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It was 60% dumb luck and 40% preparation/hard work before ever reaching college.I had been a mediocre student through grade school and high school, but I woke up around my junior year of high school realizing I was going nowhere if I didn’t start buckling down.So, I did everything I could my junior and senior years of high school to raise my GPA, and practiced relentlessly at taking the ACT test, improving my score each semester until it was in the top percentile, and brought my grades up to As and Bs from the Cs that had been my more comfortable standard before.Next, I sought every possible cheap avenue to take college classes for free or at reduced price in high school—i.e., the A.P. (Advanced Placement) essay exam for credit in English, dual-enrollment courses in Psychology from a nearby community college, and then the marvels of CLEP tests.CLEP tests are very, very cool. Each one costs I think about $85. If you pass it, you get 3 hours of college credit in that particular course. I ended up taking /passing getting credit for 30 hours of CLEP tests beyond 6 hours for English and Psychology from other tests. That was the equivalent of one year of college and another 6 hours. 85 X 10 CLEP tests = $850.00. Not a bad price for one year of college.Then, I applied for every single scholarship I could find for which I was eligible. It was something like 40 different scholarship applications.That was the 40% preparation/hard work. The other 60% was dumb luck, in that I was lucky enough to get significant merit scholarships from Mesa Petroleum, courtesy of the oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens. I disagree strongly with Mr. Pickens’ politics, but I am forever indebted to the man for the scholarships he set up at West Texas State University before it became WTAMU. That money, along with weekly income from working in the Writing Lab and working summers as a farm and ranch hand, was enough for me to pay for schooling and graduate with no debt for the BA.Part of what made that work out so well were all the CLEP tests. You see, if you pass a CLEP test, you do not get assigned a letter grade, A-F. As long as you have the minimum passing score (roughly the equivalent of a 60%), you get full credit for the class—but no stigma of having a “C” or “D” on your transcript. So, I took CLEP tests in the Gen Ed courses that were my weakest spots. That meant, each semester in college, when I had to maintain a high GPA to keep the Mesa Petroleum scholarship, my GPA was being primarily determined by courses in my major (where I excelled and could get straight As), but not by the gen ed courses (where I would probably have been an average “C” student if I were taking the class the traditional way).I don’t know why more students don’t take advantage of CLEP tests, or the “Challenge Tests” that some universities offer. (A “challenge” test means you can appeal to take the final examination, and if you pass it, you can get credit for the course. You still have to pay tuition money as normal if you pass (or pay a $250 fee if you take it and fail), but you can still knock off semesters of time by doing it that way if you are strong in a subject area. Not all schools have challenge exams though—you have to investigate that one school at a time).In any case, the MA was paid for by being a graduate teaching assistant while I worked on my Master’s, and four out of five years of my Ph.D. was likewise paid by being a graduate teaching assistant during the doctorate. The very last year of my Ph.D., I had to take on significant debt to finish up once my funding ran out—which was hideously expensive as it was out-of-state tuition—but I was still very, very lucky to get the BA and MA with no debt.Start as early as you can thinking about how to pay for college—at least a few years before your senior year, if you can arrange that and it’s not too late. Hunt relentlessly for every available private scholarship you can track down, and pour your heart into the essay applications for each one.Take as many dual-enrollment classes, CLEP tests, and AP tests as you can—especially if you are skillful with test-taking anyways.