College; the supposed best years of our lives. What is conveniently overlooked in this context is the lack of money available, and practically being poor because of the high expenses of college.

However, this does not have to be the norm. Students can get ahead of the debt and cut down on tuition costs. Grants and scholarships can be the best source to cut down on tuition, according to Carl Krause, college advisor.

“Between grants scholarships, you almost always end up paying less, so don’t make that your only option when looking at a college,” Krause said.

Most scholarships will fall under one of the categories of merit, talent, athletics, service, and leadership. Because of the vast choices, most students will fall under at least one category to cut down on tuition, according to Krause.

Even if a student does not fall under one of those categories, there are outside scholarships available that students can apply for.

“There are scholarships for so many things, “Krause said. “The problem is a lot of students don’t like putting in the time to look for scholarships right after they finished applying to all the colleges. On naviance, I have a whole list of search engines and naviance itself has a whole list of search engines, too. But major sites are places like fastweb.com, scholaships.com, studentsscholarships.com, and capx.com. They kind of act like search engines. You put in who you are, what you do, and what you’re going to major in and it emails you possible scholarships you can apply for. Sometimes, you get the emails right away. Sometimes they send them to you every week like if a scholarship pops up. One thing I would never do is pay for something that’s going to give you free money. Yes, there are places out there that say, ‘if you give us $3,000, we will make sure you get the most money you can for college.’ You can do that yourself and with my help.”

If students cannot find the time to research different scholarships, the government also provides loans for college in a program called Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

Students will still need to apply for the FAFSA program, but Krause insists students apply anyway because it is only going to help bring down tuition. Also, college counselors can help students also with the process.

“Every school has a financial aid depart that will then assist students as soon as they get their letters back saying how much financial aid you get,” Krause said. “How you pay [it] back, when you pay back is up to family and student. How they plan to do that is hopefully a good plan.”

Not only can students save money before college, but they can also save some quick cash during the semester, too.

Budgeting money comes in handy when dealing with little income, according to Chris Bennett, economics teacher.

“I just made a budget and stuck to it,” Bennett said. “You need to sacrifice in order to pay everything off. I took that money out of my paycheck first, then I paid my rent, then whatever I had left over is whatever I had left over [for the month].”

Sacrificing needs over wants can be difficult to adjust to for any college student, but in the end, the money earned after graduation will hopefully be worth it.