There are endless reasons why someone might consider attending a community college, but for most people it all comes down to a way to save money. You really can save a ton of money going to a community college near your home, especially once you factor in all of the expenses of college beyond basic tuition.

Obtaining a college education is a long term commitment which requires adjustments in your overall lifestyle, and all of these adjustments can add to the cost of your educational adventure. For someone who doesn’t have money saved up for their education and who doesn’t want to get in over their head in loans, working to pay for their tuition may be their only hope of graduating. It is much easier to pay around $800 (sometimes even less) to a community college than to come up with over $5,000 (sometimes much more) for a larger university each term.

Besides the fact that a community college will be thousands of dollars less than a state university, you also have to consider many other factors including living and transportation expenses, as well as books and other required classroom supplies. These are all areas where attending a community college could save you money.

Living and Transportation Expenses

If you live close to a large university you could still live at home to save on living expenses, but going away for college will require a lot of thought into how much you can afford to pay for housing, utilities, food, and all of the other expenses of daily life. These things don’t go away while we are in college, and in some parts of the country they can even be more expensive than we are used to paying regularly.

The best opportunity for someone worried about paying tuition is to live at home with parents or in whatever your current living arrangement is, so that you are already paying the bills and know what you can afford. For most people, this will mean going to a community college at least for now. The option to transfer to a university a couple years down the road is always open, and in fact most community colleges work closely with state universities to transfer students over smoothly.

You should discuss with an adviser while schedule coursework to make sure whatever you take at the community college will transfer into your degree program at the university when you are ready to transfer. In the meantime, you can save a lot of money on living expenses and tuition by staying at a community college and saving up money.

Driving to and from classes needs to be taken into consideration as well. Most people live reasonably near a community college, while most are rather far away from a large university. Going to the college with the least driving distance will mean less money spent on gas and vehicle maintenance, as well a greater chance that you can work your classes into your work schedule.

Every person’s situation is different, but in most cases it will be much cheaper to live wherever you currently are and go to a community college than to travel to a large university. Even if a larger college is nearby, the savings in tuition will almost always leave community college the better option as far as money goes.