If you cut your education expenses, you reduce the chances of graduating with huge education debt – which is the last thing you want. If you take the following steps, you’ll have more money to pay off your existing debt and you’ll accumulate a lot less debt going forward.
Here are three powerful ways to do just that:
1. Books
Textbooks are ridiculously expensive. According to the Student Public Interest Research Groups (SPIRG), the cost has skyrocketed four times faster than inflation since 1994. Most students spend at least $900 on books every year.
How do you combat this attack on your money?
Buybacks, rentals, used and e-books are four great tactics. You get the most bang for your buck by buying used and then selling the book back. But this is also the most risky alternative. The store won’t buy the book unless the professors commit to using the book next semester. You can sometimes get a buy-back guarantee before you buy, but if you don’t, consider a rental or e-book.
According to SPRIG, rentals cost about almost 60% less than buying new, but I think this might be short-sighted. With rentals, you can’t mark up the book or draw funny pictures of the professor when she isn’t looking. What a drag.
E-books are a bit more expensive than rentals, but you can do anything you want on the pages you print out. Besides sharing the cartoons you draw, you’ll get a lot more out of the class if you’re able to take notes on what you read. If you’re paying an arm and a leg for tuition, you might as well learn as much as possible.
2. Housing
Your student (why do they call my kid a student…she’s my kid, for crying out loud!) has a variety of options here. And you have to consider issues beyond cost. You want the safest environment possible that allows your child to excel in school and have a great college experience at the same time. Believe it or not, these two are not mutually exclusive. You have to weigh all these considerations plus cost before making a decision.
Having said that, dorms are the most expensive route possible. Schools are raising room and board fees because they have less money coming from other sources. On the other hand, real estate prices have dropped. Rental property owners want good tenants, and if you can convince a landlord that your child is responsible, the owner will work with you on price. One word of caution is that many colleges offer on-campus apartment housing. This is cheaper than the dorms, but you’ll get far better deals by going a few blocks off campus. You can easily save 40% or more on housing by buying your kid a bicycle and telling Junior to commute with it. A little exercise and a little savings. Me likey.
3. Tuition
By far, the best way to get a fantastic education at a fraction of the cost is to go to a lower-cost school and get your kid to involve herself in honors groups and clubs. My daughter discovered this idea and it has worked out beautifully. She proved that you can get an expensive college education at a huge discount. She got into some pretty snooty schools on the other side of the country. While I was extremely proud of her of course, I developed a stutter just thinking about the tuition, room and board and travel expenses.
We discussed this issue as a family and came to a decision that she’d go to a school that was closer to home. The tuition was 1/3 of the snotty schools and the travel expenses disappeared as she’s only a few hours’ drive from us. We weren’t worried about the level of education – it is a top-notch school. But we were concerned about the quality of students she’d be with. She nipped that problem in the bud by getting super involved with student government and honors business groups. Now she works with other students who are serious, responsible, educated and smart. Problem solved…and money saved. Booya!
Sometimes it makes sense to spend some extra money on tuition. This can be the case with private career colleges, but even then you have to carefully consider the benefits and drawbacks.
Of course, students always have the option of getting a job they work on weekends. That would certainly be a great way to reduce college debt.
What fugal living ideas do you have for students?
Barb Friedberg says
Hi Neil, Sound advice. My daughter is graduating college this spring and I certainly resonate to this article. There are so many financial and educational issues related to higher ed. Nice concise article on ways to keep those costs down!
Brian says
Good Advice. I went to a small private college that was expensive then, but it is outrageous how much it has increased to in just 10 short years. As much as I love my school, I can not recommend anyone incur the expense that it costs. Hard to justify based on the jobs that most people are able to get.
Jessica07 says
I had a professor that would open his brown paper bag around lunch time, and then remind us with a smirk, “Live like a student now, or you’ll live like one later.” I think that pretty much summed it up for me! LOL
Ronald Dodge says
As he was hinting at, it’s better to self impose sacrifices onto yourself here and now than it is to have sacrificed forced onto you later on. Here and now, you can choose what to sacrifice vs if you don’t do it now, you will be forced to sacrifice pretty much everything down the road.
I’ll take self imposed sacrifices over forced upon sacrifices any day.
Ronald Dodge says
I have been stressing to my kids, if they plan on getting into college, they might as well do it on the academic route as if they put their mind to it, they can get into the top 10% within their own class. I did it when I was in school, and that was with me even having 3 life strikes against me, one of which was a learning disability primarily in language, which I compensated for that via memorization and logics. Granted, I read slower than most people, but I also retained a lot more information than most too given the LD forced me to learn the art of memorization. Learning that art did take a decade to conquer it.
There’s 2 ways to make it in life. The first way, if you are lucky, is to know people and *NOT* have any life strikes against you. Rather if it’s by popularity or by being in the money, often times, you have it made, but you also may not know it as you may end up squandering away that power. The 2nd way to make it in life, the only way I had to go, learn the system, beat everyone else in the system who attempts to hold you back using such rules and myths against you just cause you have life strikes against you, and become #1 at something that is use to a lot of other people. The only thing about this route, you have to be careful that you don’t get *USED* by other people.
For me, I didn’t have the first route as an option given I had 3 life strikes against me growing up. As such, in order to get anywhere in life, I had to fight against all odds, outwit people, out learn others, out compete others, out work others, what ever it was, I had to out do people. I had to do that to such extremes to the point even in college, I was accused by my own teammates, I’m too competitive, but then when I’m backed into the corner by everyone else, various students on school grounds, the school officials and the guardians I had in the homes all working against me as the adults had political fears to the point I was treated as the outsider, I had no choice but to fight back staying within their rules, but yet, strategizing and outwitting them at their own game.
The level of education in our education system has been so downgraded in the last 3 decades, it’s not even worth the cost anymore. Hecks, for that matter, what I learned in high school for Accounting, it is all the same materials that’s up through the junior year of college now. Oh, but don’t expect any college administration to admit that as that means they are losing out on that money, if they were to admit to that.
For that matter, if you don’t make it on academic or sports scholarships, then see about working for an employer who will pay for between 80% and 100% of your education. You may have to work for them for 2 years and you may only be able to go part time, but if your skills are really superb that would be of great benefit to different companies, such as I have always been with computers on the software side, there’s still a way you can get in without necessarily having that degree. It’s not an easy route, but when you been down the route I have been, it may actually be the easier route as you avoid the biggest part of that higher education debt while gaining a work place experience and earning a living.
About the only time you should avoid the lower level colleges is if you are strong enough to go to the bigger schools such as if you are really good in a sport that brings in big money to the college, maybe you can get a full ride to that college by competing on their team. Of course, you still have to make your grades (Always shoot for that A, but few courses, you may end up with a B instead due to that one or two subject area(s) may be your weak area).
For me, I suspect the reason why I got accused of being too competitive is cause I been through so much hard times and for so long to the point constantly pushing myself no matter what it took more or less just became second nature. I learned early on in life, you can’t let anything stop you. You may have to take a step back or you may have to stand down temporarily until the opportunity present itself as to when to go, but you can’t let anything stop you.
It’s just like the nearly 2 feet of snow (or so they claim as I only counted about 15 inches myself) we had in the month of December, so many people treated it as a paralyzer, but yet, for me having been born and raised in Flint, MI around the stuff having the experiences of what to expect, I more or less just plow right through the stuff as other people treat it as if they either can’t get anywhere or they can only move so slowly in the stuff.
krantcents says
One of the best ways is to avoid the debt. Take advantage of the Internet to find all the free financial aid. When taking the aid, make sure the interest rates are the lowest. Many of the loans can be consolidated or interest rates re-set to a flat rate annually. It is all about choices.