Growing up in Midland, Michigan, I was incredibly lucky that my parents were able to fund my undergraduate degree.
I walked away with my Michigan State diploma as one of the shrinking minority of students who didn't have to borrow from Uncle Sam, or worse, private student lenders.
But when I decided to pursue my Master's degree, I knew one thing for sure: My parents weren't going to keep me on their bankroll any longer.
I enrolled in New York University in the Fall of 2012 and I've been learning how to get by on my own ever since –– from navigating the tricky world of student loans to scraping together enough cash to pay rent.
Chances are there are a lot of graduate (and undergraduate) students who can relate.
Network on the university's dime.
My school e-mail inbox is always piled high with networking events and grad school social outings. My department sponsors lots of speakers and career events with people from big-name media organizations.
Besides being a resume boost, they often come with free snacks and company swag. And the graduate school also sponsors a happy hour the first Friday of every month at a local bar –– a great way to meet people and snag a couple free drinks.
These meet-and-greets are events most schools have, and it's wise to glance through your email alerts if you're in the mood to mingle on the university's dime.
Apply for every scholarship possible, no matter how small.
The scholarship NYU offered me was a deciding factor in my grad school search, but I needed to look for even more funding opportunities if I were going to last 18 months.
Finding the motivation to write an essay for a $1,000 scholarship was difficult knowing that a single semester at NYU cost roughly $20,000. But every bit counted. NYU's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences has a great tuition incentive program that matches at least half of all external scholarship dollars with tuition credits.
Many other universities also offer merit-based graduate fellowships or teaching assistant for certain majors, and research grants are often available for Master's candidates as well.
Don't take out a student loan until you've read the fine print.
As a newbie to student lending, I spent a solid day examining all of my options.
My advice: Take the time to read the fine print. Some federal loans don't start accumulating interest until you're finished with school. Many others do.
And even though private loans can look attractive, federal loans are almost always better –– you won't have to worry about variable interest rates jumping all over the place, and they have more flexible repayment options.
Online student loan calculators helped give me a better picture of how much my loans would cost me in the end. It wasn't a friendly number, but I was happy to have a realistic idea of what I was getting myself into and have a plan to pay it back before I signed on the dotted line.
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