Introduction

Today I want to talk about how I graduated college 100% debt free. I received my associates, my bachelor’s and my master’s degrees without student loans, without private loans, and nothing that I had to pay off after finishing school. It came down to how I approached college from the very beginning and how I structured every step intentionally.

Depending on where you are at in college currently, this may be applicable to you or maybe parts of it still can be. Most people assume that college automatically means you’re going to have a lot of debt, and that’s part of why there’s a stigma that college is a scam. I don’t think college is a scam in general. I think you just need to be strategic with what you do and where you go. That’s my opinion.

Rethinking How College Gets Paid For

What I did, I actually started looking into how tuition is funded at my university. I realized there are multiple systems that are already in place that can literally cover most if not all of your education if you know how to use them. I’m going to walk you guys through exactly how I did it step by step, and I’ll be completely honest on what I paid for and what actually worked.

When I first started college, I didn’t really think about scholarships in a strategic way. I just assumed I’d figure out how to pay for it as I went. Pretty early on I changed how I was thinking because instead of asking how I was going to afford college, I started asking what my school already offered. For my university specifically, I learned that there were a lot of internal scholarships that they had available. There’s a lot of universities out there with these internal scholarships that most students don’t even fully understand or take advantage of.

Finding the Academic Scholarship

I spent a lot of time actually researching my specific university. I wasn’t looking at just general scholarship websites like those third-party ones you see occasionally. I was literally on my school’s website looking at what my school rewarded to their students internally scholarship wise. I found that there was an academic scholarship based on GPA and how many credits you had completed.

At my school, if you maintained a high GPA, usually around a 3.8 to a 4.0, and you also completed a certain number of credits, you could qualify for significant tuition coverage.

Building Toward the Scholarship as a Freshman

Once I knew that, I completely changed how I approached my classes. Instead of just randomly taking courses as a freshman, I started focusing on the foundational and introductory classes, since those tend to be easier to adjust to and gave me a way better chance of consistently earning high grades while I was getting used to the entire experience of college.

My goal from the very beginning was a 4.0 GPA, not just passing but doing well enough to keep everything as strong as possible so I could qualify for that scholarship. Over time I built up the required credits. I think it took me a couple semesters worth. Just as a side note, those first couple semesters I did have some money from my savings.

Choosing an Affordable University

The other strategic part as well is going to a university that is affordable. Don’t go to a university just for the title. There are so many parts and reasons and things to consider before signing up for any university. I highly recommend, if you’re not going into politics, go to a cheap school. Go to a college that is way less expensive.

I’m in med school right now, and I have a lot of people alongside me. I have a friend who went to Duke and he has so much debt right now, and I have zero debt. Well, besides med school right now. But we’re both in the exact same spot, except one of us has almost $100,000 worth of debt from undergrad.

So you can just be very strategic about this, is kind of my point. My very first thing is to make sure to try your very hardest to go to an affordable college. That’s going to depend on your goals and kind of how you want to navigate that.

Earning the Full Ride

After a couple of my freshman year semesters, I built up the required credits. I kept my GPA to 4.0. Eventually I was able to apply for the academic scholarship and I was awarded a full ride tuition. That covered my associates degree and my bachelor’s degree.

What that really changed for me wasn’t just the money side of things. It was also time, because I wasn’t constantly working just to pay for my tuition. I could actually focus way more on school, and so I had more mental space. I had more time to study and I was able to maintain my grades without being stretched too thin. Looking back, it was really one of my biggest advantages to keep my grades up.

Not just the financial coverage itself but also what it allowed me to do, to be able to focus in school. That’s how I graduated with my associates and my bachelor’s completely debt free, being very strategic at the start with going to an affordable college and then being able to strategically take these freshman college credits to get really good grades and then using that high GPA to apply for the scholarships from my university.

Paying for the Master’s Degree

Now we’re switching gears into my master’s degree. For that one, I used a completely different strategy because at that point I already knew I didn’t want to take out loans at all. I did so much research. I was looking at online programs that would give me flexibility and also work well with tuition assistance programs. It’s a very popular online school, Western Governors University. That’s another strategic move because of how inexpensive they are.

Employer Tuition Reimbursement Programs

What stood out to me was that it had a structure that worked really well with employer tuition reimbursement programs.

Instead of asking how I would pay for my master’s degree, I started asking which companies would pay for my master’s degree if I worked for them. A lot of companies actually offer education benefits. Some require a certain number of hours per week. They require you to work there for a period of time before you qualify. But my point is that those programs exist and they are worth looking into.

At the time, I found out that KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken, had a program through their foundation that covered tuition for employees enrolled in degree programs at Western Governors University. It didn’t matter how many hours you worked per week, as long as you were listed as an employee and working.

I thought that was the most appealing option. I saw other companies out there too, like Amazon and Starbucks

. They had a similar format, except I know they did require a certain amount of hours worked and a certain amount of time as an employee. If you’re already working at Amazon or Starbucks right now and you haven’t really considered the possible tuition benefits, definitely look into that.

I applied for a job at my local Kentucky Fried Chicken and I got hired. It was one of my favorite jobs because I was working in the back doing regular restaurant work. It was finger-licking awesome.

But at the same time I was also enrolled in my master’s program, and through that structure my tuition was completely covered. At that point my associates degree, my bachelor’s and my master’s were all completed without any student loan debt.

An Update on the KFC Program

I do want to be honest about something important here, because some of these specific programs, like the KFC partnership that I used, have changed over time. They updated it recently, and it doesn’t exist in the same format that I used. I’m not saying this is a guaranteed path that you can copy exactly what I did. I did tell lots of people about it and I’ve had lots of friends actually get their degrees through Kentucky Fried Chicken since then. However, the program has changed as of this year, so unfortunately, that specific version is no longer applicable.

But here’s the thing: the strategy still holds, because the real idea is that you need to find who is paying for education and then build your plan around that instead of assuming you have to pay for everything yourself.

The Overall Strategy

To be completely transparent, I did pay for my very first one or two semesters in undergrad, as I mentioned earlier, before my academic scholarship kicked in. But that was really the only thing I actually paid out of pocket, and after that everything else was completely covered. Honestly, that early investment ended up being what allowed me to qualify for everything that came after that.

If I had to simplify everything, it would be that most people start college thinking about the loans, whereas instead you should be thinking about the systems. Think about the scholarships from your actual university. Think about the GPA requirements. Think about employee benefits from certain organizations. Think about those tuition programs. If you build your education around those systems instead of student loans, you can be very strategic with college. That is really what makes the difference.

If you’ve had experience with scholarships or tuition reimbursement programs, I would love to hear what worked for you, because I know there are a lot of different paths out there that most people have never even heard about.

Priorities for Building a Debt Free College Plan

My priorities when it comes to trying to get these benefits: number one, of course, find a cheaper university. Number two, look at the university’s specific scholarships that they offer internally, mainly the academic ones. After that, look for companies that will pay for your tuition through tuition reimbursement. I would put third-party scholarships at the bottom of the list. If all those other layers just don’t work out for you, then you can go on to those third-party websites and apply for scholarships. I never had any luck with those. Maybe I’m just not that interesting of a person, but that’s kind of my experience overall of how I was able to earn these degrees completely debt free.

Closing Thoughts

If you guys have any questions or you are interested in more insights or want some more tips, definitely let me know, because I think it’s so important to keep college accessible for everybody who wants to pursue education. I might do some videos in the future regarding more detailed approaches, things like that. If you guys have any questions or comments, definitely leave them in the comment section below.

I hope this was beneficial for you, especially for those who are just starting out, but there are still definitely some really unique things that you can take from my experience, and I hope that it is helpful to you.