Your Money

How much college loan debt is too much? The bad news: Maybe less than you might think. Now for the good news: You can figure how much college debt you can reasonably afford, and you can do it in about five minutes. You can do it by the time you reach the end of this article. Armed with this knowledge, you'll be in control of your life. You can plan for a college experience you can afford. Or, you can reconsider your existing plans and think about a higher-paying career, one that might allow you to tak…

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College application fees. They’re high. And going higher. Stanford University, with its $19 billion endowment, wants you to pay $90 for a chance at a slot in next year’s freshman class. Boston University, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Villanova, USC, and the University of North Carolina will charge you $80 for the same privilege. George Mason University demands $100 before it will consider your snail-mail application. But file online and the admissions office drops that to $60. Yes, those ar…

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The perfect hobby. Something you do for fun. Something that actually is fun. Something that’s really cheap. Something that might pay off. In cash. There’s the “clever” part. The average teenager spends more than seven hours each day in front of a computer, a TV, or a mobile device. Peel yourself away from the digital haze, and you might get so good at your cheap hobby that someone will actually pay you to do it for them. To get you started, we’ve picked five perfect hobbies. They’re fun, cheap, and p…

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