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For many years loans have been the norm for most students, but the recent recession has underlined the fact that just because something is fairly standard practice, does not make it a good financial decision. Now, more than at any other time, a degree is no guarantee of any job, let alone a particularly highly paid one.

Limited work prospects combined with the rising cost of living is hard hitting enough but if a large loan accumulating interest is added to this scenario then the situation becomes dire if not impossible. A loan is not the only way to raise money to get through a degree, it's just the shortest route and as we all know the shortest route is often fraught with risk.

If you want the degree without the debt then happily there are plenty of options open to you. Choosing one or a combination of these options will give you the chance to attain a degree with either very little or no debt at all.

One debt dodging option is to delay going to college for a year or two and this course of action has a wealth of advantages. Few people can boast of being fully mature at eighteen years old, the age when many young people opt to pursue a degree course. Although college is about learning in other ways than the purely academic it's not a great idea to be behind the wheel of the defining qualification of your life and huge sums of money unless you have some life experience already.

There is, of course, a social side to degree level education and some measure of personal development that is structured by the academic environment, but these benefits will not be lost by holding off for a year or two. During this hiatus you can look into your prospective course and see if it really is right for you. Additionally, you can get a bit of groundwork done on your subject to ensure you don't end up doing retakes.

In this gap before degree level education you can work to save up money to fund or part fund your studies and also get yourself more familiar with the value of money and various aspects of financial management. It's far better to learn slowly and apply slowly rather than end up in a terrible financial mess and learn all your lessons the very hard way.

If you have friends going off to college then don't fall into the trap of thinking you will get left behind in your friendship group by putting off your enrollment. On the contrary you can arrange visits with your friends to glean information about university life and experience the environment before you are

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