College-Education

College is expensive in itself, and that’s not even including all of the other expenses that college students have. Many students have it easy — they have a scholarship that pays for everything they need while they’re in school. However, those of us who aren’t so lucky have to learn tricks on how to survive with all of our new expenses. Read this article for tips on how to save money in college:

Buy Schoolbooks Online
The cost of schoolbooks is outrageous. Even worse, 95% of the time you’re going to take your books back at the end of the semester, and the bookstore is going to refuse to buy it back. So, while you might feel better at the beginning of the semester with a shiny new textbook, you’re going to regret passing over the ratty used textbook at the end of the semester when you’re trying to raise money for next year’s books. The solution, buy your books online. If they have all of the pages, they’ll do. If it’s 90% cheaper, you’ll have a good story to tell other students when they notice your ratty book.

Decline Credit Card Offers
When you’re struggling for money, those credit card offers are going to look pretty tempting. Credit card companies know this, so they target college students. The problem is that you’re actually spending more money when you buy on a credit card, and, if you’re already struggling with finances, interest charges on food aren’t going to help. And creditors calling you aren’t going to help your stress levels.

Wait Before Buying Books
A lot of instructors list books as required that you won’t crack open all semester. Instead of coming to class prepared the first day, wait it out and gage whether or not you’re going to need the book. Better yet, try to find a copy to borrow from your local library.

Bring Your Lunch
The five dollars a day you’re going to spend on take out food on campus is going to add up faster than the calories. If you have to have a meal while you’re at school, bring it from home. If nothing else, you’ll have some extra money for the weekend.

Live Close to Campus
If you can’t live in a dorm, try to get an apartment as close to campus as possible. You’ll save money on gas, and you’ll have campus resources, like computers, readily available to you. Not having to buy a computer and computer programs will save you a lot of money.

For more tips and help
for students about test taking and money for college, visit gradwise.org.

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It’s commonly believed that it takes four years to earn a Bachelors degree in college. Therefore, most beginning college students start their first semester believing that as long as they have a full time class schedule — at least 12 credit hours — they’ll graduate four years from the day they start. However, this is not always true. Read this article for tips on how to finish your degree faster:

Take Extra Credit Hours
If you need 120 credit hours to graduate, you’re not going to graduate in four years by taking the 12 credit hour minimum each semester. Take an extra course each semester and add summer classes. Though most students hate the idea of wasting their summer away in college, summer classes are the easiest classes available, and they generally only last a few weeks.

Take Your Basic Requirements First
Though everyone wants to jump right into classes that apply toward their major, it’s often wiser to wait and take those classes after your second year of college. If you take your basic requirements first, then, later, if you decide to change your major, you won’t have a transcript full of classes that don’t count toward anything. The best plan is to take one class that applies to your major during the first year then fill the rest of your schedule with basic requirements. That way you can decide if you want to stick with your major, but you don’t spend too much time and money if you decide later to change it.

Choose Your Classes Wisely
Often there are classes that fill more than one requirement. For example, if you need both a science class and five 300-level credits, you could take an intro level science class and two three-credit 300-level courses, or you could satisfy both requirements by taking a 300-level five-credit science course. Though this takes more planning time before registering for classes, it will allow you to reduce the amount of time you’re required to be in school.

For 10 study tips you can’t go without, visit gradwise.org.

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With the rapid proliferation of both online and off line schools that offer advanced degree programs, it is more important than ever that you choose a fully accredited school in order to get the best education possible. So let’s discuss what accreditation is, how you benefit from it, and how you can use it to select the best online schools and degree programs.

First of all, there’s a need to understand the accreditation process. For a school to be legitimately accredited means that it has been validated by a peer review process and found to be providing a high quality education according to accepted established educational standards. In other countries, schools are often accredited by some form of government agency. However in the US, these evaluations are made by private accrediting agencies instead, many of which are regional in nature.

So when you are comparing online degree programs, accreditation is perhaps the first and foremost issue that you want to address. For an online college or university to be accredited means that you will have all the tools at your disposal that are necessary to help you get a high quality education in the field that you are pursuing. And since the accreditation is awarded according to established educational standards, if you have to transfer from that school to another accredited school later on, all of the credits that you have earned up to that point should be able to transfer along with you without your having to repeat courses that you have already covered.

So why is accreditation so important? Simply put, there are a lot of generally worthless college degree scams commonly known as diploma mills set up to take students hard earned money and give them very little quality education in return. Even though you may get an online degree from one of these schools that are not accredited, it will most likely do you very little good when it comes time to try to get employment in that particular field as the quality of the education that you have received cannot be verified or validated.

So obviously then, it’s vital to make sure that any online degree program that you consider is a fully accredited school that offers a high quality education in the field of your pursuit. But how do you make sure that is an accredited school? Perhaps the easiest and quickest way to verify accreditation for any particular school is to go to the web site for the Council for Higher Education Accreditation or CHEA. This agency is not affiliated with the government, but helps coordinate research on accreditation issues. So all you have to do is enter the name of the school that you wish to research and see if it comes up as having been accredited by a reliable accrediting agency. If a school or online degree program is found to not be accredited by a reliable agency, it’s usually best to avoid it at all costs.

Hopefully the information in this article will help you understand how imported accreditation is in the education field, and how you can protect yourself by making sure that the online college or university that you choose is fully accredited and validated.

Steadman Issenburg writes on many consumer related topics including education. You can find online accredited degree programs and accredited distance learning programs and more by visiting our education website.

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