Many people aim to study at college but it can be very expensive and students usually find out about the true costs when it is too late. A recent study by Kiplinger showed that the average debt of someone studying for a Doctoral degree was $31,031 while a master’s degree would set you back $40,297.

In order to manage student debt, it is imperative to start managing personal finances straight from the beginning. As someone who has went through the higher education system and only just recent paid off a $14,000 debt, I can honestly say that living with the burden of debt can affect you immensely, however, there are ways to trim that debt pile before it gets out of hand.

The main method that I employed to cut down my debt was to reduce my expenses. I looked at my spending patterns after the first semester and realized that I was spending far too much on textbooks. These huge management textbooks that were essential to my course would cost up to $100 at a time and I had a minimum of 4 classes each semester!

One method that I thought up to cut the costs of books was to buy them second hand from other students and online. I bought a few of them from friends and also one online. The one bought from a friend was in good condition but the one bought on eBay was highlighted and had markings all over it. I would have continued buying second hand books from my friends but I didn’t know enough people to cover all of the books on my subjects. Another problem with buying second hand was that the books were all outdated older editions which sometimes had different case studies to the ones being taught.

Then I came across Campus Book Rentals. This was a brand new service that allowed students to type in the Title, Author or  ISBN code of the book they were looking for into their online search engine and it would see if they had it in stock. You could then request for it to be sent to you for a rental fee and also view your savings at a glance. For example, if a book cost $80 to purchase from Amazon, you would probably be able to rent it for around $30 – saving you $50 per book.

Overall, I estimate that I have saved thousands of dollars through the service and I would recommend it to every student, particularly those that are studying for a masters or doctorate where the duration of the course is long and the textbooks extortionately expensive.

Author Bio

This article was written by guest poster, Steve Hogan, a graduate of risk management. Steve was renting textbooks at college via the Campus Book Rentals service to help save money while studying.

No related posts.