Ah, the age-old problem—there’s never enough time in the day to attend classes, do homework, hang out with friends, do volunteer work and hold a steady job.

So which of these should be axed from your schedule first? Well, if you had it your way, it would probably be the job, but not so fast—it’s not your parents’ responsibility to pay your way through college.

These days, more and more students are paying their own way through college, and while this seems daunting, it is totally doable and really rewarding.

Here are some helpful tips:

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Quick quiz:  what do Michael Dell (Founder, Chairman and Dell Computers), David Oreck (Founder, Oreck vacuum cleaners) Bill Gates (Chairman, Microsoft) and John Paul DeJoria (CEO John Paul Mitchell Systems) have in common?

Answer: None of them completed a college degree.  That’s right.  Their careers show that while college can certainly help you, it isn’t the only pathway to success.

In fact, when the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics looked at hot jobs for the next few years, the majority of them didn’t even require college degrees.  Health workers are in great demand, and job opportunities as personal and home care aides, home health aides and medical assistants are hard to fill.

So one way to find a good career is to identify jobs that are in high demand.

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By now you may be settling into your fall semester of school and are starting to realize you need to make some money.  But before you start looking, it’s important to know that the job market may be a little different now.

As you well know, the economy is in rough shape and so there are fewer and fewer jobs available.  On top of that, there are a lot of baby boomers who were going to retire (your parents and grandparents) but decided to work a little longer and may be taking jobs you could have had.  Just something to keep in mind while you browse.

That being said, here are a few decent paying jobs for college students…

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Having a college degree will certainly not hurt your job search, but there are job options out there if you don’t have a college degree.  Don’t get me wrong.  There are plenty of statistics to support someone going to college:

The Census Bureau estimates that someone with a two-year degree will earn on average $500,000 more over the course of their lifetime than someone with just a high school diploma.  Someone with a four-year degree will earn on average $1 million more over the course of his/her lifetime than someone with just a high school education. 

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