Did you know that with out a credit score you probably won't get a student loan? That was interesting to find out since I was just getting out of high school and had never had a chance before to build up a credit score...good information to know!
That led to about a week of thinking that I wasn't going to be able to go to college. Oh yea, that's right! Almost no college! My back up plan was to work for six months to build up some cash and then vacate the states (as in travel the world).
Fortunately, my mother was standing by and signed on as my co-signer! I received the loan just in time for the college to accept the money and not say, "oh, we gave your spot to someone on the waiting list who has the funds ready and waiting...."
If you ever wanted to see someone having a nervous breakdown for three days straight-feel free to build a time machine and come visit me at that moment! I literally cried, and I never cry. I hadn't realized how much I wanted to go to college until the moment I saw it slipping through my fingers.
Three alternate plans to college played through my head while I waited to discover if my cosignor had been accepted. The least favorable of the three was to wait a few months and then go to community college to get my AA and then move on to a University. The ambivalent one of the three was to join the military... The best of the plans I already mentioned-to work six months or so saving up money and then launch myself to Australia or Europe or even China...whatever was cheaper and then slowly work my way around the world and 'discover' myself. Possibly not the safest plan, but of course the one that a young person such as myself enjoyed playing around with so much.
Obviously the loan did come through...how could a bank miss out on the opportunity to leech more money from its future generation? Sorry, sometimes my pessimism about the world likes to leak through...maybe I should say realism (just yanking your chain).