Attending College Without Paying Tuition

For those of you out there with bright young teenagers, now wondering where they are going to go to school and how they and you are going to pay for it, here are some tips. There are actually some colleges that are free. Here is a list:

Berea College, Berea, KY; College of the Ozarks, Point Lookout, MO; Cooper Union
New York, NY; Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, PA; Deep Springs College, Deep Springs, CA and my personal favorite, the Olin College of Engineering, Needham, MA. Note that free usually just means free tuition. You still may have to pay for lodging, meals, books and so on, but given the cost of many colleges and universities, these are certainly some options to consider. The Olin College of Engineering, for example, provides over $130,000 of free tuition, while costing a fraction of that for room and board. Finally, for those of you who are returning veterans, keep in mind that your state universities are a great deal. My university, for example, California State University, Sacramento, generally gives 30 units of general education credit for those who have served, which means you have an entire year of college credit completed, before you even begin. With 120 units usually required for a BA or BS, that is a pretty good beginning and basically means you could easily finish in two and a half or three years.