My ultimate goals in life are threefold: (1) graduate from a Florida public university without attaining any debt, (2) succeed in my undergraduate studies so I can be competitive – and ultimately enter – a top 14 law school, and (3) pay off my law school debt in less than 5 years. I grew up poor, so when building those goals I had already considered the various financial hurdles I’d have to jump to reach them. When planning for goal one, the first step to consider is the mean cost of attendance for my goal at Florida Public University – The University of Florida. The most recent cost of attendance listed for an in-state student (2024-25) is $23,530.00. If we extend this out to four years, we get a total of $94,120; however, during my high school career, I was fortunate enough to also graduate with an Associate of the Arts from the Florida State College at Jacksonville which will exempt me from 2 years ($47,060.00). Moreover, throughout high school, I attained the scores required to qualify for the Florida Academic Scholars program, which waives the $6,380.00 tuition cost. At this point, my costs round out to about $34,300.00. To avoid filibustering, when accounting for my Pell Grant (Student Aid Index of -1500) and other various scholarships, my cost ends out at about $12,710.00 for my remaining 2 years. To achieve this final cost, I will leverage my current work experience to get a part-time job in Gainesville at Chipotle – at a pay of $14/hour and about 20 hours/week – and earn for myself another $16,800.00 (over 2 years - $8400.00 per year). If all works out, this should allow me to graduate from the University of Florida without ever needing to use a federal or private loan! This is good because my second goal will be unattainable without loans. Initially, it may seem rather odd to focus my second goal on getting into a Top-14 law school. However, as all of my research has found, aiming as high as possible for law school (even with an average debt amount of $250,000.00) ends up worth the financial cost. To achieve this goal of attending a T14 law school, I must aim as high as possible in my undergraduate studies, trying to earn as close to a 4.0 GPA as possible. With my current college GPA of 3.88, I would be competitive at a T14 if I continue to earn mostly A’s. Of course, an undergraduate GPA is not the end-all-be-all for Law school admissions, so I would also need to spend my undergraduate career preparing for the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) and getting as close to the highest score of 180 as possible; my current practice testing has me at the low 170s. In the end, if I get into a top law school, I will be able to get a job commensurate with my final goal. All of my studies have amounted to my law school graduation and getting a corporate law job. The average salary for an associate lawyer at a big law firm is approximately $251,000.00 after accounting for a $26,000.00 bonus. If we operate with the previous estimated debt of $250,000.00, I would take an aggressive repayment strategy to eliminate as much interest as possible per year, especially if I can benefit from student loan refinancing, to have it completely paid off within 10 years. Rounding up to $350,000.00 to account for interest, I would be seeing $35,000.00 in payments per year – a very manageable sum that leaves me ready for the future.