The busiest time of the year for seniors is among us: college applications. Everyone is scrambling to get letters of recommendations, high school transcripts, and ACT scores in order to meet that November 1st deadline. Applying for college poses so many questions about how far you want to go, what you want to major in, and most importantly, the affordability of the school.

Honestly, no one can afford to go to college. Every single one of us will come out of college with debt, unless you’re lucky enough to get great scholarships and grants. When I was applying to schools, I avoided the “money question” completely. I would pathetically reassure myself that I would worry about that when the time came. Well, the time came a lot sooner than I had hoped.

When I was reading over all of the scholarships I had received from the school I had put a deposit down on, I realized that it really wasn’t enough. Although the school was paying for half of my tuition, I still had a $5,000 loan I would have to renew each year.

You want to scare yourself? Calculate how much a college education is and then try falling asleep that night. When my parents and I did the math, I would owe $92,000 after four years. It was pretty scary to think that I would spend the rest of my life paying off my schooling.

So, on May 1st, I withdrew my deposit from North Park University, sent my adviser an apologetic email, thanked him for his help, and applied to Oakton Community College.

For some reason, everyone is afraid of the idea of community college. Believe me, I’m guilty of this as well. Whenever my parents mentioned community college, I immediately shot down such a ridiculous idea. “I’m not going to go to a community college! Why would I do that? Everybody knows that community college is only for burnouts and people that can’t get in anywhere else.”

Just as I was, people are captivated by stereotypes and most of the time, turn away from community college completely.  

This semester, I’m paying $2,061, not including book fees. In total, I’ll be paying around $4,000 for my first year of college and boy, is that such a better number to see than $18,000 plus a $5,000 loan. I also have 2 jobs and work 5 days a week, allowing me to make money to pay for my car insurance and the car that I use to commute with, as well as save money for when I move out on my own.

I want to leave you with a couple last points. Going to a community college does not make you stupid, it makes you smart. I know that you all think that it will look bad having a community college on your resume, but businesses don’t care about where you took your gen eds, they care about where you took core classes towards your major. Don’t be afraid of a community college education, embrace it. Most of my teachers work at universities like DePaul and work at Oakton part time. These teachers have already impacted my life in different ways and hopefully will impact yours, too.