Let’s face it: tuition is expensive. Too expensive. Like, “I’m going to be drowning in debt the rest of my life” expensive. After countless FAFSA forms and heavy interest rates, it’s only reasonable to look for a better way to pay for school. Sure, you could spend hours upon hours filling in the blanks on dozens of scholarship applications or working three waitressing jobs, but let’s be honest: you’ve totally thought about doing some of these instead.
1. Stripping
We all tell ourselves we’ll never stoop to that level, but those tuition bills hit hard. Each time you fork over cash to pay off student loans, the appeal of those shiny little outfits and platform heels looks a bit more appealing. Tuition: $24,831. Campus fees: $900. Housing and meals: $9,500. Books: $950. The look on the desk assistant’s face when you pay all $36,181 in one-dollar bills: priceless. And horrifyingly judgmental, probably.
2. Experimental clinical trials
Spending a week in the hospital trying experimental drugs and being injected with not-yet-approved medicine and then returning for several months to make sure you’re not dying—what could possibly go wrong?!
3. A sugar daddy
This seems like a good idea in theory. But then you and your best friend make a joint profile on sugardaddyforme.com under Blondetwins69 and sign up for a three-day trial and can’t message the 23-year-old football-playing millionaire nearby without paying for the membership and then you realize that your card is going to be charged $45 for searching for rich men if you don’t cancel the free trial and then you send six e-mails begging them to cancel your account WHICH they finally do at the very last moment. Save yourself the anxiety attack. Trust me.
4. Donating blood / plasma
Donating blood and plasma to help save lives is an act of kindness. Having a routine schedule of draining your bodily fluids to provide regular income is an act of desperation.
5. Robbing a bank
If Gabriella from High School Musical can don a pink ski mask and water gun and become a convincing criminal mastermind, you can too! Although you’ll probably end up in jail, not in Florida with a man who uncomfortably resembles Riff Raff. But please, for the sake of humanity, let’s never relive that cringe-worthy scene with James Franco and the rifle. Your education is worth more than that.