Managing Your Education: Cost-Reduction And Recouping Strategies

Manage Your Education Cost

Find Areas Where You Can Get Your Money Back

You’re going to spend a lot on college. Even if you’re able to obtain a full-ride scholarship, you’re likely to have collateral expenses that you hadn’t previously considered. Very few full-ride solutions offer to entirely outfit your dormitory, or provide you with educational materials like computers—though there are such solutions out there if you can source them.

Here’s the deal: there is scholarship money available to anyone, you’ve just got to search for it. If you’re without exceptional resources, you can apply for a government FAFSA. If you have an ethnic background, there is likewise money which will be available to you if you know where to look. Academic excellence will certainly yield scholarships as well.

All these things being said, if you’re a pasty Caucasian kid with no athletic ability, maudlin academic success, and nothing to recommend you outside your very existence, you can still find money. You’re just going to have to be a little bit more creative about it. (If you’re not exceptionally creative, then you could be sunk, here.)

Deriving Life Truths From Fictional Scenarios

A point of reference for consideration is George Costanza of Seinfeld fame. This character is given executive power over a scholarship fund. He’s a boring, athletically and intellectually defunct character whose entire basis is a criticism of certain segments of society. In the “meta” sense, George Costanza represents Larry David; but he’s been written as a “kind”.
There are certain “kinds” of people in the world, and one is an individual who only made a moderate level of success and never transcended it. Now there’s an episode where George gives an unremarkable applicant his approval for scholarship, because the kid reminds him of himself as a youngster. Fictional? Certainly. But the humor works because it’s based in reality.

The reality is, there are no shortage of funds which are held in reserve by people like Costanza’s character. They are specialized funds given out annually to a special someone who does the footwork and chases down the scholarship. With the internet, you can basically search for such opportunities with greater scope than ever before.

Savings In Housing

You’re going to save money by going with student housing options as opposed to apartment living. Unless of course you can find an arrangement with roommates who are leasing a house—then you might find some $200/month arrangement; in which case you can get away with $7,200 ($200 multiplied by thirty-six months) for your degree. But this is difficult.

You can save with textbooks, and in two ways. Either sell books you purchased at full price for around half your initial investment—though this requires you take exceptionally good care of them as you use them. Or, you can go to an online site which has students selling books, and buy one bottom dollar. There are advantages and disadvantages to both strategies.
On the one hand, you’re going to likely spend more if you buy new then sell. On the other, your acquisition is subject to availability if you buy used. Either way, buying new and just keeping the book is like throwing away money. You’re going to spend thousands on textbooks over your degree’s length. Recoup where you can.

When you’re looking to sell your textbooks online, you want to go with a site that has no sign-up fees to register, like BookScouter.com, who: “…is 100% free with no registration required.” Sites like this allow you to buy, and they allow you to sell; which means you can go at savings both ways, and find the method which best works for you.

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