8 Strategies to Graduate College Debt-Free

You will never regret working harder than you’ve ever worked in your life for four years and then graduating knowing your degree is paid in full.

Student loans and significant credit card balances are not mandatory graduation requirements. Pixel-Shot/Shutterstock

There was a time when I didn’t have much opinion on paying for college with student loans. That was before the advent of email and thousands of messages, all with a similar subject line: “Help! I’m drowning in student loan debt!”

That was before I learned that about 85 percent of college graduates do not end up working in their major. That was before I heard from Jim P., who took all the student loans he could get to pay for college and law school. He assumed he'd quickly land a cushy big-bucks job and pay back $200,000. The fifth time he failed the bar exam, he gave up on being a lawyer. But the debt goes on.