My advice is work hard and get in and out in at the most4 years. I had friends who even graduated in 3.5 years. Just focus and get it done. You’re paying so get your moneys worth and get that degree.

So my tip, don’t bother with Uni.

I would say that scholarships are an excellent way to save money. In my case I went to BCIT and their staff actually phoned me to ask me to sign up for scholarships because they thought I had a good chance of winning them. I won one internal one and one external which paid for my whole first year. It would have paid for more, but I bought a laptop and traveled (I slightly regret traveling but not the laptop since I was in Computers). I didn’t work during school in order to keep my GPA up (BCIT is renowned for having a very demanding course load and they actually recommend that people don’t work during their program). I did try to join activities at school though and wound up being Valedictorian.

On top of that, although I lived at home going to BCIT taught me to be frugal. To this day I still don’t own a car because I can get to most places I need to by bus. So I got an education and life lessons and came out of it with a positive net worth!

* buy day old donuts.. better, week old donuts are free!
* charge visiting friends for food you serve them
* when going to those inexpensive house parties drinking cheap booze, you might find a fortune in between couch cushions

enjoy!

In his case in early to mid-90s in Waterloo you could rent a room for $250-$325. He had 6 rooms in his house and seemed to do ok with it.

Telly, I would say those fancy Caribbean vacations as a student would take a bite out of the net worth. :) I would say they were worth every penny though!

Dividend Growth, I’m with Telly on the subject of buying the house instead of renting. In order for that to happen, the student would definitely need a co-signer/parent for the mortgage.

The problem with buying a house as a student is that the income just isn’t high enough to get approved for a mortgage, but even if it were possible, where could one get a 4 bedroom house with a $400/month mortgage?!

Being the landlord of student housing is not glamourous, and it’s definitely not something I could have done as a university student. Most of the problems that occur seem to arise during exams!

Sadly, I followed a number of FT’s rules (lived at home, partied on the cheap, earned a degree that offered good paying ($18-20/hr + OT) work terms each year) but still ended up with student loans and a negative net worth after it was all said and done. Kind of embarrassing really. I’m not sure where it all went but I know I blew a good chunk of it by travelling to the Caribbean at the end of each year to celebrate making it through another year.

I’ve come a long way since then, and they were GT’s so no real regrets but it does make me think how much earlier I could retire if I had done things a bit more like FT!

That aside:

- How about getting a trade 1st? you could become a carpenter in about 4-5years out of high school. You could save more than enough during the 5 years, learn a very useful skill. And if you like it enough, it may just save you from going to school in the 1st place… Alot of people goto school to study a major with no career potential and then work at Safeway or construction ,etc.. Also you could funnel your money into dividend paying stocks and actually have positive net cashflow during school…

- Share a bedroom, I know it sucks for “networking” (lol, perfect term btw)… But I rented a house and rented out every room including part of my own and ended up paying a whopping $35 in rent per month (thats not a typo, $35 a month)…

- You can share a text book with a fellow student, each pay half to buy it.. Then sell at the end of the semester and split the sale price..

- Most campuses have “free” gyms that are included in your fees.

- Most campuses have food banks if you’re actually that poor.

- You can get alot of free entertainment and friends at your local church..

- You do not need a laptop (maybe if your in Comp. Sci) or even a home computer.. Most campuses have plenty of computers, with free IT teams to maintain them, You just have to schedule yourself right, ie. no late night papers.

- I personally scrapped the idea of working during school in order to boost my GPA in hopes that I would get more scholarships.. last year I received a good internship and $1000 scholarship because of my GPA..

I worked full time all the way through undergrad, but still had to take out some student loans to cover my $27,000/year (at a state school, even) tuition. They’re -almost- paid off, now, though, only two years after graduating–and my net worth is positive, finally.

(I’ve been saving and investing at the same time as paying them down, since the loans are between 4-6%.)

A couple of things that really helped was I had a part-time job through school and was able to get good summer jobs – though not career-related they paid well.

I also put a focus on physical and mental well-being. I found if I got my 7-8 hours of sleep and jogged or worked out 6 days a week, my marks would fall into place.

Outside of that, the other system that worked well was I got my roommates to agree to a common list of household chores to keep the house neat and tidy. Women liked to come to our place because it wasn’t a disgusting mess like a lot of other guy’s places.

If I were going to school now I there are several things I would have done differently:

1) Purchase a house rather than rent. A monthly mortgage payment for a house in the university town that I studied was twice as much as the monthly payment for rent. But if I had a 4 bedroom house with 400/month in mortgage and then rent 3 apts @ 200/month, I would have come out even ( after prop taxes, fixing stuff etc).
2) Network even more with fellow students and create a wider network of contacts
3) Try to have your major picked out as early as possible, so that you don’t have to stay the whole 4 years, but maybe 3 years.

During school I kept a running total of my student loan balance on my bulletin board so that I’d always be mindful to minimize borrowed money. Also used the public library for books and DVDs :)