Hi all,
I am new to this forum and stumbled upon it when looking for successful entrepreneurship forums. I saw a lot of great progress threads on here which inspired me to join and start a thread of my own. I'll try to keep this relatively neat and organized so you can all follow:
(IF YOU CHOOSE TO SKIP THE BACKGROUND STORY AND JUST WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON NOW, PLEASE SKIP TO THE "ABOUT ME" SECTION)
My Journey thus far
It was 2011 and I had just graduated high school.. Thank goodness. Years of getting pushed around were finally over. My weak physical structure screamed as an outward manifestation of my inner emotional state. I was weak, my life was in shambles, and I knew it. So many questions ran through my head as I graduated, and I couldn't answer a single one.
"What is the meaning of life?" "What are my next steps?" "Where do I go to college?" "Do I go to college?" "What do I do with my time?" "Who do I spend my time with, and how are they impacting my decision making?"
These questions echoed in my head as I headed off to community college. Let's go back a few years prior to this and see what blur of a direction I was headed in..
The start of a business
When I was around 14, 15 years old I was addicted to video games. They were an easy escape from the insecurities I fought with on a daily basis in reality, so why not just stare at a computer screen all day and live in a reality where I was more successful than the world I actually lived in?
The video game addiction became so bad, I was actually hallucinating that I was playing when I would try to sleep. My dreams were consumed by video games, and I was fearing for my life. By a matter of chance, I stumbled upon a life coach on Yahoo Answers who broke down a lot of my structures and patterns, and after several years and thousands of emails later, I was starting to grasp the roots of my problem, and I quit video gaming, on and off, until I quit entirely a few years later.
I was 16, 17 years old and was looking for a job. That's what my parents encouraged, and that's what everyone does, right? So I started venturing around my town and throwing out applications. Who wanted to hire a kid with no work experience though?
(I tried finding my old resume I stumbled upon the other day, but I can't find it now.. it looked something like this)
My resume:
Chris is a hardworking ambitious person seeking employment blabla
-High School- Current Sophomore
Honors, 2010
--
So upon talking to my 'life coach' for the past few years, he told me "Why don't you START a business?"
Start a business? Me? I had plenty of excuses why I shouldn't and at the end of the arguments with my coach, it was time to start the business.
"What business?" "What do I know?" "What can I do?"
And at last, Chris's Lawn Care was born, using my dad's lawn push mower, some printed business cards made in paint, and a lot of heart for a 16/17 year old.. I started knocking door to door, and was quickly met with rejection, just like the job applications. Finally, people were starting to see that I was THE ONLY kid out on the street knocking on doors offering lawn service. Finally, one day when speaking to a gentleman down the road who was mowing his lawn for exercise, he gave me a few words of wisdom and said people were taking notice of my initiative. Another lady I had spoken to a few days before was walking by with her children, and the older gentleman who was mowing his lawn for exercise stopped her to talk. It was there that I made my first sale, and for $7.50 an hour, I began Chris's Lawn Care..
For the next 3 years, I would grow hungry to the idea that, working for myself, I could generate any amount of income that was only limited by my own sheer willpower.. From here I knew I wanted to go to school to learn how to run a business.
My journey thus far, continued...
I headed off to community college with many questions, and few answers. I knew I wanted to study business though, as I had been having some successes with cutting grass, and the idea of running your own show was really something that blew me away. I was never raised to believe I could one day run my own enterprise.. I was always brought up with the idea that you work for somebody else, enslaved, and then, you hope to make enough of a living to retire...
Around this time before graduating high school, my resume was beginning to beef up nicely as I was able to add the many perks of 'running my own business' (Lawn Care) to it.. and I was able to land a local sales job. With the combination of lawn care and being a sales associate, I could afford to work my way through community college, and that's exactly what I did...
The Sales Job
It didn't take long for me to realize working for someone else can be a real pain, especially when you're enslaved to the set-wage and expectations of others. I often found myself working significantly harder than my peers, who seemed to get by with the same amount of money as I with half the effort. It infuriated me, and it made me work harder in school, and at my job, to stand out and be exceptional. It drove me to be more successful in my lawn business, and it drove me to want to be EXTRAordinary.
It wasn't long before I was caught up in the bullsht in the day to day work environment, surrounded by drama and poor work ethic from my peers. I learned a lot of lessons by working as a sales associate, and many of them spoke to my aspirations for running a business.
I was constantly degraded by shitty management and made to feel like I was worthless to the company. You learn that the people in management don't have much of their own personal shit together, so it's very hard to get anywhere when the people leading you are actually behind you.. Some managers took my work ethic into consideration, while others continued to shit on me. I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere, as I would put in a significant amount of effort and would continue to be treated like crap with the work load constantly increasing on me as others continued to cruise by with the same week to week paycheck.
Eventually, my lawn care business picked up enough (with my own efforts and initiatives) that I gave my two weeks notice and was OUT. Time to work for MYSELF... Besides, I was making three times the amount of money with half the amount of time put into work.
Community College
I didn't have the grades to apply anywhere else, so community college it was when I graduated. I look back on community college now as an "I wish I had applied myself earlier to bypass community college and get on with my life, but I did learn a whole lot about life and myself during this time.."
I looked back at my high school, middle school, and elementary school days and laughed when I sat in my community college classes. Every step-up was supposed to be the 'real deal' and 'they won't tolerate that when you move on to X' - All of the shit my teachers preached was nothing but talk. Community College classes seemed to be just as much of a joke as high school, except you could get up and leave whenever the hell you wanted.
Around this same time, I was continuing my path of personal development on the side, often reading powerful, inspirational books while talking to my coach / mentor through our many emails as my life began to unfold. Many of the people in my college classes didn't give two shits about school or their life in general, so it wasn't very difficult to stand out.
I remember my first class being college writing and I was surrounded by a mix of 18-60 year old classmates with poverty mindsets of despair and discourage. I was baffled at the fact that even the 60 year old would see his life as a death sentence of misery leading up to the point of their own dismissal from this planet. I vividly remember writing a paper that I was relating life-concepts to, and the discussion opened to the class. The 60 or so year old gentleman stated he was a drummer, and music was his passion, but he 'couldn't make it in life' just by pursuing music, and that's why he was in school. I quickly intervened with words of wisdom, relating to Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates, guys who dropped out of college, pursued their passions, and succeeded. The older gentleman in the class snapped back with a quick response, stating "Nobody coming out of (the city we were in) is going to be the next fking steve jobs"
That memory sticks with me to this day, and from that point on, I was driven to be *That guy* who comes out of *That city* as the next super-successful entrepreneur..
Many other community college experiences ranged from the same shit in high school, to a lack of attention in the classroom from the majority. I remember a group of kids in my accounting class would come in baked, 10 minutes late, every single day. I knew it wouldn't take much to stand out, so I stuck my head down and worked my a$$ off.
I later discovered a few 'successful' students, or so I thought. I stumbled upon a group of senators, and these guys seemed to be making an impact and had their shit together. I became a peer mentor, hoping to enlighten some upcoming students on how to make good life choices... whatever I thought that was at the time.
Later I come to find out, the head of the mentors is a depressive man having a mid life crisis, and the remainder of the senate guys are too caught up on chasing women and getting drunk partying on weekends to truly understand life.
I had gone from looking up to these guys, to them looking up to me, as I quickly gained traction in the few activities I picked up at community college, and I began to get to the top of my class.
I later joined the honors program and did meet several highly intelligent individuals who would graduate alongside me. I continued on with the honors program, helped people out as a peer mentor, and ran some student seminars. I graduated highest honors, community service leader, honors society, honors program graduate, and had many awards that followed.
It wasn't hard when the bar was set so low by my peers.. I simply went above and beyond in everything I did, and I was able to graduate in the top percentile of my class. What do I do from here? I felt as if many of the business classes helped me out with 'running a business', but they didn't echo the voice of running an enterprise that I truly wanted. I mean, sure the accounting classes helped me book keep for lawn care, but did I really want to cut grass or just 'work for myself' forever in a job that made me decent money but didn't fulfill my deep rooted core of wanting to contribute as a human being...
The Lawn Business
The lawn business was great as I grew from making $7.50 an hour from my first client, to determining my own rates and not having much of a problem finding clients. Word of mouth spread quickly as I was able to compete with top lawn companies in the area with my lack of overhead and my work ethic. Word of mouth and the continuous door to door and advertisement campaign grew enough so that I didn't even have time to work my sales job any longer, so I quit. Eventually, I had enough capital to invest in equipment, and I purchased a truck, trailer, rider, weed wacker, etc, in cash. The following year, I worked with over 15 clients, and had worked with over 25 clients through my 3 years of running the business. I decided to transfer from my community college to a four year business school to continue my education, so that summer I ran the lawn care business, and then I retired it. I sold off all of my equipment, accounts, etc, and prepared my way to the next venture.
The struggle after community college
My parents didn't go to college. In fact, they advocated against it. "College's steal your money".
Before I graduated community college, I had to decide on what was next for me. I did my research and applied to 3 schools, with one of them really standing out in my mind. The first college accepted me within a few weeks with a decent scholarship to go with it. The second college accepted me, and the third and main college I saw myself at, sent me a rejection letter.
It was at this same time I had another mentor at community college advocating for me. "Why was one of my best students rejected?"
He actually took the effort to calling the school and finding out WHY... "What if another student of mine is a high performer and wants to transfer to your school? What's the missing piece of the puzzle youre looking for?"
Turns out I didn't 'meet their curriculum requirements in the math department, as they were revamping their curriculum. Turns out they didn't know I had doubled up in statistics that summer to finish my degree requirements and to finish my transfer process. A few days later, I received a phone call and I was in.
But not that easily..
Financial aid was a huge component. I had decided I'd be living on campus, mainly because my parents advocated against it. I figured "why would I spend a bunch of money commuting and waste a bunch of time just driving when I can live on campus?" - My brother didn't agree, as he used to commute to school / work every single day instead of just living on campus or getting an apartment. I remember talking to my life coach / mentor and tallying up how much money he spent on gas and being at risk on the highway, and the math was clear that I should live on campus.
(I learned the many other benefits to living on campus later..)
So I received my financial aid package, and there was about $40,000 I'd need to come up with, and I had about 1/4th of that. And that was only year 1, i had two years to go..
What does every college student do? They get student loans. How? Through their parents.
Let me have that conversation with my parents...
About 4 presentations later with my parents and over 6 hours of discussion, the answer was a no. "We aren't risking our future for you." "There's no way in hell, figure it out another way" "Your brother did it without loans, you can figure it out"
Little did they realize my brother's path was very different from mine. It was quite similar to theirs, and that's why they loved it. He did community college and online courses. What kind of education was that? Well, it worked for him to get the career he wanted, but it wasn't going to work for me.. because i wasn't looking to work for someone else.
I built my case and prepared plan B. My case was to appeal the financial aid and get a better offer so that I could find a way to bootstrap my way to school (Bootstrap is a term meaning paying your own way through)
Plan B and my home scenario
Home life was less than ideal as I developed a more enlightened mindset through my life. I began to realize the negative impacts homelife had on me, as my parents would always complain about the news, their day, their jobs, their lives, the weather, the neighbor, the blablabla.. everything. As I began to realize my parents were caught up on "money brings you happiness" - I realized that wasn't the case, and there was no changing their complaining, or their beliefs.. All i knew was i had to get out , as it was a poison that was holding me back from my success, and slowly killing me.
Plan B was to go to my second choice school, about 30 minutes away from home, and live out of my car since I couldn't afford to live on campus. I figured i'd find a way, and I could always stop at my parents house for a shower here and there or to pack some meals and head to school. Hell, i could even couch surf, a good recommendation from my mentor/coach.
The turnout
I was able to have a successful financial appeal which helped, but didn't fulfill my mission, and it only helped for the first year, where I needed two years to graduate. After negotiating with my parents one last time, we came to a deal, a co-signing of a loan because my credit wasn't good enough to have it approved on my own, and I was able to finance my first year at this new college.
My expenses looked something like this:
College tuition: $60,000
Financial aid: $28,000
Student Loan in my name: $7500
Co-signed loan: $15,000
Cash: $9500
Yep, I still had to come up with about $10K in cash to pay that first year, and I needed two years to graduate.
Well, I figure if I can figure out year 1, i can figure out year 2..
The 10K I had, and I had been saving most of my young teenage life with the lawn business and sales job.. so I did what I had to do.. what mattered most was, I made it to the school that I wanted, that I felt would bring me the best ROI to setup my future of success.
One year later, with one year to go, I had successfully gotten an increase in my financial aid through an additional appeal, I received a scholarship through an alumni donor, I became a Resident Assistant so I could get free housing, and I made dean's list which offered an addition to my financial aid. In the meantime when I sold off my lawn equipment, I had enough cash to finance not just one year, but a second year (three years at this school, total)
The additional aid and free housing totaled out to a savings of $40,000 over the next two years of school if i chose to do an additional year to make it 3 years total..
I did eventually decide to do an extra year (2 years community college, 3 years at the new school) to make me a 5 year graduate. The numbers were, and are in my favor now.
I am new to this forum and stumbled upon it when looking for successful entrepreneurship forums. I saw a lot of great progress threads on here which inspired me to join and start a thread of my own. I'll try to keep this relatively neat and organized so you can all follow:
(IF YOU CHOOSE TO SKIP THE BACKGROUND STORY AND JUST WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON NOW, PLEASE SKIP TO THE "ABOUT ME" SECTION)
My Journey thus far
It was 2011 and I had just graduated high school.. Thank goodness. Years of getting pushed around were finally over. My weak physical structure screamed as an outward manifestation of my inner emotional state. I was weak, my life was in shambles, and I knew it. So many questions ran through my head as I graduated, and I couldn't answer a single one.
"What is the meaning of life?" "What are my next steps?" "Where do I go to college?" "Do I go to college?" "What do I do with my time?" "Who do I spend my time with, and how are they impacting my decision making?"
These questions echoed in my head as I headed off to community college. Let's go back a few years prior to this and see what blur of a direction I was headed in..
The start of a business
When I was around 14, 15 years old I was addicted to video games. They were an easy escape from the insecurities I fought with on a daily basis in reality, so why not just stare at a computer screen all day and live in a reality where I was more successful than the world I actually lived in?
The video game addiction became so bad, I was actually hallucinating that I was playing when I would try to sleep. My dreams were consumed by video games, and I was fearing for my life. By a matter of chance, I stumbled upon a life coach on Yahoo Answers who broke down a lot of my structures and patterns, and after several years and thousands of emails later, I was starting to grasp the roots of my problem, and I quit video gaming, on and off, until I quit entirely a few years later.
I was 16, 17 years old and was looking for a job. That's what my parents encouraged, and that's what everyone does, right? So I started venturing around my town and throwing out applications. Who wanted to hire a kid with no work experience though?
(I tried finding my old resume I stumbled upon the other day, but I can't find it now.. it looked something like this)
My resume:
Chris is a hardworking ambitious person seeking employment blabla
-High School- Current Sophomore
Honors, 2010
--
So upon talking to my 'life coach' for the past few years, he told me "Why don't you START a business?"
Start a business? Me? I had plenty of excuses why I shouldn't and at the end of the arguments with my coach, it was time to start the business.
"What business?" "What do I know?" "What can I do?"
And at last, Chris's Lawn Care was born, using my dad's lawn push mower, some printed business cards made in paint, and a lot of heart for a 16/17 year old.. I started knocking door to door, and was quickly met with rejection, just like the job applications. Finally, people were starting to see that I was THE ONLY kid out on the street knocking on doors offering lawn service. Finally, one day when speaking to a gentleman down the road who was mowing his lawn for exercise, he gave me a few words of wisdom and said people were taking notice of my initiative. Another lady I had spoken to a few days before was walking by with her children, and the older gentleman who was mowing his lawn for exercise stopped her to talk. It was there that I made my first sale, and for $7.50 an hour, I began Chris's Lawn Care..
For the next 3 years, I would grow hungry to the idea that, working for myself, I could generate any amount of income that was only limited by my own sheer willpower.. From here I knew I wanted to go to school to learn how to run a business.
My journey thus far, continued...
I headed off to community college with many questions, and few answers. I knew I wanted to study business though, as I had been having some successes with cutting grass, and the idea of running your own show was really something that blew me away. I was never raised to believe I could one day run my own enterprise.. I was always brought up with the idea that you work for somebody else, enslaved, and then, you hope to make enough of a living to retire...
Around this time before graduating high school, my resume was beginning to beef up nicely as I was able to add the many perks of 'running my own business' (Lawn Care) to it.. and I was able to land a local sales job. With the combination of lawn care and being a sales associate, I could afford to work my way through community college, and that's exactly what I did...
The Sales Job
It didn't take long for me to realize working for someone else can be a real pain, especially when you're enslaved to the set-wage and expectations of others. I often found myself working significantly harder than my peers, who seemed to get by with the same amount of money as I with half the effort. It infuriated me, and it made me work harder in school, and at my job, to stand out and be exceptional. It drove me to be more successful in my lawn business, and it drove me to want to be EXTRAordinary.
It wasn't long before I was caught up in the bullsht in the day to day work environment, surrounded by drama and poor work ethic from my peers. I learned a lot of lessons by working as a sales associate, and many of them spoke to my aspirations for running a business.
I was constantly degraded by shitty management and made to feel like I was worthless to the company. You learn that the people in management don't have much of their own personal shit together, so it's very hard to get anywhere when the people leading you are actually behind you.. Some managers took my work ethic into consideration, while others continued to shit on me. I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere, as I would put in a significant amount of effort and would continue to be treated like crap with the work load constantly increasing on me as others continued to cruise by with the same week to week paycheck.
Eventually, my lawn care business picked up enough (with my own efforts and initiatives) that I gave my two weeks notice and was OUT. Time to work for MYSELF... Besides, I was making three times the amount of money with half the amount of time put into work.
Community College
I didn't have the grades to apply anywhere else, so community college it was when I graduated. I look back on community college now as an "I wish I had applied myself earlier to bypass community college and get on with my life, but I did learn a whole lot about life and myself during this time.."
I looked back at my high school, middle school, and elementary school days and laughed when I sat in my community college classes. Every step-up was supposed to be the 'real deal' and 'they won't tolerate that when you move on to X' - All of the shit my teachers preached was nothing but talk. Community College classes seemed to be just as much of a joke as high school, except you could get up and leave whenever the hell you wanted.
Around this same time, I was continuing my path of personal development on the side, often reading powerful, inspirational books while talking to my coach / mentor through our many emails as my life began to unfold. Many of the people in my college classes didn't give two shits about school or their life in general, so it wasn't very difficult to stand out.
I remember my first class being college writing and I was surrounded by a mix of 18-60 year old classmates with poverty mindsets of despair and discourage. I was baffled at the fact that even the 60 year old would see his life as a death sentence of misery leading up to the point of their own dismissal from this planet. I vividly remember writing a paper that I was relating life-concepts to, and the discussion opened to the class. The 60 or so year old gentleman stated he was a drummer, and music was his passion, but he 'couldn't make it in life' just by pursuing music, and that's why he was in school. I quickly intervened with words of wisdom, relating to Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates, guys who dropped out of college, pursued their passions, and succeeded. The older gentleman in the class snapped back with a quick response, stating "Nobody coming out of (the city we were in) is going to be the next fking steve jobs"
That memory sticks with me to this day, and from that point on, I was driven to be *That guy* who comes out of *That city* as the next super-successful entrepreneur..
Many other community college experiences ranged from the same shit in high school, to a lack of attention in the classroom from the majority. I remember a group of kids in my accounting class would come in baked, 10 minutes late, every single day. I knew it wouldn't take much to stand out, so I stuck my head down and worked my a$$ off.
I later discovered a few 'successful' students, or so I thought. I stumbled upon a group of senators, and these guys seemed to be making an impact and had their shit together. I became a peer mentor, hoping to enlighten some upcoming students on how to make good life choices... whatever I thought that was at the time.
Later I come to find out, the head of the mentors is a depressive man having a mid life crisis, and the remainder of the senate guys are too caught up on chasing women and getting drunk partying on weekends to truly understand life.
I had gone from looking up to these guys, to them looking up to me, as I quickly gained traction in the few activities I picked up at community college, and I began to get to the top of my class.
I later joined the honors program and did meet several highly intelligent individuals who would graduate alongside me. I continued on with the honors program, helped people out as a peer mentor, and ran some student seminars. I graduated highest honors, community service leader, honors society, honors program graduate, and had many awards that followed.
It wasn't hard when the bar was set so low by my peers.. I simply went above and beyond in everything I did, and I was able to graduate in the top percentile of my class. What do I do from here? I felt as if many of the business classes helped me out with 'running a business', but they didn't echo the voice of running an enterprise that I truly wanted. I mean, sure the accounting classes helped me book keep for lawn care, but did I really want to cut grass or just 'work for myself' forever in a job that made me decent money but didn't fulfill my deep rooted core of wanting to contribute as a human being...
The Lawn Business
The lawn business was great as I grew from making $7.50 an hour from my first client, to determining my own rates and not having much of a problem finding clients. Word of mouth spread quickly as I was able to compete with top lawn companies in the area with my lack of overhead and my work ethic. Word of mouth and the continuous door to door and advertisement campaign grew enough so that I didn't even have time to work my sales job any longer, so I quit. Eventually, I had enough capital to invest in equipment, and I purchased a truck, trailer, rider, weed wacker, etc, in cash. The following year, I worked with over 15 clients, and had worked with over 25 clients through my 3 years of running the business. I decided to transfer from my community college to a four year business school to continue my education, so that summer I ran the lawn care business, and then I retired it. I sold off all of my equipment, accounts, etc, and prepared my way to the next venture.
The struggle after community college
My parents didn't go to college. In fact, they advocated against it. "College's steal your money".
Before I graduated community college, I had to decide on what was next for me. I did my research and applied to 3 schools, with one of them really standing out in my mind. The first college accepted me within a few weeks with a decent scholarship to go with it. The second college accepted me, and the third and main college I saw myself at, sent me a rejection letter.
It was at this same time I had another mentor at community college advocating for me. "Why was one of my best students rejected?"
He actually took the effort to calling the school and finding out WHY... "What if another student of mine is a high performer and wants to transfer to your school? What's the missing piece of the puzzle youre looking for?"
Turns out I didn't 'meet their curriculum requirements in the math department, as they were revamping their curriculum. Turns out they didn't know I had doubled up in statistics that summer to finish my degree requirements and to finish my transfer process. A few days later, I received a phone call and I was in.
But not that easily..
Financial aid was a huge component. I had decided I'd be living on campus, mainly because my parents advocated against it. I figured "why would I spend a bunch of money commuting and waste a bunch of time just driving when I can live on campus?" - My brother didn't agree, as he used to commute to school / work every single day instead of just living on campus or getting an apartment. I remember talking to my life coach / mentor and tallying up how much money he spent on gas and being at risk on the highway, and the math was clear that I should live on campus.
(I learned the many other benefits to living on campus later..)
So I received my financial aid package, and there was about $40,000 I'd need to come up with, and I had about 1/4th of that. And that was only year 1, i had two years to go..
What does every college student do? They get student loans. How? Through their parents.
Let me have that conversation with my parents...
About 4 presentations later with my parents and over 6 hours of discussion, the answer was a no. "We aren't risking our future for you." "There's no way in hell, figure it out another way" "Your brother did it without loans, you can figure it out"
Little did they realize my brother's path was very different from mine. It was quite similar to theirs, and that's why they loved it. He did community college and online courses. What kind of education was that? Well, it worked for him to get the career he wanted, but it wasn't going to work for me.. because i wasn't looking to work for someone else.
I built my case and prepared plan B. My case was to appeal the financial aid and get a better offer so that I could find a way to bootstrap my way to school (Bootstrap is a term meaning paying your own way through)
Plan B and my home scenario
Home life was less than ideal as I developed a more enlightened mindset through my life. I began to realize the negative impacts homelife had on me, as my parents would always complain about the news, their day, their jobs, their lives, the weather, the neighbor, the blablabla.. everything. As I began to realize my parents were caught up on "money brings you happiness" - I realized that wasn't the case, and there was no changing their complaining, or their beliefs.. All i knew was i had to get out , as it was a poison that was holding me back from my success, and slowly killing me.
Plan B was to go to my second choice school, about 30 minutes away from home, and live out of my car since I couldn't afford to live on campus. I figured i'd find a way, and I could always stop at my parents house for a shower here and there or to pack some meals and head to school. Hell, i could even couch surf, a good recommendation from my mentor/coach.
The turnout
I was able to have a successful financial appeal which helped, but didn't fulfill my mission, and it only helped for the first year, where I needed two years to graduate. After negotiating with my parents one last time, we came to a deal, a co-signing of a loan because my credit wasn't good enough to have it approved on my own, and I was able to finance my first year at this new college.
My expenses looked something like this:
College tuition: $60,000
Financial aid: $28,000
Student Loan in my name: $7500
Co-signed loan: $15,000
Cash: $9500
Yep, I still had to come up with about $10K in cash to pay that first year, and I needed two years to graduate.
Well, I figure if I can figure out year 1, i can figure out year 2..
The 10K I had, and I had been saving most of my young teenage life with the lawn business and sales job.. so I did what I had to do.. what mattered most was, I made it to the school that I wanted, that I felt would bring me the best ROI to setup my future of success.
One year later, with one year to go, I had successfully gotten an increase in my financial aid through an additional appeal, I received a scholarship through an alumni donor, I became a Resident Assistant so I could get free housing, and I made dean's list which offered an addition to my financial aid. In the meantime when I sold off my lawn equipment, I had enough cash to finance not just one year, but a second year (three years at this school, total)
The additional aid and free housing totaled out to a savings of $40,000 over the next two years of school if i chose to do an additional year to make it 3 years total..
I did eventually decide to do an extra year (2 years community college, 3 years at the new school) to make me a 5 year graduate. The numbers were, and are in my favor now.
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