point on will only bolster your chances of graduating completely debt-free.

Step 16 – Commit to staying out of debt completely

From this point on, I want you to do something extreme. I want you to take debt off the table and commit to staying out of debt completely. I know this might be against everything you’ve been taught up until now. But if you want to live a good life, get a good job, and build wealth, you have to stay out of ALL debt. Because there is no “good debt.” It’s all bad and it will steal your money and keep you broke forever.

So start with college and figure out how YOU are going to graduate completely debt-free.

Step 17 – Check out these tips lists

Here are two awesome tips lists that I want you to check out here on my site:

“37 Ways to Save Money for College (Tips for Kids and Parents)“

“127 Simple Ways to Save Money as a Broke College Student!”

Finally

Working hard and paying for college is tough. You’re going to have to put in the effort and the hours if you want to graduate with a debt-free degree. However, it sure beats the alternative: graduating with $100,000 dollars or more of student loans and paying on them for decades. But the choice is yours – do you want graduate with a debt-free degree or with crippling student loan debt? I hope you take the challenge and make the right choice.