You want to go there. You want to go to that college so, so bad.

Maybe you’ve been hearing about it since you were a kid. Maybe that cheesy admissions counselor from the school fair sent just the right promotional email. Maybe it’s a university you found of your own volition, a prestigious institution with a big library and spacious dorms. Whatever the reason, you want it.

But here’s the thing. There’s a chance, possibly a good chance, you can’t have it.

It’s not news that college is expensive. Most of us have spent years hearing people talk about the importance of scholarships and grants and letting some unknown, rich benefactor pay for your school. All are great thoughts, but this isn’t as easy as it sounds. Scholarships rarely cover the entire cost of attendance, and with so many people vying for them it’s important to stand out in terms of your academic profile. If you’re going to rely on scholarships and grants to pay for your school, start honing your essay-writing skills now. Join a few clubs. Play a sport. Find ways to stand out among your peers.

The reality of it all is that many of us will have an outstanding balance after the scholarships are applied. At this point you’ve got a decision to make; do you work? Do you beg your parents to cover the difference? Do you go into major debt and take out a loan that won’t get paid off for twenty years?

The key to avoiding such a plight: just choose a school that won’t take twenty years to pay off.

My dream university was far away from home, hard to get into, and triple the price of my local college options. I pushed through my parents’ concerns and the limitations of federal tuition assistance and applied anyway, going as far as to book-study for the ACT so I’d have scores high enough to ensure admittance, as well as make me a shoe-in for incoming freshman merit scholarships. After months of angst, I submitted my application. Amazing news, I got in! Hooray! Bad news, it was going to cost me a literal kidney to attend. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of kidney.

Yes. Hundreds of thousands. For a Bachelor’s degree. The figures on my admittance package were almost a joke, the “Financial Aid” pie chart displaying only two sections; one pretty and blue and as thin as a hair strand labeled Financial Aid Allowance, and the other a big chunk of blaring red titled Outstanding Balance. This is a common occurrence. School in America isn’t getting any cheaper.

I knew I shouldn’t do it, that I shouldn’t pay that. I physically couldn’t do it, not unless I could convince one of my parents to scribble their soul away as my cosigner on student loans the size of their mortgage. So I did what any reasonable teenager did. I moped. I whined and complained and cried about the fact that I’d worked so hard for nothing. My biggest mistake there was thinking I was out of options if that dream school wasn’t going to work out.

I wised up and started looking other places. I did research, I found schools willing to hand me money to attend. It hurt me. I wasn’t following my dream, so what was I doing? Saving money, is what I was doing. Making a great financial choice, is what I was doing. Going to an institution that offered good scholarships for all of that high school turmoil, is what I was doing. I’ll be graduating college in only three-and-a-half years after having studied abroad for a semester and using loans for all of my housing expenses, and I’ll still have way less than the national average amount of student loan debt, not to mention a tenth of the debt I would have had at the dream school.

Emotion is a major contributor to clouded judgment. We’re all human and think we know what’s best for ourselves, but when it comes to picking a university it’s not just about how you feel. It’s about how all of that student loan debt will feel in five years when you’re juggling rent, groceries, medical bills, and everything else that comes with being an adult in this world. You’re allowed to want things, and you’re allowed to be disappointed when you don’t get them. Especially if you worked yourself to tears to get there. If you’re on the right end of the income scale, the end where you have the money or means or connections to make your college aspirations come true, that’s okay. I’m happy for you, and I hope others are too. But if you’re in the former group, the ones that have to make the hard choices for their own financial wellbeing, don’t forget that it’s okay to enjoy the alternatives to whatever you thought you wanted. It’s possible to end up being happy with something you wouldn’t have originally chosen. The road not traveled might have been going in the complete wrong direction.

But how do you even approach a decision like this? How do you prevent yourself from making one of the worst financial decisions of your life? Be objective and logical. Compare. Compare A to B, compare B to C, compare C to A, compare whatever to whatever until your head hurts. My favorite way to decide between colleges is the sports bracket method. Put two schools against one another and compare traits like attendance price, location, scholarships offered, and whatever else matters to you. Whichever doesn’t win between the two, kick it off the bracket and keep the other. Do this with all of your potential schools, pitting the winners against one another, until you’ve narrowed it down to a single winner. The facts speak for themselves. You’ll know which university is best for you and your budget by the end.

(If you don’t know how brackets work, here’s an explanation and example. Just plug in your potential colleges instead of sports teams: https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/tournament-brackets-101#:~:text=Brackets%20need%20to%20include%20at,move%20to%20a%20consolation%20round. )