Monday, September 19, 2011
Ten Things College Students Waste Money On
Forbes: When we made the decision to pay for my son’s college education many years ago, we never expected the price of tuition to almost double just as he entered the University of California. To top it all off, the timing of his freshman year followed a decade of lackluster growth in his college fund. We are not alone as parents everywhere are struggling to help their children walk across the stage in the cap and gown to gain a coveted college diploma. Parents may have socked away funds to pay for tuition and books, but with costs rising there is simply less money to spend on all the other expenses associated with being a student.
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24 comments:
For some reason I didn't expect this article to touch on all of the points it did. I expected the credit cards, cars, and "beer". What I didn't was what the article said about tuition being a waste of money. You can take AP's, but for people like us who go to a conservatory like program, that doesn't really help.
I also think its bad to choose a college based off of saving money. In a perfect world you go to a college that fits you and what you want your career to be. You pay for the education and environment you want.
I wonder if the author of this article went to college recently or has a child that is going through or has recently gone through college, because much of this article is unrealistic. As Devrie said, the AP credit thing doesn't work out for all of us. Also, I can't just magically make my one-bedroom apartment fit two people so that I have to pay less. In terms of the car thing, I do realize that it is not necessary to have a car at most colleges. But I already owned a car when I came here because a car is necessary where I am from, plus my parents would keep me insured regardless of whether I brought my car or not so that I could drive their
cars at home, a Zipcar, a friend's car, etc. I get the author's point on free food and school supplies, but those are also opportunities that not everyone can take advantage of. Also, I'm not going to join a club just for food. That is dumb and a waste of my time. I guess I just don't think this article is really taking a good enough look at how much some of these items that are supposedly not necessary often are. Specific needs come up, such as a class requiring a certain kind of binder or portfolio, not the free kind that is given away at events. In the end, I think it's important to realize that college is expensive but ultimately
worth it, as Devrie said. My comfort is also extremely important in order to ensure my success with this environment and this workload, though, and if it is more convenient and comfortable for me to have a car, then that's what I will do. At this point, I'm in so much debt for tuition that I might as well pay a bit more to live a more comfortable lifestyle that will allow me to have better mental health and productivity while in college.
This article is quite true and accurate! Relevant to me only for Grad school however, because in Barbados the Government pays for the majority of your undergrad fees once you are a citizen. So you probably end up paying $3000BDS for a 3 year program, which is $1500US. (Great I know) However currently as an international student now I have the majority of these points to think about....... housing, food, warm clothing, loans, transport, books, tuition, socialising....College is very expensive and it currently is a huge lesson in money management for me and everyone else who knows that it was a risk entering into it! Finding scholarships and grants is just as important as applying and getting accepted. Unless you graduate with a smile and then have a frown the next two months while you are looking for a job. As the article states, finding ways of cutting costs where ever possible is most important. I agree Devrie to a certain extent that you shouldn't just choose a college because you may save money, but the reality is that you also don’t want to put yourself in an immense amount of debt because at the end of the day a university degree is not a sure ticket to a great paying job; or a just a job in these economic times!
I agree with the other posters that college is an investment and while saving money is admirable and should be a priority, sometimes it is not always possible. Yes, you can always skip out on going out to dinner or that trip to the liquor store, but there are some unavoidable costs. Many colleges, like my undergrad, did not accept credits from community colleges or many other public or private schools. So, if I had tried to save money by taking things like core classes at another university, in the end I would have wasted that money and had to pay to retake the classes anyway. Furthermore, as someone who shared a room with someone almost all 4 years of college, I agree that doubling up in an apartment can save a lot of money. However, some people need their own space to work and cannot be productive when someone else is listening to music or typing loudly 10 feet away. Everyone is different, and some may find it worthwhile to pay the extra money to have more room to themselves. I agree that the tips in this article can be helpful, but the article does not seem to mention that they might not always be the best choice. You are going to college for the education and to get the most out of the classes and professors there, not to save as much money as possible at the expense of comfort and thus maybe at the expense of grades or work.
OH. The one think I really don't agree with is the joining clubs to get food!! That makes no sense. That actually defeats that purpose of joining the club and those are usually the people that you don't want to join clubs.
The core idea behind this article, being frugal, is certainly a useful lesson for the college student. Though, some of these suggestions to go a bit off the deep end. The biggest money saver wasn't mentioned, going to a cheaper school. I understand that everyone wants a prestigious degree, or to feel like they are getting the most out of their time, but at the end of the day the stress from trying to pinch every penny may not be worth it. If you are in 5 extracurriculars just to get free lunch, as this article suggests, then how much time are you putting into your classes?
I get free lunch 3 times a week from extracurricular meetings, and I count on that when I go grocery shopping. My parents loved The Millionaire Next Door because they share a lot of the values and try to pass them down to us. The problem I personally have is that my expenses have gone way up and my income has gone way down. So it's hard to live life by measuring what is "living below your means" and saving a certain % each month. Right now I'm living off savings and trying to keep afloat, maybe replenish with part time or summer jobs, but mostly counting on starting off rocky after graduation. I feel a little helpless and dependent on my parents while in school, but am prepared to buckle down after graduation in terms of being frugal and saving. College is hard because it's an inconsistent balance of income/expenses. Whereas once working, you can plan.
I agree with all of the above posts that this article is a little skewed. Certain programs don't let you transfer credits in, especially specialized BFA programs and conservatory programs. I also don't find the idea of renting textbooks very smart. In our line of work, I've found that I refer back to a lot of my textbooks months after the class has ended, so if I had rented the book for the duration of the class or had sold it back afterwards I wouldn't have that reference. I'm also using books in grad school that I was using when I was starting out in undergrad. I also don't agree about cramming as many people as possible into an apartment just to save money. I don't live well with other people, and when I had to live on campus my first two years of undergrad, I spent more nights sleeping in my theatre building after doing work all night than I did sleeping in my dorm room. Once I moved into a single dorm on campus I got a lot more work done in my room and they work was higher quality since I was able to focus on my work and be comfortable living in my own space. College is expensive, and students entering universities need to understand that they're going to be paying for the quality of the education they want to come out with.
While I think that this article gets to the heart of the issues it does not bring up a massive point that you need to consider when having to take out student loans. Student loans with interest can add up to at least 140 percent of the total borrowed. In my case the math means that at an income of $50,000 per year my 25 percent of my income before taxes for 10 years will be allocated to paying back student loans. Also I will say that the difference in cost between prestigious schools and lower end schools is amazing. With that said the benefits of a prestigious school far outweigh the cost due to a higher caliber of student and a massive lift in technology, caliber of professor, and most importantly the resources. Especially in theatre schools the higher end schools are much more focused on education and theory than making things work on the fly constantly.
True, you can save yourself alot of money by not having a car in college. Let's face it: parking your car at Carnegie Mellon is expensive, especially when you multiple the cost per semester over the course of years! We are fortunate that the university exists in a city with a more-than-decent public bus system. The fifty something dollars that comes out of our tuition (car or no car) and goes toward that little embedded bus pass in out ID card... is INVALUABLE! Especially considering it costs the layman $2.25 or more to hop on the bus each time. A word to the wise: replace your ID card just before you graduate if you plan on staying in Pittsburgh for awhile, even if just for the summer.
Finding ways to save money on expenses in college is good, and while not everything in the article is feasible for everyone. It can at least serve as a jumping off point for how to think about ways to save money.
One point the article didn't make that I would have loved to have known before finishing undergrad is the importance of having some solid savings in your bank account for right after you graduate. Once you're out of school, there's no guarantee you'll get a job right away and unless you move back in with your parents you'll need money to put down initial payments on an apartment (first, last, security, sometimes a cleaning deposit). Then there's car payments, health insurance, and the students loans that come due in a few months. If you stayed in the dorms all through school you probably won't have much furniture, and even if you hit up yard sales and goodwill, you're still going to need some cash so you have something to sleep on, eat off of, and work at. Not to mention the basics such as food, clothing, utilities, and whatever expenses you may need while you're out looking for a job, even if it's just dry cleaning your good outfit in between interviews.
I had some savings put away for after school, but it wasn't nearly enough even with 2 roommates and a 32 hours a week retail job. My advice to anyone in school right now. Save as much as you possibly can now, so you have something to fall back on until a job comes through for you after graduation.
While this article raises some good points about how to save money in college, it makes a lot of generalizations that really do not apply to people who can not benefit from the points because of the college or program they have taken. Places like CMU have pre-requisites, a lot of what makes them the colleges/universities they are is that the classes the offer are well above what you can get at community college or from AP classes. Maybe this article is aimed at more liberal arts settings, but it seems to really kinda miss when it comes to schools with very directed programs.
Although the Idea of this article is useful and some of the tips apply to CMU students some also such as the tip about APs does not affect us. I do agree however with the overall theme of the article. I do think that there are many people who attend CMU that do need to learn to be frugal. I grew up in a family where if money did not need to be spent on something it was not and I think that there will be many students that will have a hard time budgeting their money once they have to pay for everything.
This had a few good points, but also some that made me angry. The article is targeting parents. Telling parents how their kids can spend less money in college. This could be summed up in one sentence: talk to your kids!
My parents helped me through college, but they could not control every move I made. If my parents forced me into some luncheon to save them $300 dollars a year...I guess I would have done it.
The article's tip for saving money on food isn't all that helpful. I would have preferred something like "here is how to eat cheap and healthy" or "try to cook this and reuse it several times" as money saving tips. Joining a club isn't really helpful in terms of saving enough money.
I thought this article would be more brief and sarcastic than it actually was. I also thought it would be geared towards a student audience who is actually going through this process. It's very accurate, and a lot more thorough than expected.
I had no idea that taking AP classes could help save money. I just wish those credits counted toward some of the general education electives I'll have to take whilst in a conservatory program for theatre.
I also think the author places a great deal of emphasis on taking advantage of communal activities. They're awesome and a great way to get to know your school and the different organizations in it, but I don't think it's likely that students will go out of their way to join just for a free lunch, especially if there's homework that needs to get done.
There are definitely a lot of things in this list that college students don't have to spend money on. For example, you don't NEED to drive in Pittsburgh. It can definitely be hard to not waste money when in college, especially because it is often your first time away from home, spending money with no one there to tell you you can't buy something. It's always a balancing act. I definitely agree with a lot of people that it would be ridiculous to join a club just for the free food. The point of joining a club is not to 'cheat the system.'
This article hits on points that are obvious, and those that we don't always think about. But then on the other hand they don't always take into account specific colleges, locations, and the necessities vs. ease of living factors. Many of the ways which they talk about saving money are very valid. We waste our money on obvious items and some hidden ones. AP tests do cost money in many places, they might be less expensive, but sometimes the quality isn't as good. All of these factors together might help you save money, but compromising somewhere else can allow for a nicer living style and save you money on one item. Its all about balance. Balancing the categories together to try and save money is how you really should do it. Not by compromising in everything.
As many have pointed out, many of these are unrealistic for all students but they are good general rules to follow. I think the basics of food, "beer", cars, housing all make a lot of sense and many of us try to keep these cost down, but socializing is such a big part of college that makes these difficult to follow. If you plan your money smartly though you can help limit your debt for after college.
This article had some good points, and I feel many of these issues are generally issues, but I think there are some costs that you just have to grin and bear, and that is where the most money adds up. For me, I know that most of my money goes to tuition, then rent, then food. Granted, I could live with someone to lower my rent, but I've taken steps to find the best deal out there. And I feel I already spend as little as possible on food. I guess the point I am trying to make is, you can do everything you can to keep your costs low, but at the end of the day, college is expensive, and people need to accept that. The strongest part of this article for me was the discussion that money minded students are learning important life skills.
The advice in this article, while it may have some merit, seems to me, on some level, a little far fetched. The "basics," such as buying used/renting textbooks, cars and credit are all useful, but not very original pieces of advice. Almost every "how to save money in college" article provides those same insights. Joining clubs just to get food sounds like an awful thing to do, not only because it's a commitment of time and energy that may end up being worth more spent doing other things, but many clubs have semesterly dues as well, making the "savings" less significant.
It doesn't seem to me that the author of this article has much experience with college in recent years. As Dev said, you can't choose a school based on how much money you save and most private educational institutions are geared towards making as much money as possible. It's a business, after all. As far as joining clubs to get free food goes, that can only get you so far. I feel like as a whole, this article is showing you how to cut corners and save you maybe a few bucks but is it really worth the effort? A hot dog with chips and soda costs five dollars at the little cart near Tepper, is saving five bucks really worth the mountain of emails you would be getting from the club that occasionally offers you free food?
I agree that this article was not as helpful as i expected it to be. Most of the list was constituted of unavoidable expenses: tuition, for one, credit cards and textbooks another. I would have actually enjoyed a list of things that I shouldn't have bothered bringing/ buying. A printer is one! Though I find it very useful to have in my dorm, I had no idea that upon entrance we were already given a tremendous printing stipend. A refrigerator is another. In waiting for my roommate's fridge to be shipped from California, we discovered in a good months time that we could have actually done without it: there is a small lonely bottle of milk that has been sitting in there for a few days. I wish that this article touched more upon more "savy" saving tactics, rather than the obvious, unavoidable expenses that few people can avoid.
Like many others, this article proved to be something completely different from what I was expecting. Prior to the list of money wasting, I actually agreed with a lot of what the author was saying in terms of cutting back and being considerate of your funds. However, when it came to listing of the top ten things college student waste money on, I was rather shocked by the listings, especially the fact that tuition was second on that list! When the author provided numbers for the cost of private school over public, I was expecting a statement suggesting parents to not enroll their child in private universities. Instead of that, the author left it simply with the numbers, as if encouraging parents and students to reconsider the financial struggle of private universities. Yes, private universities are much more expensive than public colleges but why is this article implying that we cut back financially and "sacrifice" the success of our education?
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