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My\xa0So Money\xa0Millennial today wasn\u2019t a top student or star athlete, but\xa0Kristina\xa0Ellis, 28, managed to earn half a million dollars in college scholarships by the time she graduated high school in 2005.\xa0 . The most recent graduating class finished college with an\xa0average $35,000\xa0in student loans \u2013 the highest on record.\xa0 And of course we\u2019ve heard of students saddled with six figures in student loans. It\u2019s a crisis.For Kristina, after her mother sat her down in the 9th\xa0grade and told her she wouldn\u2019t be able to financially support her daughter once she graduated high school, she became empowered to find a way to afford her own future without skipping college or going into massive debt.Instead, she immediately began researching the best ways to qualify for top scholarships. She spearheaded community service missions, coached and grew her gymnastics team and even managed to get crowned Miss Indiana Teen USA. From there Kristina cast a very wide application net and managed to earn $500,000 spread across 20 scholarships, including the Coca-Cola and Gates Millennium Scholar awards.Kristina now shares her strategies to help others win scholarships and graduate from college debt-free in her book,\xa0Confessions of a Scholarship Winner, which has ranked in the Top 20 among all books on Barnes and Noble and in the Top 40 on all of Amazon, as well as topping the charts in Amazon's College & University category.For more information visit\xa0www.somoneypodcast.com.