Since beginning Student Debt Diaries a few years ago, I have received numerous emails from high school students and their parents about student debt. Most high schoolers and their parents want to know strategies that can be pursued in college to minimize the amount of student debt a borrower needs to take out to pay for educational costs. However, students can implement strategies in high school that can also greatly impact their bottom lines. Indeed, AP classes can lessen your student debt, and high school students should take Advanced Placement courses if they have the chance to do so.
As many people already know, Advanced Placement courses are classes that students can take in high school so that they can potentially earn college credit. AP students need to take a test at the end of the course to prove their proficiency with the subject matter tested. If students score high enough on these tests, AP classes can lessen your student debt, since many colleges will accept AP credits for high-scoring students.
When I was in high school, I took six AP classes. As a high school student, I was told that AP classes can lessen your student debt, since you could potentially graduate early or take less credits in college because of AP courses. However, the main reason I took AP classes in high school was to be competitive in the college admissions process. Many of the top students at my high school were in AP classes, so I took these courses to show that I could handle a college courseload.
I did well on the AP tests for these courses. Indeed, I received a score of four or five on almost all of the AP tests that I took. Since many colleges give credit to students who receive fours or fives on AP tests, this meant that I completed a respectable amount of college credits even before I graduated from high school.
I did not really appreciate how AP classes can lessen your student debt until I got to college. When I first learned which AP credits my college would honor, I realized that these credits constituted more than a semester of college credits. As a result, my AP classes meant that I could graduate college a semester early, and avoid paying for the tuition, fees, food, and other costs associated with paying for my last semester of college.
Rather than graduate from college a semester early, I ended up using my AP credits for another purpose. As mentioned in a few prior articles, I completed a Master’s degree in American history during my senior year of college through a rigorous, four-year B.A./M.A. program. Most students in this program attended summer school, since you needed to have enough credits to graduate college after only three years of studies in order to earn a graduate degree.
However, my story shows how AP classes can lessen your student debt, because I did not need to attend summer school. Since I already had over a semester of college essentially completed before I graduated from high school, I was able to take the remaining credits I needed during the academic years of my first three years in college. As a result, AP classes helped me earn a graduate degree for essentially no additional expense.
It should be mentioned that AP classes can provide other academic benefits as well. My undergraduate program had a rigorous foreign language requirement that stressed out many students. If I recall correctly, students needed to complete three semesters of a foreign language, and this meant that they could not take other courses to work on a major or a minor.
However, if a student received a score of “four” or higher on a foreign language Advanced Placement course, then that student was exempted from my college’s foreign language requirement. Since I received a “four” on the AP Spanish test, I did not need to spend time on foreign language courses in college. This shows that AP classes can lower your debt and at the same time provide other academic advantages.
AP courses can also be important if you plan on studying abroad. As previously mentioned, it is difficult for students to study abroad with student loans, since institutional financial aid typically cannot be used to study abroad, among other restrictions. In addition, colleges may not accept all of a student’s study abroad credits, depending on the program that the student uses to study abroad. As a result, a student may have to take summer classes or make up the credits in some other way when they return.
However, if a college accepts a student’s AP credits, this can empower a student to study abroad without impacting their bottom line. As a result, AP classes can lessen your student debt and also give you more flexibility when evaluating your educational goals.
All told, high school students can make a number of decisions in the present that will impact their student debt situation later in life. Not only can high school students weigh different financial aid and scholarship offers, but if given the option, they can also enroll in Advanced Placement classes to potentially earn college credits before starting their undergraduate studies. As my own story demonstrates, AP classes can lessen your student debt and give you more academic flexibility as you pursue your undergraduate or graduate degree.