<prompt> Human: This is my story of college and how I have tried my best to avoid a life long sentence of high interest student loans.I live in New England and in my state the public university tuition is 16 thousand dollars per year. With room and board it totals to 26 thousand per year.I graduated from high school with good grades, but I was not anything special. My parents are middle class and as a result I never qualified for any grants or need based aid. I applied to a ton of scholarships and was lucky enough to receive 5000 dollars. I went to college and made the deans list but never received anymore scholarships. After my freshman year I quickly realized that I would have 100k in loans by the time I graduated. I knew I had to come up with a plan B.I decided to move back home and go to a local community college for two years. Then, I transferred back to my university for my senior year but also decided to continue commuting from home. The drive was over an hour each way, which kinda sucked but luckily I only commuted 3 to 4 times per week. During this time I worked a lot . I was able to save up 3000 dollars each summer and I saved 2000 during the school years. It was tough but when you live at home with no expenses, things get a lot easier.I recently graduated with 36k in loans.Freshman year: 26k tuition housing - 5k scholarship 21KSophomore year: 7k community tuition - 5k work 2KJunior year: 7k community tuition - 5k work 2KSenior Year: 16k university tuition - 5k work 11KI just landed my first real job which pays 53k a year 39k after taxes . I plan on living at home for another year and a half, and paying off all my loans by sticking to my barebones budget.Overall: I know that I did not have as much fun as my peers and by no means did I have the same traditional college experience. I always tried to make an effort to visit friends on the weekend, but crashing on someones dorm couch is not the same as living the college lifestyle. I guess I wanted to share my story to show people that you dont have to be an athlete or braniac on a full ride scholarship to graduate with no student loans, you just have to take a more boring and less glamorous path.TLDR: I didnt have a traditional college experience, but also wont have any debt in one year.  <response>: I did close to the same thing and dont regret it one bit. My freshman year I went away to a private school where a had a good deal of scholarships,but still had to take on some loans. Let my GPA drop and as a result lost some of my scholarships. This left me with the choice of either moving back home, or taking on 20k of loans per year.I decided to move back home and do community college, and then commute from home to a public university to finish my bachelors. After graduating I got a good paying job 66k per year before taxes, in Atlanta which has a relatively low cost of living and chose to stay with my parents so that I could pay off my small amount of loans as well which I have finished.As you can see OP, my story mirrors yours except that I am a little further along in the schedule than you are. I bring this up because I can say from personal experience that it is completely worth the sacrifices. Did is suck at times living at home and commuting to college 4 days every week? Yes. Does is suck living at home when you have a great paying job and could easily afford to move out? Yes. Will a lot of people look down on you for still living with Mommy and Daddy? Yes. But if I could go back and do it all again, I would do the same thing.Another benefit that I have found is that because I wasnt experiencing the college atmosphere, I was able to expend far more effort into my studies than if I were away for college. That had a direct result on being able to land such a good job straight out of college.So I say kudos OP. Hang in there and get those loans paid off, save for a good down-payment on a house if that is the route you want to go, and then enjoy the rest of your life without student loans not because you were special or had life come easy for you...but because you CHOSE to make sacrifices. 