When you started college, calculating expenses was a bit different. You were likely fresh out of high school and moving into a dorm. Instead of calculating grocery expenses, you were determining which meal plan to buy and how much to spend on entertainment.

Now, you have rent, groceries, utilities, and so forth. You may be either working full-time while in grad school or going back to school after working a full time job. Your budget will be a compilation of your expenses.

Start by Defining Your Lifestyle Situation

Are you going to live in your current apartment or home?  If so, a major change in your budget will be transportation expenses to get to and from school. But changes in other areas can defray some educational costs; for example, you may cut back on lifestyle expenses to make up for tuition or textbooks. An example of a  lifestyle expense may be owning a car when you normally use public transit. It could also mean using grocery or restaurant coupons for eating out. It should never mean giving up all your personal must haves. If you’ve ever been on a ridiculously low calorie diet, you know you’re  in for a post starvation binge.  Keep your budget realistic for your lifestyle.

Don’t overestimate your expenses either. For instance, if you estimate your budget based on your current income instead of expenses, you’ll overestimate your cash needs.

 Are you moving to a new town? If you already have a place to live picked out, do you know transportation, restaurant and movie ticket costs? Talk to friends who live in the area or call your university and ask for student money management, financial aid or the graduate student association on campus. Inquire about entertainment and basic costs of student life. Knowing these costs well in advance can help you assess the overall cost of attendance — hopefully an important part of your decision to attend grad school, in the first place.

 Are you quitting your job? You’ll probably have to shrink your budget based on your new income, no matter whether you’ll live off of student loans, scholarships, a part-time job or a combination. Utilize the cost of attendance calculator on your college’s website. The number you calculate will likely represent the maximum total loans and/or financial aid you can receive. Don’t count on income from jobs you’ve yet to acquire, even if you’re told you’re the top candidate. If the situation changes, you may have denied a federal loan you can’t change your mind about.

Tuition, Fees and Books

 No matter what your individual lifestyle situation is, you will have to pay for tuition and fees, plus textbooks. While tuition and fees are fixed costs, textbooks aren’t. Checkout Is Renting Textbooks Really Cheaper Than Buying? and Textbook Law May Save You Money at the Campus Bookstore for tips on reducing your textbook expenses.

Reach Out to Your Graduate School for Job Opportunities

“I’d advise any prospective graduate student to contact the graduate school at the institution they are planning to attend.  Great advice and information about potential fellowship and assistantship programs can be just a phone call or email away,” says Debra Stewart, President of the Council of Graduate Schools.  She added, “If you aren’t sure about what funding opportunities are available in your field, talk to faculty members and others at your undergraduate institution to give you a better sense of what your options might be.”

Adjust Your Budget as Needed

As you progress through your degree, your budget will change. For instance, rent and textbook costs can change from semester-to-semester. Review your budget and make changes as needed.

For more information on personalizing your budget, checkout How to Set a Budget Tailored Just For You.  

Reyna Gobel is a freelance journalist who specializes in financial fitness. She is also the author of Graduation Debt: How To Manage Student Loans and Live Your Life.

The annual US News and World Report college rankings are out, and I always like to imagine the full list read at a press conference by Casey Kasem. Also, at this imaginary event, Kasem would point out that it would be a tragedy for your family’s financial health and your child’s future to send your kid to most of the colleges on the list.

Let’s recap a few facts about student loan debt:

• -The average student in 2009 (the most recent data available) graduated with $24,000 in loans, according to the Project on Student Debt. Graduates of private colleges have more debt, on average; graduates of public colleges have less. Students who attend for-profit colleges rack up the most debt: $33,050 per student in 2008.
• -As of 2010, there’s more outstanding student loan debt than credit card debt. MintLife’s John Ulzheimer noted the shift in his column last year.
• -Unlike credit card debt, student loans (whether federal or private) can’t be discharged in bankruptcy. They will follow you around forever. Federal loans have gentle repayment options like income-based repayment; private loans don’t.
• -Default rates on student loans are huge. Of the loans that entered repayment in 2009, 8.8 percent were in default by the end of 2010, according to the Project on Student Debt. When you default on a student loan, it doesn’t just wreck your credit: the loan continues to accrue interest, fees, and penalties.

So you want to avoid student loans. But you also want to avoid traffic jams, overpriced coffee drinks, and friend requests from old boyfriends. Here in the real world, is it possible to send your kid to a good college without saddling them (or yourself, via parent loans or home equity loans) with tens of thousands of dollars in debt?

You bet.

College matters. Which college? Doesn’t matter.

The key to graduating with little or no debt is your local public university. Mine is University of Washington (US News #42), where I graduated debt-free in 2002.

Given the current job market, though, isn’t it true that only top colleges get you the top jobs?

“There’s a complete lack of evidence that your kid will benefit from going to one college versus another,” says Zac Bissonnette, author of Debt-Free U and recent debt-free graduate of the University of Massachusetts (#94 on the US News list).

That’s quite a claim. But the academic research bears it out. Princeton economist Alan Krueger was the first to rigorously determine that there’s no good reason to go to, say, Princeton. His research was highlighted in 2000 in the New York Times under the headline “Children smart enough to get into elite schools may not need to bother.” He revisited the data in 2011 and the conclusion is the same: if you’re accepted to an elite college but end up attending a different college, it doesn’t affect your earning capacity whatsoever. Kids smart enough to get into Princeton wring a world-class undergrad education out of San Diego State.

Yes, I know a public university isn’t the same as a verdant liberal arts campus. But what the average student 18-year-old knows about the difference comes from drive-by campus visits and photos on the Carleton website. “The correlation between people’s satisfaction with their freshman year and how much they like their roommate is very, very high,” says Bissonnette. “Your experience is determined by these weird, idiosyncratic things that just happen.”

Furthermore, we know (from Noel-Levitz survey data) that satisfaction rates for students at public universities and private universities are the same. (Students at two-year community colleges are more satisfied than either.)

Get out of the middle of the road

Public universities aren’t the only option for the frugal and academically motivated. The most elite, Winklevoss-infested schools are lavish with financial aid. Harvard students get out with much less debt than average (about $10,000 as of 2008, according to the Project on Student Debt).

Harvard, along with a couple dozen other schools, makes a financial aid pledge promising only grant and work study aid for students who qualify for financial aid. Read the fine print, though: not all pledges are equally generous, and many students end up borrowing anyway.

“Where people tend to get hit really hard with the debt is in the middle,” says Bissonnette. “It’s in those private colleges that are a tier or two or three below the most elite colleges.”

We’re talking places like American University (average graduate’s debt load: $36,206, U.S. News 2010 data) or Cleveland Institute of Art ($30,188). Oh, and Bissonnette loves to pick on NYU ($41,375). Many of these schools are safety schools for kids applying to the top-tier pledge schools, but this is a dangerous move: Columbia and NYU are both in Manhattan, but when it comes to financial aid policy, they’re in different worlds.

No college—with the exception of the military academies, which charge nothing and guarantee a job upon graduation—makes it easy to graduate debt-free. Doing so requires saving, family sacrifice, and taking a job (federal work study or otherwise) during school. Students can and do rack up huge debts at public universities and financial aid pledge schools. And I know public school tuition is rising even faster than private school tuition.

But it remains possible for a dedicated middle-class student to make it out of a public or pledge school without a penny of debt, essentially an impossible feat at a mid-tier private or for-profit college.

It’s about options

If you’re uncomfortable measuring the value of a college education in dollars, join the club. I know there’s more to life than money. Before going to a public university and paying tuition in cash, I attended (and dropped out of) Pomona College (US News #4), a small liberal arts college in Southern California. I sang in a band, met my future wife, ordered lots of midnight pizza, occasionally went to class, and left with a good chunk of debt. (Pomona is now a financial aid pledge school.)

Like any parent, I want my daughter (class of 2026) to have the same options that I did and more. And I don’t want to be the kind of parent who never lets her learn from her own mistakes and is constantly interfering in her adult choices.

My wife and I have talked about it extensively, however, and we’re not going to send our daughter to American or NYU or any other school that will have her starting her adult life $40,000 in the hole. It would be heinously irresponsible. With any luck, she’ll want to attend her parents’ alma mater, and we won’t even have to discuss the matter. (Yes, that was a joke.)

Debt wraps a noose around your options. Tell your kids that going to a college that lets them graduate debt-free won’t lower their earning potential, but it’ll make it a hell of a lot easier after college for them to live the kind of globetrotting, artsy, nonprofit life that drives parents crazy.

And they can do it for longer than four measly years.

Matthew Amster-Burton is a personal finance columnist at Mint.com. Find him on Twitter @Mint_Mamster.

The thrill of starting college and moving out of your parents’ home can be swiftly undermined by the sight of your new dorm room. Concrete walls, dingy floor and lousy lighting – this is hardly an ivory tower! Don’t despair. With a little creativity and very little cash, you can transform your space from an institutional cell into a cozy campus retreat. Click on the preview above to expand the graphic and see some tips from Dawn Falcone, interior designer and professional organizer.

It’s no surprise that college is more expensive than ever, but campus-bound students and their parents may be able to expect a little relief in terms of their bookstore budget, thanks to the Higher Education Opportunity Act. Passed in 2008, the money-saving provisions are now in full effect. Among the law’s provisions is one that requires textbook publishers to give students the opportunity to buy books unbundled, meaning you could buy your textbook separately from other supplemental materials that may be shrink wrapped together with your textbook. The goal is for students to save money by only buying materials required by the professor.

But what are the loopholes, and will this legislation cost you cash if you need a workbook or digital passcode for internet access to software?

The Exceptions to the Rule

There are reasons why not all supplements are sold separately from your textbook (despite the new law). The legislation excludes third-party contracts and vital materials. For example, if you’re taking a math class where 90 percent of your coursework is available solely via your digital access code, your textbook is worthless without the accompanying code, so it’s considered “vital material.”

When Unbundling Helps Prices

Let’s say not much has changed between the current edition of a textbook and the previous one. Your professor says either edition will work for class. You find the older, used textbook for $20 online that would have cost you $100 new. However, your professor requires you have the new edition of the workbook that was previously part of a $150 bundle. You buy a used workbook separately for $20. You save $80 on your textbook. Plus, you save an additional $30 over the bundled textbook/workbook price. Total savings: $110.

When Unbundling Hurts Prices

If your professor requires you to use a digital code or workbook, the bundle price could work out better. For example, National Association of College Stores (NACS) Government Relations Director Richard Hershman points out  that a smaller medium-sized publisher charges 90 percent of the full price of the bundle for each bundle component: textbook, workbook and digital code. Therefore if the bundle price was $100, you’d pay $180 for the textbook plus the digital code. If you need the workbook as well, you’d rack up a $270 bill. However, if you bought the bundle, you’d pay a total of $100 for everything.

Bottom Line for Textbook Savings

When it comes to textbook savings, you can never fail by contacting your professor before class starts. According to the NACS’s StudentWatch 2010 survey, over 20 percent of students surveyed said professors aren’t using all of their required course materials listed on their syllabus.

Here are the questions you should ask your professor:

• -Do I need the most recent edition of the textbook for class? If your professor says no, ask which editions will work. Sometimes there isn’t much of a difference between edition 9 and 11 – except larger savings by buying the older textbook.
• -Does your class utilize software CDs, digital pass codes, or workbooks? Ask any online seller, if the digital passcode has been utlilized. If it hasn’t, you may be able to get this supplement without paying extra for it.
• -Are there other books or supplements I’ll need later in the semester that I should look for used now? For instance, an English literature course may require books you could buy online or utilize a retailer’s coupon code. If you know what books you’ll need weeks in advance, you have time to comparison shop.

Future of Supplements

While the current law doesn’t fully protect students from high textbook prices and the pricing and packaging decisions of textbook publishers, it’s other provisions may help: professors will now clearly see the prices of the textbooks that the publishers market to them and colleges will be asked to provide the lists of required textbooks (and their prices) at registration time, so that students don’t unwittingly sign up for a class with exorbitant book costs. Hershman says, “growing awareness of textbook costs by professors could force change such as publishers offering discounted unbundled materials and more professors forgoing supplemental materials when not needed or more effectively using them in the classroom interaction in the supplement selection process.”

Reyna Gobel is a freelance journalist who specializes in financial fitness. She is also the author of Graduation Debt: How To Manage Student Loans and Live Your Life.

For all you recent grads enjoying the summer sun, don’t forget that come autumn, student loans will come a reckoning. Use this time now to plot out your repayment plan. This guide will show you how to get started gathering the information you need and making some important decisions about how you will structure your payments. Click on the preview above to expand the infographic.

Reyna Gobel is a freelance journalist who specializes in financial fitness. She is also the author of Graduation Debt: How To Manage Student Loans and Live Your Life.

Paying for an undergraduate education can be a costly endeavor, with parents often starting to save money even before their children are born. Although there are many ways to pay for college – grants, loans, tax-advantaged savings plans or simply out of pocket – nothing is more attractive than free money in the form of scholarships.

There is a huge range of scholarships available in the U.S., and although most are quite conventional in their focus, some are more eccentric, as applicants must meet very specific – and sometimes weird – requirements.

So, what are some of the most offbeat college scholarships out there? Click ahead to find out!

Note: This list includes only scholarships offered during the 2009-2010 academic year.

1. Starfleet Academy Scholarships

The Starfleet Academy, modeled after the one in the science-fiction series “Star Trek”, is a real-life organization, offering educational opportunities for its members. Although the academy focuses mostly on providing “valuable insight into either Starfleet, Trek trivia, and/or real life activities,” the organization also offers a range of $500 academic scholarships for secondary or graduate education, most of which are based upon Star Trek actors and actresses. 
Click here for more information

2. Evans Scholars Foundation Scholarship

Perhaps the most cash-rich scholarship program in this list, the Evans Scholars Foundation oversees one of the nation’s largest privately funded scholarship programs, providing full tuition and housing grants to recipients. Not everyone, however, can apply. Applicants must have a strong record as a golf caddie over a minimum period of two years and  be nominated by a golf club. Eligible applicants must also demonstrate significant financial need and a high moral character. 
Click here for more information

3. Milk Mustache of the Year

Also known as the SAMMY award, this scholarship from Body By Milk gives 25 milk-loving students a $7500 college scholarship, a trip to Disney world and the chance to be in a “Milk Mustache” ad. Applicants must be a student-athlete with a minimum GPA of 3.20, living in the 48 contiguous US states. Each applicant is also required to write a 250-word essay on how milk has helped in academics and/or athletics. In the later rounds of selection, however, academic and athletic achievement, community service and leadership become more important criteria than a love of milk. 
Click here for more information

4. American Fire Sprinkler Association Scholarship

The steps to apply for this $2,000 scholarship are extremely straightforward: 1. be a US high school student graduating this year;  2. read an essay on fire sprinklers. 3.  take a ten-question online quiz. After taking the quiz, depending on the amount of correct answers, you are entered for one of 10 $2,000 scholarships, which have been awarded every year since 2003. 
Click here for more information

5. The Kor Memorial Scholarship

The Klingon Language Institute   is another Star Trek-inspired group , whose mission is to bring together individuals interested in the study of Klingon linguistics and culture… providing a forum for discussion and the exchange of ideas.” Although you don’t necessarily have to speak Klingon to receive the $500 award, the scholarship is in place to encourage students to pursue the field of language study. 
Click here for more information

6. United Daughters of the Confederacy Scholarships

With scholarship applications handled by local chapters, this group  offers a range of scholarships that require the applicant to have an ancestor who fought for the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. One of these, the Helen James Brewer scholarship, also requires that the applicant must study English history and literature or Southern history and literature, and must reside in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee or Virginia. The group awards a total of 13 undergraduate scholarships with similar restrictions, 18 without restrictions and 6 graduate scholarships. 
Click here for more information

7. Tall Clubs International Scholarships

Each year, Tall Clubs International, TCI, offers $1,000 scholarships to students under the age of 21, who are looking to attend their first undergraduate year. The scholarships are awarded through local member clubs of TCI, with one condition: the applicant must be tall. The minimum height requirement is 5’10′ for women, and 6’2″ for men. 
Click here for more information

8. Stuttgart Duck Calling Scholarship

Each year, Stuttgart awards $4,250 in scholarships during the Chick and Sophie Major Memorial Duck Calling Contest to the high-school student who can perform the best duck call. Although the winner of the official contest can net over $15,000, the scholarship hopefuls participate in a different tournament, putting their duck-calling skills to the test over a 90-second period, with first place taking home $2,000 in education funds. 
Click here for more information

9. Society of Vacuum Coaters Scholarship

One of the rarest scholarships out there, that of the Society of Vacuum Coaters (SVC) offers a $2,500 scholarship for students looking to pursue a course of study related to vacuum – coating technology. The two most eligible applicants (the SVC Foundation reports that in their first year, there were a total of 20 applicants) also get to attend a technical conference, in which they get exposure to world experts in the field.

For those who are not well versed in the area of vacuum coating, the process is used to apply various coatings — such as paint or protective additives — to the surface of industrial materials to a thickness of as little as 1/1000 of an inch. 
Click here for more information

10. Duct Tape Prom Dress Scholarships

Sponsored by ShurTech Brands, the Duck Tape Brand Duct Tape Stuck at Prom scholarship is open to any American student, 14 years or older, who attends a high – school prom. Participants in the scholarship contest must enter as pairs – wearing complete attire and/or accessories that are entirely made from duct tape – which must also be of their own design.

The contest offers  ten  prizes – first, second and third place with seven pairs of runners up – with the first place winner determined in a final stage through an online vote. For first place, each individual will receive a $3,000 scholarship, while the school that hosted the prom will also receive $3,000. 
Click here for more information

11. National Potato Industry Scholarship

Each year, the National Potato Council, NPC, awards one $5,000 scholarship for a graduate student looking to pursue advanced studies in agribusiness, with the explicit goal of enhancing the potato industry. According to the NPC website, selection is based on academic achievement, leadership abilities and potato-related areas of graduate study.

Click here for more information

12. Left Handed Scholarship

This scholarship is offered exclusively to left-handed sophomores, juniors or seniors attending Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pa. Formally known as the Frederick and Mary F. Beckley Scholarship, it ranges between $1,000 to $1,500 per year, with the requirement that students also have “top academic records.” 
Click here for more information

13. NRA’s Y.E.S. Scholarship

After individuals are accepted to the National Rifle Association’s Youth Education Summit, they are eligible to compete for up to $30,000 in scholarships funds that are awarded over two rounds. The first offers up to $10,000, based on performance in debates and participation throughout the summit. The second round, for the grand scholarship, requires the student to develop either a portfolio of NRA-related experience in Washington D.C. or to introduce an NRA program, such as one focusing on gun safety, to their community. No shooting is required.  
Click here for more information

14. Candy Technologists Scholarship

Potentially the sweetest scholarship out there, the John Kitt Memorial scholarship, offered by the American Association of Candy Technologists awards students $5,000 over two semesters . Recipients must demonstrate interest in confectionery technology and plan on majoring in food science, chemical science, biological science or a related area. 
Click here for more information

15. Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

For students who enjoyed Ayn Rand’s novel, “The Fountainhead”, the eponymous institute offers scholarships of up to $10,000 for an essay written on one of three topics related to the book. The essays are relatively short, between 800 and 1,600 words, unlike the 1943 bestseller, which is 752 pages. 
Click here for more information

15 Offbeat Scholarships to Help You Pay for College was provided by CNBC.com.

photo: nsaplayer

Common sense and basic math says that finishing college quickly equals a less expensive education. The longer you take to graduate, the higher semester fees and housing costs will pile up.

But what’s left out of this purely dollars-and-cents equation is the potential effect of completing more internships — and thus building more experience and establishing more contacts – if you stay in college for five years rather than four; or four years rather than three.

In fact, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) 2010 Student Survey, seniors with internship experience had 12% more success in landing a job for which they applied, and  their starting salaries where nearly a third higher than seniors who hadn’t completed internships.

In other words, rather than rushing through the academics at school with the idea of graduating as soon as possible, some students might actually fare better if they focused on getting actual work experience while in college. Even if that meant spending an extra semester, or even year, in school. 

There is, of course, no fixed formula for what we’re about to discuss below: whether you’ll be better off graduating in three years with little work experience or taking four of five years and lining up an impressive list of internships will depend on your chosen field of work, career goals and even your personality. Here are the main factors to consider:

How Slow to Go With Internships

Interning won’t interfere with your schedule if you plan to graduate in four years. However, interning every summer would keep you from taking summer classes – if you wanted to finish in three.

And while the NACE study compared students with no internship experience whatsoever to those with some experience (in other words, NACE didn’t study the effect of completing several internships versus just one), experts agree that interning every summer increases your workplace savvy and improves your network of contacts when it comes to finding your first post-graduate job.

“One experience gives you one experience,” says Dr. Pat Schwallie-Giddis, the Counseling and Human Development Department Chair at George Washington University.  Interning at several places, meanwhile, exposes you to different work environments, she says. When you interview for your first post-graduation job, you’ll look more attractive to employers because you know whether you work best in a team or individual environment, you know how much creative input you need to feel fulfilled, and you’ll have realistic expectations of what your first year of employment will be like. 

As far as networking, you’ll create a real-world Facebook. Your references will be able to say they’ve worked with you or know someone who’s worked with you in your career field. The more internships you have, the bigger network you’ll be able to build. Dr. Schwallie-Giddis recalls a student in George Washington’s counseling program who had internships in three different states. Because her network was vast, she was able to land a job in the same state her husband found employment.

Co-op Programs

Traditional co-op programs, meanwhile, where you alternate working in a job within your field with school semesters or quarters, will likely keep you in school for five years. You will work for one employer only, so your network may be smaller in size, but your ties to that particular employer will be stronger.

Discovering Yourself in College

Finally, many college students change majors during the course of their school work. In those cases, obviously, graduating takes longer. But the good news is you’re less likely to graduate with a degree in a field you don’t want to work in after graduation. NACE Research Director Ed Koc mentions a former engineering co-op student who didn’t enjoy the work portion of his program. He switched majors in his sophomore year to biology. Now, he’s a successful orthopedist.

Making Room for Work Experience in Your Schedule

There is, actually, a middle ground: carefully planning your course load speeds up your graduation without decreasing time you could spend on work experience.

* Use credit from advanced placement courses as time for further career exploration. If you earned advanced placement courses in high school, you may have your basic courses covered. Talk to your admissions officer or academic counselor in your major to see where your course credits best fit among your college’s course requirements.  Returning to school more than four years after taking AP tests? You can order your score records by filling out an Archived AP Scores Request Form.  When I returned to school in 2004, I was able to get out of courses using scores from 1995.

* Check out professors before taking courses. Each class and professor requires different time spent outside of class. Contact each professor you plan on taking a class from prior to registration. Ask about time requirements. With this information, you can take extra courses when time allows.

* Prioritize pre-requisites based on when the following course is offered. For instance, if Marketing 101 is a pre-requisite to Marketing 305, it isn’t wise to take Marketing 101 in the fall if marketing 305 isn’t offered till the next fall. Especially if Economics 201 is offered in the fall, and Economics 202 is offered in the spring.  Meet with your academic counselor every semester to help you plan your courses for optimum graduation time.

Consider Major-Related Work Experience and Coursework a Package Deal

Besides internships and co-op program participation, make sure your coursework best supports both your ultimate career goals and career exploration. Take at least one course in your major per semester.  If you don’t like your major choice in semester one, you won’t have to postpone your graduation at all by changing majors.

Seek counseling from the career center as much as your department advisor. Since your ultimate goal in earning a degree is to find a career you love, your university’s career center should be as involved in helping you pick electives as your college’s academic counselors.

With major-related work-experience and an academic path focused on your future career, you’ll have a competitive edge in any job market.

Reyna Gobel is a freelance journalist who specializes in financial fitness. She is also the author of Graduation Debt: How To Manage Student Loans and Live Your Life.

photo: djfoobarmatt

For college kids, this week is all about finals and holiday planning. But before you know it, winter break will be over and you’ll face the good old college ritual of textbook shopping for the new semester.

Textbooks are expensive and can set you back hundreds of dollars: on a tight student budget, that’s no chump change.

One money-saving tips we hear often these days is to consider renting textbooks instead of buying. But depending on resale value of used textbooks and whether you’ll use them for multiple semesters, renting might not necessarily be the most wise decision financially.

Textbook rental prices vary, generally ranging from one third to half the price of a new book, according to Charles Schmidt, a spokesman for the National Association of College Stores (NACS). Used textbooks are generally 75% of the new textbook cost.

So let’s do some math. Let’s say you buy a $100 textbook used for $75. At the end of the semester, you sell it back to the bookstore for $50. (According to Schmidt, students can sell their books back to college stores for up to half the new book price.)

Your net cost was $25. The rental cost of the book would have been $33. You made $8 by buying and reselling the textbook.

However, in this case you still could have been better off renting. You had to pay more money initially. And reselling the book might not be an option if it was an older edition that isn’t going to be used by professors for much longer. This would have made the rental $42 cheaper than buying a used textbook.

But let’s say you are taking Chemistry I and Chemistry II and you’ll use the same textbook for both semesters. You’d pay $50 per semester to rent your textbook, totaling the full price of a new book. If you bought the book used for $75, you’d have saved $25.

That said, should you ever consider renting? Absolutely. Here’s what you should know:

The market for textbook rentals has grown rapidly in recent years. Schmidt says he has seen a 500% increase in the number of college stores in NACS that offer this option, compared to last fall. And there are certainly opportunities to rent text books online (usually from the same vendors that sell them).

When you rent a textbook, expect a similar experience to buying used: textbooks likely get rented several times in their lifetime. You could see highlights and CDs and supplements may or not be included based on the store’s discretion and whether you are the first to rent the textbook.

Additional Costs

Consider the shipping cost as part of your price when renting online. Depending on how long you are willing to wait for your textbook and which online store you choose, it may actually be free. But if you waited until the last minute to order, for example on Friday and need your book by Monday, you will generally pay $15 to $20 for expedited services. Free return shipping is also important.

It’s best to order early, in case your book arrives late or gets lost in the mail.

Return Policies

A 30-day return policy is vital in case you drop a course or you find your teacher tests by lecture notes instead of the information in your textbook.

And if you do use the textbook, mark your calendar with the date by which you need to return it. If you rent from an online store, you will have to pack and ship it back, so factor in several additional days for it to be delivered back.

Other Ways to Save

For my last four semesters of college, I spent a total of $200 on textbooks after subtracting the amount I received when selling them from what I spent to buy them. I compared used book prices online and in bookstores on and around campus. Sometimes I was able to resell my textbooks online for more than I paid for them. But doing this involved a larger investment of money and time – and sometimes I went without a textbook for the first week of class.

No matter which way you choose to get your textbooks, always verify with your professor a week or two prior to classes which books you actually need. Will you use your textbook? Will you need the supplements? Is this the last semester this textbook will get used? You may find based on your textbook needs that you’ll rent some books, buy a few used books, and occasionally buy new textbooks.

Reyna Gobel is a freelance journalist who specializes in financial fitness. She is also the author of Graduation Debt: How To Manage Student Loans and Live Your Life.

(iStockphoto)

Imagine you found one online retailer selling a plasma TV for $3,000, and another selling the exact same TV for $1000. No catches—a threefold difference in price. No one buys an expensive product when they’re selling the same one for a fraction of the price just a click away, right?

They do if the product is a 529 college savings plan.

There are over eighty 529 plans on the market, according to savingforcollege.com, one of the most comprehensive 529 plan resources on the web. Most of these plans are open to savers from any state. (Note: This column is only about investment plans, not the prepaid tuition plans offered by a few states.)

Worse than the profusion of plans is the fact that it’s so hard to figure out what they cost. “With mutual fund fees, there’s this wealth of information. It’s easy to compare fees,” says Laura Lutton of Morningstar, which ranked the best and worst 529s in October. “But it’s not that way on the 529 side.”

Fear not. Help is here.

The all-important expense ratio

Shopping for 529 plans isn’t like buying a couch. The price tag comes in the form of various fees and, most important, the expense ratio.

The expense ratio is easy to understand in principle: it’s just the percentage of your assets you’ll pay in administration fees, per year. So if you average $10,000 in your account this year and the expense ratio is 1%, you’ll pay $100.

That’s how I’d put it, at least, if I were trying to sell you an overpriced plan. We’ll only charge you 1%—big deal!

Actually, it’s a huge deal. Let’s do an experiment. Say you and I have a baby (I really love my readers). The day little Minty is born, we put $200 in her 529 plan, and we do the same every month until she turns 18 and enrolls at the University of Outer Space Robot Science. Furthermore, let’s say our investments do very well and we earn 6% per year before expenses. Let’s see how the expense ratio will affect our total savings.

Yes, that’s more than $10,000 difference, all because of less than two lousy (really lousy!) percentage points in extra expenses. Small differences in expenses have a huge effect on your balance because you’re not just missing out on that $100—you’re missing out on the opportunity to earn compound interest on it in the future. It’s the magic of compound interest, upside your head.

“Fees overall are still too high,” says Morningstar’s Lutton. “While there have been some great examples of cuts, I think there’s still room to go.”

The cuts came courtesy of some of the largest plans, which now charge about 0.25% for most of their investment options. These include Ohio, New York, California, Utah, and Nevada (of which I’m a member).

David Taylor, a MintLife reader and father of two, was paying about 0.91% for his 529, which is offered by TD Ameritrade in association with the state of Nebraska. Taylor lives in Texas, so he wasn’t benefiting from the Nebraska state tax deduction. “I signed up for a 529 so long ago, I don’t even remember if I compared expenses,” says Taylor. “I suspect that I went with TD Ameritrade because I was using them as my brokerage at the time.”

For Taylor, however, there’s good news and better news.

The good news is Nebraska is participating in the ongoing 529 plan price war. I spoke with the Nebraska state treasurer’s office, and they’re lowering their prices starting December 18. For the TD Ameritrade plan, the new minimum expense ratio will be closer to 0.5%. There’s also a plan available directly through the state where investors pay about 0.35%. Nebraska is also dropping its $20 annual account maintenance fee. “That was one thing that really irked me,” says Taylor.

The better news is that Taylor isn’t waiting; he’s moving his account to Utah, where he’ll pay even less than Nebraska’s new, lower prices.

What about that 1.85% ratio? It represents the most expensive advisor-sold plans, such as South Dakota’s CollegeAccess 529, rated most expensive by Morningstar. Many states offer advisor-sold plans, which are far more expensive than direct-sold plans that you open through the state’s website. Avoid them like you’d avoid a purse snatcher.

Move your money

Competition is driving down 529 fees and expenses—it’s just not doing it fast enough. If you have money in a 529 now or are planning to open one, take a moment to do two things that could save you thousands of dollars:

1. Check the master list of state tax deductions from FinAid.org. If your state offers a generous deduction, it’s often (but not always) worth taking it even if the plan charges higher expenses. “Every state would describe their tax benefits as generous,” says Lutton. Not all of them are. It’s especially important to check the list if you’ve moved to another state since opening your 529. You can also check the Morningstar report (page 28) to help figure out how much you’re actually saving by taking your state’s tax deduction.

2. Check the expenses and fees you’re paying in your current plan. If your expense ratio is higher than 0.3%, move your money to one of the low-fee plans:

• California
• Nevada
• New York
• Ohio
• Utah

And try not to think about how much of the money you save will be spent on pizza and beer.

For most parents, paying college tuition out of pocket is simply out of the question: with budgets stretched thin to cover mortgage or rent, and basics like food and clothes, who has several thousand dollars every semester (or month, depending on the cost of tuition, fees, room and board) to send over to the Bursar’s office? So chances are, any forward-looking parent (or grandparent) has done the next best thing: started budgeting for college expenses and saving, years in advance. If you’re one of those parents, you probably know what a 529 Plan is: named after Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code, these investment vehicles allow you to sock away money for education expenses in a tax-advantaged way. Your earnings accumulate tax free and, if used for qualified educatione expenses, withdrawals are tax-free, as well. But choosing a 529 Plan is no simple thing and many investors don’t have a full understanding of how these things work. We give you the basics in this infographic.