I frequently took 15-18 hours, same price as 12.

Even with classes being included in the tuition, I don’t think I really knew anyone who took classes “just because a friend was in it” but that probably has more to do with who you talk to than anything.

Good article all-around Studenomist!

Did anyone mention selling back your textbooks? I kept most of the books specific to my major (except tax books, one year and they’re outdated), but all of those extra courses a university makes you take probably wont be of much benefit to you in the future. Half.com is also good for selling back. You’ll probably get more through them than you school bookstore.

1. My school is different because you have to pay for every course you take. It’s amazing to hear that some students have the option of taking more courses for the same price, I’m truly envious.

2. By random courses I was referring to all those times people take a course simply because a friend is in the class. I love taking courses that deviate from my major but I would never take a course unless I knew something about the professor and the course content.

3. Textbooks are probably the second biggest expense next to tuition fees. As a result it means that all students should strive to save any money they can in this area. Whether you share, buy used, buy online, buy from past students, or even don’t buy because the professor has made it clear they don’t follow the textbook.

This is all I had to say for now and once again I would like to thank everyone for checking out my blog and commenting on my post.

My tip: It’s okay to pay down your loans before graduation, esp. if they’re not subsidized. I was able to greatly reduce my monthly payments after graduation by sending money from my pt job towards loans during college – such freedom, as my friends now struggle with hefty loans.

1) I agree with Eric about scholarships. While I didn’t have a full scholarship like him, I still had a really decent one that left me with student loans that were significantly less than one year’s tuition.

2) Speaking of student loans, I know one thing I did post-college was make sure that my monthly payment was set to something that I could realistically afford. By raising (not lowering) my monthly fee by just $15 a month (totally doable), I am paying my loan off about 3-4 years earlier than originally anticipated. More than likely, I’ll probably raise it by another $15 (or more) again soon, so I can get rid of the debt sooner. I can spare a night or two out with friends if it means I’m out of the debt quicker. (Aside from my mortgage, this is the only debt my husband and I have.)

3) I used Half.com for buying my books. They were usually less than half the price that the bookstore asked for, all because they had soft-cover bindings instead of hard-cover. I could totally live with that, and I bet most college students could too. Just a website suggestion for finding good new AND used textbooks.

4) One thing I did to help my savings was evaluate my meal plan. My freshman year, there was a minimum meal plan that all freshmen had to have. However, by sophomore year, the minimum number of meals changed from something like 21 meals a week to 5. I realized I didn’t eat many meals in the school cafe (I cooked or had a $300 credit that was on my ID card separate from my meal plan money and used it at the school’s sub shop), and I lowered my plan to the new minimum. Can I tell you how awesome it is to go to the school’s billing office and collect a check for a few thousand dollars? I used to pay off my credit card with it (usually only owed a couple hundred dollars on it at most, probably from buying books!), and the rest, you might guess, got put into savings. Spending $300 on sandwiches, salads, and other smaller meals at the sub shop vs. spending thousands per semester in the cafeteria was an amazing savings and left me with a very comfortable savings cushion until I got my first job about 3 months post-graduation. Just an added suggestion on how to save.

To graduate at my school, you need approximately 120 credit hours. Some degrees (liberal arts) give you more choices than others (engineering) on which courses you can take to fulfill these requirements. At my school, and many others, there is a range of credit hours that is considered full-time tuition. When on full-time tuition, you may take the full-time minimum (12 hours in my case) often up to the department maximum (or higher with special privileges) without paying extra. Some schools realized that kids were doing a sort of arbitrage with this to sign up for classes they planned to drop (deciding for certain which to drop after they got the syllabus for each class) so they created a limit on the maximum credit hours without paying an extra fee. This was 16 at my school. Nonetheless, if you were able to take 16 credit hours each semester that gives you about 8 credit hours to play with. Therefore you could probably take 2-3 normal classes or even more low credit hour classes without incurring many extra fees. I, for one, found that enrolling in a physical education activity class to be much cheaper than doing something like that outside of school even if the college credit did not count for anything.

Now, all of this is not including AP kids who may be more than a semester ahead. While it is true they could graduate early, many do not want to do so or may be unable to do so because of course prerequisites. These kids should explore their interests as well.

So, in summary. while I agree with your thesis that you should not spend lots of money on wasteful classes, I have two caveats.
1. If you can take an extra class that interests you for near-free (book cost only for example), then take it.
2. If you hate your major that much and are in your first two years, you should consider taking some classes outside of it to make sure you making the right choice.

Maybe I am bias because when I had extra space in my schedule I took extra Computer Science (my major) courses, but they really did nothing extra for me in the end and I wish I had spent the time broadening my horizons a bit more.

With annual tuition at private colleges costing about $30K, and about half that at public colleges… cellfone/laptop choice is a trivial consideration.

Lots of good colleges deliver quality education at discount prices compared to prestige ($$$) schools. And lots of colleges are mere diploma mills. Know what you want and shop around.

If you’re not sure what you want from a college, it’s a smart idea to postpone hiring one until you do… even if you never go at all. 3 out of 4 Americans don’t have college degrees… and most do fine.

Half the people attending American colleges now — never graduate. What does that tell you ??