Reduce College Debt by Enrolling in a Work College

Paying for college gets tougher every year. Not everyone will qualify for a grant or full scholarship. Even online colleges charge tuition that could be beyond some families' budgets. And some people want to have the traditional "college experience." So, what's an aspiring college student with a limited budget supposed to do? Well, one option to consider is applying to what's known as a work college.

For students in work colleges, work-study isn't optional; it's mandatory. There are a total of seven work colleges in the United States that comprise the Work College Consortium. Five, Alice Lloyd College and Berea College in Kentucky, College of the Ozarks in Missouri, Ecclesia College in Arkansas, and Warren Wilson College in North Carolina are below the Mason-Dixon Line. Blackburn College and Sterling College are in Illinois and Vermont, respectively.

Work colleges are much like any other college in that they offer majors like liberal arts, business administration, communications and computer science among others. Unlike mainstream colleges and universities, no student graduates without some sort of practical work experience, even if the work they do isn't in their chosen fields of study. The kinds of jobs students at work colleges do depends a lot on each college and where it's located. For example, students at Sterling College could find themselves working on a maple sugaring team, as breakfast prep cooks or computer support technicians.

Despite their name, work colleges are still, first and foremost, institutions of higher education. Students, generally, have to complete 10 to 20 hours of work each week. Sterling College demands that students work a mere six hours each week. At Warren Wilson College, students must do community service in addition to working 15 hours each week.

Even in a booming economy, people can have trouble paying for college. Yet not a lot of people seem to know about work colleges. Attending one can drastically reduce college debt while simultaneously helping students acquire some much needed work experience.