savings

Start saving all of that pocket change—September is College Savings Month!

Despite popular belief, college can still be affordable if you get your ducks in a row early. Plenty of people attend community colleges—and even state schools—for free through a combination of scholarships. Be sure to check your school for every scholarship available—both your high school and the college you wish to attend, that is—and fill out your Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

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When you’re packing for college, you either want to suck up your whole room and take it with you—or go out and buy a ton of new stuff to make your new habitat happening. You don’t, however, need to do either one. The rule of thumb is generally pack what you think you’ll need and then put half of it back. While you may not have to go that far, here are some things that you’ll definitely want to keep home.

The kitchen. It’s good to have a set of silverware, a cup, a bowl and/or plate and a regular cooking pot, but other than that, you don’t need anything fancy. If you don’t have a kitchen in your dorm, skip the pot itself; a hotpot will do nicely instead of a cooking pot since you can use it in your room. If you have a meal plan with the cafeteria, save your money to use on snacks and drinks to keep in your room.

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With the costs of education so high to begin with, the thing on most people’s minds when it comes to life in the dorm nowadays isn’t how to chic it out but rather how to make it as cheap as possible. But you can still “go green” in your dorm without going broke. Here are a few ways to do just that.

Skip the noxious chemicals. All you need to clean your dorm is some baking soda and water—and vinegar for tougher spots, if you prefer. In fact, baking soda is so cheap and has so many uses, you probably won’t need to buy many, if any, other cleaners while you’re in your new home away from home.

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CockpitFor many people, the dream of becoming a pilot is a real driving force in their life.  But most of these same people don’t know how to take the first step to get the ball rolling and become enrolled at a flight school that will help them become successful in the aviation industry.  There are quite a few important considerations that need to be explored in order to get the most from your education.  Flight school is a very expensive undertaking so it’s very important to gain as much knowledge about them as possible to enable you to make an informed decision.

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Simon Fraser University in Canada's British Columbia has just created a new grade for students determined to have plagiarized or otherwise cheated. After an investigation, if the student is determined to have cheated, the head of the department involved (and only the head) may assign the grade FD for Failure with Academic Dishonesty. The FD would remain on the student's transcript for the rest of the student's tenure at Simon Fraser, and for up to two years after graduation. Other universities use similar "special grades"; the University of Alberta awards an F8 or F9 grade for academic dishonsty, but the grade can be altered after three years to an F.

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There are some college expenses you can’t do much about. You can’t really haggle down dorm fees or course costs. But your textbooks don’t necessarily have to cost an arm and a leg, either. Sure, you might have to buy brand new lab books once in a while because you can’t use somebody’s written-in books; but you also don’t have to use the campus bookstore all of the time, either, which doesn’t necessarily have the best bargains to begin with.

Here are a few ways you can save big bucks on books.

Borrow. If a friend or family member has the book, just see if you can borrow it for free. Just be sure to take care of it. You may even be able to borrow it from the library (especially if it’s a novel for a literature course), or even your hometown library, if you don’t need it for the whole semester or if it’s a half-semester course.

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It’s not some hokey, paranoid warning to get you to visit the campus gym; the dreaded “freshman 15” is pretty common among college students. And why wouldn’t it be? You get to sleep in later (unless you signed up for all 8:00 classes, which I do not recommend!), eat whatever greasy mess you want from the cafeteria (which is sometimes unlimited as well), and unless you’re on a team or majoring in phys ed, you probably aren’t playing any sports or engaging in other physical fitness, either.

While the “freshman 15” looms around the corner, you can still completely avoid it easily enough. Here are a few tips to keep in mind.

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Whether you’re living independently in an apartment for the first time, hitting the dorm for college, or even expecting a relative or sibling to move in, you may be in for your first experience with a roommate. Oftentimes these are wonderful adventures; other times, they can feel like a layer of Hell on earth.

Either way, they do provide great learning experiences, and there are things you can do to help make the situation easier on everyone involved—including yourself! Here are a few tips for surviving with a roommate.

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Whether you’re into environmentalism or feminism, building houses or working in soup kitchens, there’s bound to be an organization out there that will gladly put you to use. You can bring your passion onto campus by becoming a campus representative or community organizer for that particular organization.

The group may already have a program for volunteers like you to help organize teams of volunteers on campus; check with them to see if they do. If they don’t, ask if they would allow you to be a campus representative or organizer.

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I remember when the Bush Administration started adding more limitations to the Pell Grant and other government aid—including a wider gap for income qualification, which coincided with my own application. A first generation college student, I had only applied in the first place because I knew I had previously qualified—and though scholarships were in the picture, they didn’t cover anything but tuition.

Yeah, George, I’m still mad at you for vastly increasing my college debt unnecessarily—among, of course, many other things…

Today’s college applicants have even more difficulty receiving aid than I did. As costs continue to rise, families are finding it more difficult to pay for an education. My sister had a teacher—a teacher we’d both had, actually, and both are very fond of—just stare at her, aghast that she was attending a community college rather than a state university.

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