re: Where would you send your son?

My daughter went to the financial office her first year and you'd be surprised how many $200-1000 scholarships go unused every year. In her major she picked up a couple grand every year and it helped a lot.

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Does he go to school after enlistment or how does that work

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Not 100% sure how it works in Arkansas. Talk to a guard recruiter.

Here's some information from their site:

LINK

As others have said... First year go to a community college and live at home. Make sure it is accredited and all the classes should transfer. Do some research on core classes he will need.

Freshman English, US History, likely a foreign language... knock those out dirt cheap at the community college. It will save a lot of money and odds are he will get better teachers at the CC because those core classes at a University tend to be taught by terrified grad students or in huge "arena" classes where he'll be lucky to even wave at the professor. CC classes, in my experience, tend to be taught by experienced High School teachers moonlighting for a little extra money or retired Professors. Plus he can work a part time job while going to community college for even more cash.

Do not live on campus if y'all can at all avoid it. Even the new dorm rooms suck compared to an apartment and frankly the cafeteria food isn't going to set the world on fire. Also is an apartment close to campus? You're going to pay out the wazoo for it. Don't do it, the convenience is not worth the cost.

He is already paying for the free public transit system in town so take advantage of it. Live in a cheap apartment near the Blue bus route and split a two bedroom place with a friend of his. The Blue bus, as of 5 years ago, comes by like every 15 minutes or so and can take him right to campus and the grocery store. There are cheap apartments not on the Blue route but those buses don't tend to run as often so you have to be more careful of getting to campus on time.

By all means, take a car. Try not to use it. Its expensive and frustrating to park on campus and he's already paying for the public transit which will take him every where he needs to go.

Warn him to avoid Bottom's Up and the Microbrewery next door to it because one night at either place is likely to spend his entire food budget for the month.

I don't think he *has* to go after a music degree to march in the Razorback Band so steer him to one of the other degrees. People will tell you that a Communication degree will easily get you a job in business. They are lying. Beat him if he chooses that degree and force him to pursue another choice.

If you are careful all 4 kids can absolutely graduate from the U of A without racking up a ton of debt.

He wants to be a band director.

Arkansas Tech has a band program that has produced plenty of band directors in Arkansas and it’s gotta be a lot cheaper to be in Russellville than in Fayetteville.

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My oldest son is a junior in high school. We visited u of a Friday, he loved it. It's his dream. He's a very talented trumpet player and wants to be a music major. I have 4 boys between the ages of 17-13 (we adopted 2 from Foster care a couple years back) there is no chance we can afford to pay for these boys all to go to college so we made the decision a long time ago that wherever they went would be on them. I'm not signing on any loans for them. He has a job and should have about 30k when he graduates high school.

What are some schools we should be looking at besides u of a?

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You can save some coin going to NWACC for a year or two. I wouldn't go a penny in debt for a music degree though. Like if you can't afford it, go to welding school.

I'm trying to persuade him to just play in the band and go into something else more lucrative. We'll see.