HR management and program analyst: How I paid for college
About this video
Alexis Avery explains how she paid for college through scholarships from beauty pageants and studying abroad, the HOPE scholarship, and working as a resident assistant, which covered her housing. She encourages students to write scholarship essays even when they seem long. She finished with about $60,000 in loans and plans to use Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
You'll be able to
- list the ways Alexis paid for her undergraduate education.
- explain why it's worth writing scholarship essays even when they seem like a lot of work.
- describe how Public Service Loan Forgiveness works.
Key words
- resident assistant (RA)
- A student who helps run a dorm and support other residents, often in exchange for free housing.
- scholarship
- Money for school that you don't have to pay back.
- student loan debt
- Money borrowed to pay for school that must be paid back, usually with interest.
- Public Service Loan Forgiveness
- A US program that cancels remaining student loans after 120 qualifying payments while working in public service.
Transcript
My name is Alexis Avery. I'm a management and program analyst at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and I'm 26 years old and I make $77,000 a year. In undergraduate school I was a resident assistant, which is known as an RA. A lot of people are like hesitant towards being an RA but it was honestly one of the best experiences of my life.
A lot of my residents they're still my friends but I still call them my residents. (laughing) Even though we're totally friends now. So I was able to fund undergraduate school through scholarships from beauty pageants, some scholarships with studying abroad, and then being a resident assistant as well which paid for all of my housing, the last year and a half that I was in undergraduate school and then also the HOPE scholarship.
I did get some scholarships so I'm very appreciative for that but I still wish that I went that extra mile and did even more. I know sometimes when like when I was a student I would see essays and I would just be like (sighing) that's a lot or you know 10 page essays or such but one you never know what you can get from that scholarship because if you find one scholarship that you're interested in just write the essay and do it and then also later on you never know when that can help you for another essay as well.
I finished school with about $60,000 in student loan debt. Undergraduate and graduate school combined. Naturally it weighs on me to have to owe someone $60,000 but what I will say is that I am thankful to be in public service because there is a public service forgiveness loan that I am applying to.
I literally just graduated a couple months ago and so if you pay over a span of 10 years 120 qualified payments then your loans are forgiven after those 10 years. So I'm thankful for public service.
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