posted September 04, 2007
Class start this week for almost all universities and community colleges across the country. Student begin the Fall semester with assigned course materials and books. It's an exciting time for students; but it can also be a stressful time to get accustomed to the rigorous schedule and to make final payments for tuition, housing, and other education needs.
Key Calendar Events for September and October
Tuition Statements are Due
Colleges will require full payment for the semester tuition. These tuition statements may include housing and other related fees. Tuition payments are due prior to start of classes, but some schools may give you a grace period of 2-3 weeks to make full payment. If you fail to make payment, you will not receive credit for your class attendance.
Your tuition payment will be reduced by the amount of aid awarded to the student. Any gap between the amount awarded and amount due is up to the student to pay.
Budgeting Your Expenses
College is not cheap. You have tuition, housing, food, books, classroom supplies, transportation, laptop computer, and other related education expenses. And then there are the weekends and other activities that make college fun.
You need to plan and budget how much money you will need by month. This requires an analysis of your academic and outside act ivies, including costs for housing, food and transportation.
Use our college budgeting worksheet to design your spending plan by month. It will keep a tab on your financial aid needs so that you have enough money to finish the school year. Go to budgeting plan.
Managing Student Spend
Students need to manage their daily spend to avoid getting into debt. You may want to avoid having your own credit card since it can be tempting to buy things you really don't need nor can afford. Your best option is to use a pre-paid card to pay for student expenses.
Pre-paid cards works just like credit cards; they are accepted at merchant locations that take major credit cards. The advantage of pre-paid cards is that you load the amount that you budgeted for the month onto your card. This forces you to spend only for amounts that has been loaded for the week or the month. The card can help you stay within budget. Link to view our manage college expenses card.
Work Hard to Build Success
You are going to school for a reason: to graduate with honors so that you can start a great career. That sounds good, but it takes more than just attending school. You need to shape a character that wants and can achieve success.
There are 3 important ingredients of success:
- You need to plan for success. This requires setting goals and planning steps. For example, graduating from college in is a goal. Now what is the plan to achieve that feat:
- register for the required courses for your selected degree
- develop a study plan
- get good grades
- other plans for achieving your degree
- You need to build discipline in order to achieve your goal plan. Anybody can develop a goal. But it is only a few who can actually achieve it. Those who achieve are disciplined in their actions needed to achieve the goal.
Discipline includes physical, mental, social and spiritual disciplines. Strengthening each of these attributes build the motivation and strength to achieve any goal.
- You need to execute your plan by scheduling and completing the tasks required to achieve your goal. This requires you to build scheduling techniques, time management, and other organizational skills to achieve your tasks within a timely manner.
The three ingredients - planning - discipline - execution - can help you succeed in college and in your career.
link to our quick presentation about these 3 ingredients
This article was written by Krayton M Davis
Executive Principal, nBuy Associates
nBuy Associates owns and operates the SayStudent college financing network
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