College Cost Cutting

Or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Commute

Despite the doom and gloom1 common among the current generation of students, graduating college with no debt is possible. I would know because I did it; graduating from VCU in 2026 with a bachelor’s in Computer Science with cash in the bank. I’m no super hero, and my family isn’t rich - so I’m certain you can too. What follows is me recounting my experience accomplishing this goal. What I hope you, the soon-to-be-student, take away is that saving money at college requires some sacrifice, hard-work, and luck.

First, lets briefly examine my own college career: I started with taking dual-enrollment classes at my local community college. I then transferred to full-time at that community college. During this period of roughly four years, I worked part-time at a fast-food restaurant to save up a nest egg and buy my car outright. After getting my associate’s, I quit my part-time job and transferred to a four-year university to finish the last two years of my education. Though at VCU I did work as a TA and had a paid summer internship, those positions did not net much extra cash.

Now for the brass tacks: Scholarships paid a significant amount of my tuition bill. All in, I received roughly $46k in scholarships and grants2. At about $48k in tuition over my whole education, I very nearly broke even on tuition, not counting other costs such as parking, food, books, etc. Though, if you’ve looked into college, you know that those “other costs” are not insignificant. That is where my cost-cutting was targeted at. So, let’s take a look!

Advice

Community College

No shock here. In my experience, community college tuition was roughly half of my four-year university tuition. I paid roughly $5k per academic year, compared to VCU’s $10k/year for engineering students. Completing half of my education at community college saved me roughly $30k in tuition, but was not without its downsides:

  • Community college has next to no student life. I joined a small club, otherwise there are precisely zero things to do besides going to class and going home.
  • No interesting opportunities to do anything beyond classwork. The mere virtue of being at a name-brand four-year school meant I had access to researchers in interesting fields, companies visiting to recruit, active student clubs, special lectures from visiting professors, etc.
  • Almost no student aid/scholarships. Despite the higher tuition cost, I found that I got a lot more student financial aid at VCU.

Living with Family

In my situation, tuition was mostly taken care of, which left room/board as my main expense. Where you could spend upwards of $20k/year on student housing and meal plans, my parents graciously allowed me to live at home and commute to school. This comes with some drawbacks:

  • Your school choice is narrowed to an extreme degree. While paying little or no rent saves a dragon’s hoard of cash, you likely only will be within driving range of two or three schools at most (if any).
  • Commuting to school is not for everyone. I lived a roughly 40 minute drive from VCU, which turns each day at school into a marathon.
  • You can’t put your living expenses on student loans - you need to have the cash for it on-hand.3

I know people who stayed with aunts, grandparents, etc. If your parents don’t live near a school, consider living with other family members that do.

Get a Job

It likely goes without saying, but having some cash in hand helps immensely in avoiding debt. Always prioritize your education, but try to find a part-time job that works with your schedule. You’ll likely benefit most from a job on-campus, i.e. being a teacher’s assistant (TA) or doing federal work-study. You’ll get connections with faculty and the hours are typically compatible with a college lifestyle.

Avoid Dining Plans

Dining plans (i.e. up-front payments that let you eat at the school cafeteria(s)) are often over-priced. Though, this can vary depending on your situation. I ended up buying small dining plans for my senior year since I spent so many 10+ hour days on campus. Otherwise, just bring your lunch from home! It’s way cheaper than eating out (which is essentially what your college dining options are).

Bonus: Textbooks aren’t a problem

Despite what your parents may tell you about books costing nearly as much as tuition, that is just not the case in the current day. I had many semesters with no paid textbooks at all. Often, professors recommend books but will tell you straight away that everything you need is on the class slides. Here’s a quick few ways to save money when you do have books to buy:

  • Wait until the first day of class to see if a “required” book is actually just “recommended”. Recommended almost always means don’t bother. Just go to class!
  • If you must purchase a book, grab the ISBN and use a service like Direct Textbook to compare prices among different resellers. Your college bookstore almost certainly charges somewhere above a 25% markup on everything.
  • Renting is almost always best. You won’t usually use that textbook after the class ends.
  • Avoid getting the wrong edition. Sometimes it can work out, but often the pages numbers are different and homework questions (if applicable) are subtly different.
  • Sailing the seven seas is a common occupation. My lawyers said I should warn you not to look up Anna’s Archive on Wikipedia.

Conclusion

My advice will solely focuses on my story and what worked for me. That meaning, I was primarily focused on cutting costs external to tuition. Also keep in mind that what worked for me might not apply to you; and conversely you may have financial advantages I didn’t. Above all, I hope my rambling inspires you to be creative when approaching your education’s financing. Best of luck!

Footnotes

  1. According to Forbes: “the cost of college in the 21st century has increased 41.7% faster than the cost of inflation” (pub. May 2026) ↩

  2. My fast-food job had a scholarship program that netted me $2.5k/year for four years. At community college, I also earned about $2k in other miscellaneous scholarships; some through the school and some external. At VCU, I was selected for $11k/year in via two merit-based, school-sponsored scholarships. Additionally, at VCU I received $3k for being a community college transfer student, along with $9k in financial-aid grants. ↩

  3. I could be wrong in this regard; I never took out student loans. ↩