- Finish in Three Years
- Live Off Campus
- Avoid Buying New Textbooks
- Junior or Community College
Finish in Three Years - Most colleges and universities in the United States require approximately 120 credit hours for a Bachelors degree, which translates into 30 per year. Both private and public, tuition is a flat rate for fulltime students by this I mean twelve semester hours, however if your child loads up on more classes per semester you will see a dramatic savings. You do realize “more” is the key word here, if they routinely took twenty-one credit hours per semester, which translates into 42 per year your child would finish a 120 hour degree in just three years and this is not including summer classes. That would be a savings of $14,436 per year at public school and $38,000 per year at a private college.
Live off Campus - I have picked two colleges, one public and one private, in my home state of Pennsylvania to provide an idea of the costs of room and board which are not included in the average costs calculations in the other portion of this article. For private university, it costs $7,875 to live in a dorm for a year, and it will cost $5,250 for a meal plan. This means meals will cost $583 per month alone which is quite a bit for a young, single student. For nine months of the year, the cost of a dorm room equates to roughly $875 per month. There are definitely opportunities to save money in each of these areas, perhaps if the student is enterprising they may be able to cut and appropriate towards tuition.
Avoid Buying New Textbooks - Never pay full price for college textbooks. New editions are published every year or two. There are tons of resources available for students to buy used textbooks such as half.com, Amazon’s used book section, and even local bookstores in your area that specialize in used books. Consider approaching students who took the course the semester before. You do the math if a brand new college textbook costs approximately $150 each, you can expect to pay almost $6,000 over the course of a college career. If you were to buy your books used, you could save a couple of thousand dollars.
Junior or Community College - According to The College Board ®, two years in junior college or community college on average for tuition and fees is $2,713. Again I looked at a community college in Pennsylvania and the costs is $5,370 per year, for 30 hours of college credits or approximately $179 per credit hour. Attending two years of a community college then heading off to a 4 year university will save you approximately $76,000 of the full cost for a private education or over $29,000 at a public university. Those savings are like cutting over a year and a half of college costs off your bill. Not too shabby!
Talk with your child about where they would like to attend college and what you can afford. Then take into account the total cost of attendance through graduation. Again there is a means to every end. I can’t stress it enough planning and research is key and to the college bound student if you want it make it happen do not let cost deter you from your dream.Eslyn
