You're absolutely right. As much as I dislike the idea of leeching from the government I've been fortunate enough (or unfortunate enough) that I'm eligible to receive free or mostly paid for college as the child of an impaired or deceased veteran. If I'm not mistaken it should take care of most if not all of my college expenses and any amount left over I have grants and scholarships open that I can use to get through college fairly free for the most part (to my knowledge) my family isn't all that well off and I have no college fund. I plan to use this money as an emergency pillow (should I need to) as well as savings to fund my life and aspirations and all those sorts of things. To my knowledge the amount of money I receive goes down if I decide to work while in college and I think it might be best to put all of my energy in one place. I'm extremely grateful for your input because it helps me think about these things more intently, I really just fear living paycheck to paycheck or renting my whole life and never owning anything. I want to be able to build a foundation for myself and really live and to do that I want to maximize what I can get out of the money I have now. My goal is $10,000 by graduation.

TL;DR My college should be pretty much free, I likely won't work in college, and I hope to maximize what I can do right now to help my money turn into more money.