<prompt> Human: Ok, here goes: Im a high school student who has no idea what to do for college or a career. I feel like if I dont go to college there is no way ill be able to earn a comfortable living. But all I ever hear about is how so n so went to college, is 100,000 in debt, and ends up making 10 an hour in some dead end job not even related to their education. So is a big fancy college degree even worth it anymore? Or maybe something else is more practical? Point is I need some kind of career path, but I want to avoid huge debt.  <response>: If you dont know what to do I would strongly recommend working for a year, especially if you can live at home and stash away your money to pay for community college courses. You can always apply to college later. I didnt have any idea what I wanted to do when I graduated high school at 17, and I ended up failing out of my first semester of college at a state school with a full ride honors program scholarship. I would have graduated with absolutely zero debt at the age of 20 and been in an amazing position for future career or graduate school if I had my shit together. Instead I changed my major three times in the first month because I hated all my classes and then stopped going to class altogether. I got into a shitty relationship, moved into a shitty apartment, and got a shitty job. After 6 months of working full time at minimum wage as a retail cashier, I was 150349583058 confident that I had ZERO interest in continuing that for the rest of my life. I then went back to school at the local community college while still working. Due to my former shitty relationship, I ended up moving around a ton and in total have attended FIVE UNIVERSITIES. I failed out of another semester at a different school, moved back in with my parents twice, have worked on and off at like five shitty miserable jobs, lived in like six shitty apartments and some shitty dorm rooms. Plus side is I finally ditched the shitty boyfriend and figured out that molecularcell bio is the coolest thing ever yeah Im a science geek and I can translate that love into a pretty lucrative career. The worst part of that is that I LOVED high school biology and chemistry but I was afraid of the academic commitment and social stigma against it yeah I was a pretty dumb kid. However, I just turned 23 and my current student loan debt is around 40,000 and thats from community colleges and instate rates at public universities. I wont graduate with my Bachelors until May 2016, three years behind when I was supposed to and my loans will go up to at least 50,000. Then Im headed to pharmacy school for another four years of education and another 70,000 in debt. Ive taken at least a years worth of extra classes that arent helping me graduate and Im currently paying for them at interest rates of 3.4 to 8.6. DO NOT GO INTO DEBT FOR COLLEGE UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO DO! And dont take any more debt than you absolutely have to. Definitely dont take on any more debt for your undergrad than youll make in your first year after graduating. If you really dont know what you want to do, start paying a lot more attention to the classes youre in now. What do you enjoy? What do you find yourself wanting to study? Hopefully its something in the STEM fields or business. If you absolutely hate all your classes, what do you find yourself doing or reading about online in your spare time? Are you in any clubs or sports? Is there a way to turn those interests into a career? Does your high school offer any electives that sound interesting to you?If you can swing it academically, take AP courses or even courses at the local community college if your high school offers it. Make sure you do well enough in AP to get a 4 or above on the tests, because most decent schools wont count anything lower than that for credit. You can save yourself an entire year of tuition PLUS gain a year of pay for college-educated employment by getting your shit together early enough. Get a part-time job now. Try to find something thats not mind-numbing retail, unless you need a serious reality check like I did :D Put a good chunk of your money in savings. After you graduate high school, if youve still got no clue what youre interested in doing, go to the local community college and take general education courses. Look at your state universitys gen ed requirements for specifics, but most 4 year schools require: at least one semester of English composition a year of foreign language if you havent taken 2 in high school 1 or 2 semesters of math up to either calculus or statistics depending on your major 2 semesters of artshumanities like literature or art history type stuff, not actual drawingpainting type art, 2 semesters of social sciences psychology, sociology, etc 2 semesters of sciencetechnology usually 1 course with a lab some sort of multiculturaldiversity stuff. At my school this can overlap with the other categories, so I took diversity-related humanities courses ie. African-American Literature, etcWhile you still dont know what to do, try to take classes based on if you think the subject matter is interesting and could lead you down a career path, not on if the professor is easy or the timing fits better with your schedule. Diversify your courses early on until you find something that grabs you and then aim to relate all your stuff to that. Take a science or math class in your first semester to find out if you likecan handle that stuff early on. If you lean towards a less lucrative field, stay at the community college for 2 years or until youve completed all your basic gen eds if you go part time. And it might be worth it to actually graduate with an Associates from the community college so you have something to fall back on if you bomb out of university. If you find that engineering or sciences are what grab you, I STRONGLY suggest transferring to your in-state public university after one year of community college especially if you can still live at home and commute there. These careers are really reliant on internships, undergrad research, and relationships with researching professors, so you need to start building that stuff ASAP. The fact that Ive changed schools so much is one of the reason Im going into pharmacy and not into molecular biology lab research -- I handicapped myself. I think finance is this way too not like, business administration but actual finance. Apply for the FAFSA every year and keep your grades up so youre eligible for merit grants and scholarships. Try really really hard not to take out any student loans, but if you have to and you probably will especially if you have to stop working part-time, try even harder to keep it to just subsidized FEDERAL loans. Do NOT go to a private student lender unless you have exhausted all other options -- fill out FAFSA, and if its not enough harass your colleges financial aid officer until they repeatedly tell you theres nothing else they can do. Private student loan lenders can and will ruin your life. Avoid them like the plague. Seriously, I cannot stress this enough, go read some of the horror stories at rstudentloans. Theyre terrifying.Lastly dont fall into the credit card trap -- theyre worse than private loans especially as a student. Your friends might be going out and buying all kinds of awesome fun stuff and alcohol and whatever but if you have to put it on a credit card, dont buy it. Get a student employment job -- many universities have a system for student workers even if you dont get a work study grant. Even if you work 10 hours a week between classes, that should be enough for livingfun spending expenses if youre on campus and have a meal plan, or for gasfun if you can still live at home. If you decide the traditional college route is not for you and you want to learn some type of trade or get a certificate, DO NOT GO TO A FOR-PROFIT COLLEGE. As in University of Phoenix, ITT Tech, Corinthian. No one takes degrees from them seriously, theyre financially unstable see Corinthian in the news lately, have ridiculously high drop out rates and disproportionately huge expenses, and terribly low job placement rates. Go to a career training program at your local community college instead. It will probably end up 100 free for you after you fill out the FAFSA unless your parents are high income, and even if you get no need-based aid, youll be eligible for more merit-based aid. Hell even if you pay 100 out of pocket, itll cost you pennies on the dollar compared to one of the for-profit schools. And also try to have some fun in college, just make sure it doesnt jeopardize your future financial situation. Theres a ton of cool free stuff to do around campus at big state schools and even at community colleges, plus a lot of other local places will give you student discounts on all kinds of stuff as long as you have your school ID.Sorry for this huge wall of text, I clearly have some unresolved issues and regrets about my decision making on this subject when I was your age. Dont fuck up horrendously like I did : 