Personality is your next best tool . As long as you are charismatic , looks don ' t matter much . As an added plus , smelling good is scientifically proven to create a bigger attraction than looks <| sep |> I mean that ' s nice for you but makes me sad . <| sep |> I ' m probably gonna catch some flak for this but it ' s both the government and the students fault school is so expensive , first off the government garentees anybody a loan that wants one , this allows the school to charge as much as they want because people will just take a loan for how ever much they need . If the government did not garentee all loans and they looked at things like past acedemic performance and your current financial standing then the schools that charge alot would be forced to drop their cost to keep enrolment up because students would only be able to afford to go to cheaper schools . I also want to point out that the intrest rates are outragous and the government should not make money off of this . Second , it is also the students fault . No one is making you go to the school that costs 50 thousand a year for all four years when you don ' t even qualify for any grants . You should attend a community college for 2 years then transfer . To me cost is the biggest factor in choosing a college . I ' m sure I ' m in the minority but I went to community college first then I transfered to a state university that happens to be the cheapest in the state at 2 , 300 $ a semester . I actually made around 2000 a semester because I made good grades and qualified for a few grants . Also , I can say with absolute certainty in the real world your degree means no more than mine . P . s . I studied math .