Tips To Save On College

[ScrimpAndSave]

Great tips...thanks!

[slimsr2003]

We have two small children that we hope someday will go to college. My wife and I both attended college and have benefited greatly. I have some friends from High school who didn’t have time or some other lame excuse for not going to college and I must say for the most part my wife and I are significantly financially better off then them. I’m not trying to be rude here but it does make a difference if you go to college or not. So that being said we want our kids to go. We have started a small college fund for them but it is difficult to consistently put money into it.

While we are talking about saving for college, I just wanted to plug a YouTube contest being put on by an online savings bank, FNBO Direct call the Pay Yourself First Challenge. This could be a great way for people to get some new ideas on how to save money for college for their kids. If you are so inclined and want to join the challenge check out the web page at: pyfchallenge.com and submit your video to the group page on YouTube. There are prizes awarded just for submitting a video to the challenge, and there is a chance to have your savings matched dollar for dollar up to five thousand dollars. Anyway, check it out you never know.

[WiseOwl]

This might seem extreme but you might consider switching careers. As a professor, we get free tuition for our daughter (now 16). Althouh it was a paycut, the best saving we could ever get was free tuition for her. It will be far more cost effective for us in the long run.

[autowoman]

I earned as many credits in high school and community college as I could. Thats the cheap way

[DFrancis]

Go to a community college for the first two years then a state school for the second two years.

[msmorrisonspeaks]

GREAT advice everyone!

[msmorrisonspeaks]

Hi everyone!
I also need to add:

1.) Consider public schools. Especially for college, state schools can often times be just as prestigious, if not more, than private schools.

2.) Consider community college or online college for your first year or two. You can then transfer these credits to a more expensive (and prestigious) school to finish your final two or three years.

[good2goo]

I am a student and have found that there is a website Chegg.com that allows you to rent books instead of buying them. It cost me about $30 to rent a $140 math book. I seriously doubt I would have gotten $110 back from the bookstore had I tried to sell it back to them. Its not a huge savings, but I estimate I probably save around $200-300 a semester by getting books online.

[good2goo]

Originally Posted by msmorrisonspeaks

Hi everyone!
I also need to add:

1.) Consider public schools. Especially for college, state schools can often times be just as prestigious, if not more, than private schools.

2.) Consider community college or online college for your first year or two. You can then transfer these credits to a more expensive (and prestigious) school to finish your final two or three years.

That is good advise. I spend 2 years at community college before transferring my credits. Im glad I did because I ended up discovering that I didnt like my original major and switched. That can be costly at a major school.

[jIM_Ohio]

Pay off mortgage before college starts, then have more cash available for retirement/college contributions... I did not see that mentioned.

[rjames]

Here are my tips for saving on college. The three big expenses are Tuition, Travel, and Textbooks.

Tuition
The two obvious ways are to attend a public school in your state, and get as many scholarships as possible.

Textbooks
There are some cheaper sources for textbooks than buying used books online. Ideally, try to buy a textbook from a student that just finished the class.

Travel
Remember that flying isn’t the only way to travel. To save some money, check into train or bus fares as well. If you can carpool with a friend, the cost of sharing gas may be the cheapest way to go yet.

[cptacek]

Get a scholarship. My cousin is going to a community college and she is getting a books and tuition scholarship (i.e., everything except room and board) for being the dance team manager. Know what she does? Goes to practice, takes her homework with her, and pushes the "play" button and the "stop" button on the cd player. Seriously. You don't have to be a star athlete to get a scholarship.

My sister bought her books at the bookstore, and I told her to buy them on half.com instead, and return the bookstore books. She did, and they were, um, half price. lol.