As a recent graduate from Journalism school, I can admit its a tough field to get a break in. So here is my advice:
1. Consider a local school or public university: Request info from their program/department, take a tour, sit in on a class, talk to advisers and students. See if it meets your expectations and if you can handle the stress of the program.
2. Consider freelance: Since most media companies are facing cutbacks, it a main way most up and coming journalists are getting into the industry. Many news organizations are also looking at freelancers to one-man-band; which means, write, edit, shoot, and produce their pieces. Ask yourself if you can handle that type of pressure, and most importantly can you handle juggling multiple projects.
3. Network, Network, Network: Join a professional organization that fits your liking (i.e. American Society of Media Photographers), attend events, make contacts. This way you can tap into these groups for job listings, fellowships, career advice, and internships.

Hope this helps.

I'll get straight to the point. $80,000 is a lot money, especially when you enter your field to start your career. While you can and will be paying this off little by little, you have to ask yourself if your income/salary is going to support the lifestyle you will/want to be living. Have you done the market research in your field and location? Will you be able to easily find a job in journalism right out of college to begin supporting yourself? I ask this because, these days, what happens is that kids go back to living with their parents since they can't find jobs right away, due to economic difficulties that our generation has inherited.

I would advise that you also look into some internship programs to gain experience before going out into the real world – that way you'll have an edge over those starting with a clean slate. Some other things that would probably help is prior involvement with writing and journalism when you're looking for work, such a being part of your school newspaper, having stories published in local papers, or maybe even online publications/blogs. I guess it all depends on what kind of journalism you want to get into. Hope this helps!

Thank you

Jacob,

As I mentioned in the post, you should always have something to fall back to if things don't work out – a backup plan, of sorts. If moving in with your friend, even temporarily, is going to save you money, you should do it, but only while keeping in mind that things could go wrong and you'll need to be able to fall back to that backup plan.

Another thing you can try doing is to discuss this matter with your friend and acknowledge with each other what would happen if things were to go wrong. Moving away and living with a roommate can be a very good experience, but everyone involved has to put in equal effort to make it successful. Are you confident that you'll be comfortable living with this person for an X amount of time?