(MONEY Magazine) – Just to pay for college, Eran Rosenthal, 24, a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has had several careers. He has managed a clothing store, modeled men's fashions, waited tables, tended bar, weeded gardens and written advertising copy, making anywhere from $5 to more than $50 an hour. And he's found other ways to raise cash as well. Last year, for example, he made $1,000 designing and selling T-shirts. Those earnings helped him buy a 1979 Triumph TR-7 sports car for $2,500 -- which he restored and sold for a $1,100 profit. Eran's flair for earning money enables him to contribute almost $5,000 each year toward the cost of Chapel Hill -- currently $7,000 for tuition, room and board for North Carolina residents like him. He receives $625 a semester in grants and $1,000 in student loans. His mother Madeleine (his parents divorced when he was nine; Eran is an only child) picks up the remainder -- provided he gets at least a B- in each course. Otherwise, the maternal gift is converted into a loan. After taking a beating in Spanish last semester, Eran now owes his mother, an artist in Swarthmore, Pa., about $2,000. His student loans total $18,000. Of course, considering the time he spends at his various jobs, just getting a passing grade is something of an achievement; his grade point average is 2.6 out of a possible 4. Eran was a part-time Tarheel for almost three years before he felt he could afford to cut his work schedule and shoulder a full course load. Looking back, he would have preferred to devote more time to his studies. ''I wish I hadn't spent so much time working to make ends meet,'' he says. ''College always took a back seat.'' His mother, however, suspects that the unusual combination of work and study may have been just right. ''He was bright but not very disciplined in high school,'' she says. Furthermore, having worked his way through college, Eran seems better prepared to enter the working world than many graduates. He says that after getting his degree by December 1992 (by which time he will have spent six years in college), he'll put his promotional talents to work in advertising.