Student loans.

I'm looking at $80k before the end of my journey, but wrapping up with a masters in compsci. So that should go fine for me.

But yeah. Don't borrow money for an arts degree. It's... likely to end in tears.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Working helps, but there's no way (unless you're in a community college) that you can work enough to pay tuition up front. Some of my relatives still don't understand that, and it's frustrating. I worked my butt off and still only kept about $10k off my $80k, which was totally worth it, but not enough to keep attending without loans. Now: I did CC in the summers and was able to pay for that out of pocket, but was working full time at the time. Summers are awesome. So much daylight!

The sucky thing about CC though is that (unlike most 4-years) they usually won't loan you enough for living expenses, so if you end up out of work it can be a dead end.

There's nowhere I can't reach.