College just started this week and with the usual classes come books. Only this time around I did not take out a student loan. I just took one of my checks for contracted work and cashed it, then went down to the book store and bought the books I failed to get online. Which I meant to get more online, but I waited to long and Amazon showed a two month wait on some of the books. (Which on Amazon one book was about $130, at the college bookstore it was $220.) During this whole mess I have also been thinking about my plan past my Associates degree. Here are the options I believe that I have:

• Continue on to a Bachelor’s degree full-time
• Focus all my energy on building my business after graduation
• Do the Bachelor’s degree, but take it one/two classes at a time

The reason for the two different Bachelor degree option is the cost. The university I would transfer to requires me take 42 credit hours. Currently they charge 410 per credit hour, which rings up to be 17,220. Which if I am a full-time student then the state lottery based scholarship would cover almost $4000 of that amount. Leaving me with over $13,000 to come up with. Which if I’m not able to get other financial aid leads me to option two…

Taking two classes (2460 – 562.50 = 1897.50) per semester. Which the 562.50 is the pro-rated scholarship and will be with me for six semesters. This will in the long run cost me about $13,800. But the almost $1900 is better to manage then the $3795 I would need to come up with for three of the semesters. Or I could take three classes two of those semesters and be even on the cost.

But while I’m doing all this I will be working in and on my business, to grow it. Which leads to the last option. Taking all my time and the $13,000 I would need and devoting it all to my business. Investing in better equipment and nicer ads. And in some ways it is almost tempting just to choose that option. But I do have to take into account why I’m getting a degree if I’m running my own business. That is for a backup, should something happen to my business with a Bachelor’s degree I feel like it’s safer and it allows me to advertise that with my business.

Lucky I still have till fall of 2013 to be deciding, I may end up choosing one of these options or none of these options. I still got a lot of learning and saving to do in these months to come.