CLARK SMART CLASSROOM

With the cost of college a hardship for many, Alex finds a way to pay the bills and hone his skills

GOING TO COLLEGE CAN BE STAGGERINGLY expensive, and over the years I’ve had a variety of advice to give students and parents on how to ease the cost. Rent textbooks rather than buy them. Attend community college for two years, then transfer to a four-year school.

But Alex Harker taught me one I hadn’t considered.

Alex, now a graphic designer at a Washington, D.C., think tank, finished graduate school debt-free by working as a teaching assistant.

“I got a full tuition waiver and was paid a stipend of around $800 per month,” Alex said. “I graduated in the spring of 2011 without taking on a dime of debt.”

Alex, now twenty-six, learned about this method from his father, who is an anesthesiologist.

“I can remember a number of times hearing from my dad that he had done this and saved himself a significant amount that would have otherwise been taken out as loans. When I made the decision to go to grad school, seeking out an assistantship seemed like the natural route for me to take.”

Alex actually applied for the position rather late in the game. He was about to graduate from Indiana Wesleyan University with a B.S. in media communication. He planned to attend grad school at Ball State University.

“I was sitting at one of the video editing stations at the TV outlet I worked for as an undergrad and it hit me that graduation was only about two months away. The first place I looked for prospective programs was the website for the state university closest to the private college I was attending. I was in the communication field already, so I looked at those programs first, saw one that fit my research interests and started gathering the required application material.”

Alex says being a teaching assistant was a lot of work, but it was manageable. He taught during the day and took classes himself at night.

“The actual teaching was pretty easy, at least for me, but most of the work is in preparation and assessment of student work.”

Alex taught public speaking, a subject he already had a basic level of familiarity with.

“I had taken entry-level public speaking as an undergrad, but teaching is completely different. In terms of theory, history, and structural models of speaking, there was a lot to learn.”

Alex figures he earned about $35 an hour for his work as a teaching assistant. He says he made sure to tell others that it’s a good way to pay your way through grad school.

He also liked the social aspects of it.

“It was great because nearly everyone in my program was in the same few courses for our master’s work and nearly all of us were also assistants. We were able to work together on lessons for the courses we taught and were also able to assist each other with our own course work. It quickly became a very tight group.”

But the work could be overwhelming at times, especially near the end of a semester.

“As a teaching assistant, this is multiplied by two because you’re trying to finish your own work while also balancing increased grading loads from your own students finishing up their work as well. On top of this, students place increasing demands on your time as they start to feel the pressure from all of their work coming due. The last month of a semester is usually extremely demanding.”

Alex grew up in the Midwest. His mom was a social worker who took early retirement when his dad finished medical school.

He learned to be frugal from his parents.

“They shop prices and wait for things to go on sale. If something is not in the budget, they wait until they know they can comfortably afford [it] before making large purchases.”

Alex didn’t start listening to me until he graduated. But he can relate to my oft-told advice about textbooks.

“As a student, I always spent a lot of time trying to get the best price on textbooks. This was difficult as an undergrad because the campus bookstore took a lot of measures to abuse its monopoly, to the extent that it would withhold ISBN numbers, titles, and authors. Many people would overpay for books at that store, but I would contact my new professors [for the list of required books] before the start of term or physically go into the store to get that information so I would have enough time to shop online.”

Alex has always been interested in politics, and he loves working in the nation’s capital. For now, he produces print publications, ranging from research papers to books, for the think tank where he works.

“Ultimately, I’d like to cover political topics, sports, or technology in some way through production of video, audio, or new media.”

Wherever his career takes him, he has a huge advantage over other young people because he won’t have a staggering debt load hanging over him—all because his dad taught him to work as a teaching assistant in graduate school.

What can you learn from Alex’s story?

On-campus work can lower the cost of an education.

• Alex’s story offers one way to reduce your out-of-pocket for tuition. Another possibility comes from Christa DiBiase, the executive producer of my radio show. She saved money on her education by serving as a resident assistant (RA) during her junior and senior years at Boston College.
• As an RA, Christa was in charge of the safety and well-being of students, making sure they were doing well socially and ultimately ensuring that campus rules weren’t being broken.
• “It gave me a sense of responsibility and I made a lot of great friends doing it,” she says. “I enjoyed it more than I imagined I would, and showing that level of responsibility was useful in obtaining my first job out of school.”
• Perks of the job included free room and board in an on-campus dormitory and a free meal card.
• As Christa recalls, there was a pretty competitive application process that included an interview and a week of training simulations to see if candidates would make good RAs. Christa estimates she saved at least $12,000 per year serving from 1992–1994.
• If this sounds like something you’d consider, go to the residence life office at your school and ask about opportunities. You can’t beat living for free on campus and a free meal card!

Pursue a $10,000 four-year degree.

• A number of states are coming up with ways to keep the cost of a college education down.
• The university system in the state of Texas has been deputized to deliver a standard four-year degree for a total cost of $10,000. Degree offerings will include information technology, business administration, organizational leadership, and more. Among the ten participating Texas colleges are Angelo State University, University of Texas at Arlington, and Texas A&M University–Commerce.
• Florida has its own way to reduce the cost of a degree. They’ve converted many of their two-year community colleges to offer four-year bachelor degree programs. Meanwhile, Georgia is also allowing a handful of its two-year community colleges to offer four-year degrees.
• Massachusetts has yet another idea. If resident students go to a Massachusetts community college for two years and maintain a 3.0 GPA or better, that qualifies them for free tuition during their junior and senior years at the University of Massachusetts at the Lowell or Amherst campuses.

Seek out unusual scholarships.

• If you’re not excited about the community college route, why not check out some scholarship options? There are a number of bizarre scholarships available, including ones for being tall, for being left-handed, and even for drinking milk. (No, I am not making this stuff up!) Visit CollegeGold.com and search keyword “unusual scholarships” to see what I’m talking about. The really obscure ones are usually funded by someone who had to overcome some kind of disability in life.

Know the faculty and follow the money.

• If you are going to a private college, I recommend getting to know the dean, the department head, or a senior, tenured faculty member. That can dramatically open up paths to grant money, research money, and scholarship money that you might not otherwise know about. Perhaps there’s a professor they know who needs research work done for a book. That’s just one possible example out of many.