Here’s a great list of things a 40-year old wishes he knew when he was 20. What stands out is this fellow still owes $20K in school loans at age 40. Yikes!

Alaska teens often look Outside for their college education. They see it as an opportunity to see the rest of the world, perhaps escape winter and have a great adventure. Apart from the attraction of palm trees or desert or beaches, it’s very difficult, financially, to justify taking out loans for an out-of-state education. As I often point out, freshman English 111 at the University of Alaska costs less than $500 if a student lives at home or takes it online. Is it worth the expense of taking the same course at Arizona or Stanford or Montana State at 2 or 3 times the cost? Especially, if tuition and living expenses must be financed?

Our culture is sold on the whole premise that a college education has to be outrageously expensive and debt is unavoidable unless parents have set aside big, big bucks. I disagree.

As an example, I know a fellow who attended community college in the Seattle area and finished his BA at UW. Debt-free, he then spent the bucks to earn his MBA from Harvard. This makes so much sense. In the long run, does it matter whether he took freshman composition at a community college or Harvard? No, it doesn’t. Where it does matter is his bank account. And I haven’t even touched on compounding and the time value of money.

Granted, sometimes the local college is not the very best or the most desirable. (I have yet to see a palm tree at UAA.) But taking on college debt has to be considered very soberly by looking ahead to the sacrifices necessary to repay. I think the short-term sacrifice of not having the very best or most ideal are worth having the freedom of being able to choose a career, a job, a location or a home after graduation without the burden of student loan payments.

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