I'm afraid because if I don't have my financial aid,

Sounds like you have two options:

1) Go military/ROTC. I live in an area with a military base, and had a family member do it. honestly, while I'm 99% sure it sucks, the perks afterwards can be awesome. Where I work now, our janitor who gets paid like mininmum wage uses that plus his pension and is financially set for life.


2) student loans. If you're going into something that has any financial potential (basically anything but art history or "liberal arts"), you shouldn't worry. Hell, go into teaching and you get loan deferment/forgiveness.


2.5) Drop out and disappoint your family. Don't do this.

>>18567480

and by "any financial potential" I am not talking about just STEM. I'm a burned out engineer. There are many other careers that can both provide more intrinsic validation, and still pay a reasonable enough salary to get your loans paid off dude.

You may or may not have to consider moving after college to achieve this. If your extenuating circumstances are bad enough, you might already be thinking this. It's really not a huge life changing thing, to be honest.

>>18567480
>>18567527
Unfortunately I'm an art student. I do commissions/have a small business with it, make 300$ a week so far, and plan to expand into web/programming design and beyond, but I don't have the skill yet to go full professional. It's more of a side thing now. I can't really justify taking out loans for this--especially because I get the inkling I can actually teach myself some of these things.

The financial aid paid off almost everything and my own earnings helped a lot as well. I think the ineligibility may be easily rescinded in a year so it wouldn't really be *dropping out*, but even so I'd be 23 then. Maybe I can just tell my mom that next year I'd have to take out more loans, so I decided to go with the military to pay them off. Stupid, but she'd buy it.

Anyways, thanks for not shooting down my idea of joining the military. It is a little worrying because I don't know if I'd have enough time for myself--i.e., what if I don't have time to maintain my side art thing, or can't practice? I don't know what to think. It's like signing my youth away. Then again, it must be way better than just another stupid minimum wage job.

>>18567688
Yeah, I'm 28 and am going to community college to jump into a new career by 30-31 where I'm looking at a 50% paycut, and by probably 35'ish I'll be back up to where I'm at now in terms of salary. And the 50+ year olds I know tell me I'm young and to go for it. So, wasted youth? Shit, the old people I hang out with know more innuendos than me.

And $1200/wk is pretty decent money for a side business. Not enough to live solo on probably, but even an art student is better than art history where you're looking for what, exclusively art museum jobs after graduation? Look into your area and see if there are any graphic design/advertising/etc firms around you can join with locally. If not, maybe move. Or before that, pick up some other job - bartending, waitering, something with a different skillset. Chat up people and, I hate the fucking term that was drilled into me, but "network". People you encounter may lead you into finding better jobs. And if you suck and get fired, who cares? Means you get another interview to practice. At least for now you've got parents to keep you up in a home if shit hits the fan, at least partially.

On the military, yeah you're probably not going to have much time to commit to art while you're in, at least during training and I'd assume deployments. Not sure how ti works these days but I'm assuming they do take on artsy people for press photos and whatnot though. But even then you'll probably get ideas if you google 'military artist'. And it may also open up alternative career paths for you anyway.

>>18567433
You're fucking retarded if you're making such a big deal out of art college.

If you were pursing something better, I would advise staying in school no matter what.

Since it's art, go to the military, at least it'll make a man out of you and you'll be able to use your veteran status to get the best job at Starbucks.