Cut Your College Expenses- Live in a Van!

Courtesy of WikiCommons

We here at USDemocrazy are all too familiar with the costs of higher education. It’s Aristotle and mathematics in the morning, and “will work for food” in the evening.

So how can we all keep up with the costs of higher education, especially in these hard economic times? Well Ken Ilgunas has a recommendation for us…a 1994 Econoline van!

That’s right folks! Live in an Econoline instead of a dorm…what a no brainer!

And that’s exactly what Ken Ilgunas is doing at Duke University. Writing for Salon.com, Ken says:

For two whole months, I had been secretly living in my van on campus…I was only a few dollars away from having to rummage through Dumpsters to find my next meal.

This comes at no surprise, when The Choice Education Blog at the NYTimes reports that the average debt for a college grad senior is $23,200:

Students who graduated from college in 2008 with loans carried an average debt of $23,200 — an increase of nearly 25 percent, or $4,550, when compared with those who graduated just four years earlier.

But for those of us that don’t want to take up the Ken Ilgunas Econoline Accomodations,  U.S. News has released a list of schools with inexpensive dorms:

But students who can make do with fans on hot nights, and will consider a college far from an expensive city, can reduce their college costs by thousands of dollars.

Do any of our readers have any tales of dorm-less-ness?? Would you opt for a Van? Is a card board box looking tempting? Let us know!