What should I do after high school?

While finances play a key role in what you do after high school, don’t let the sticker price of a particular college discourage you from applying. Many colleges offer a TON of financial aid and scholarships, so more students end up paying a fraction of the advertised cost. Apply to the schools that feel like a great fit for you, and then compare your options in the spring; if your dream school didn’t offer you enough money to make it a viable option, talk to them. Schools will often match financial aid packages from other institutions to encourage you to enroll.

For a long time, teenagers have been told that the thing they should do is go to college. And people are rightly stepping back and asking if that's still true for them or if there might be some other way that they could learn and grow and move into the world. I think that part of being at that age is that, inherently, you feel driven to try new things because, in the process of trying things, you might land on something you really love. One thing that I don't love about college is when people feel like they have to decide, even by 16 or 17, what they want to do with their life. That's way too much pressure. And as someone who's 40-something now, I can look back on it and know that that wasn't the right expectation for myself at that time. It was not a time to figure out what I was going to do with my life. It was a time to try things and see what I loved.

If there's some next step that you can take that doesn't feel so permanent, that's not so hard, that lets you try things like trying out an internship or volunteering for a year at an organization that might be in an area that you care about, it's a great time to think about giving your skills back to the community that you come from and helping people along who are earlier on in the process than you. You've probably got a lot of energy right now and a lot of time, and it doesn't cost too much to be alive when you're young. It really is a time to be brave and try something and see what lights you up inside. The goal isn't to figure out what you're going to do with your life. The goal is to figure out who you want to be. And the best way to do that is to put yourself in places where you try new things.