Jan 7

Affordability

January 7, 2022 | By Edwin Burgos Perez

College can be an expensive investment to pursue higher education and using the app, DecideED is the best way to navigate all the true costs of college. Sign up and create your account with DecidED to get started. 

Once you start your account, there are many options to see the breakdown of the college.

This includes the tuition, life budget, and graduation rates to give you the numbers to get a good sense of how the school treats its students.

Personal Expense

You will need to be in charge of your own personal finances and you have the liberty of spending on whatever you find appealing. Budgeting is a great way to ensure that you have enough money to pay rent and other expenses that come with being a student. Expenses look different for every student, but mostly expenses dealing with housing, meals, transportation, and miscellaneous items will most likely be a part of your personal lifestyle expenses. Learn more about personal expenses.

Transportation 

It is important to get from one place to another. As a college student, you will most likely want to explore the city’s nearby environment, so getting there will always be the question to think about when making plans. Making a transportation budget is the best way to save money, which usually means relying on public transportation. It can be very useful and convenient to Uber everywhere, but it can build up quite the bill. So make sure you find out if your college provides forms of transportation for students at no extra cost. Some colleges have free shuttles or can give you access to the city’s public transportation. Learn more about commuting.

Textbooks

Some of the courses you will need/want to take will require forms of textbooks or readers for the class. These required books can be really expensive, so if you know someone who has previously taken the class, take the time to ask them if you can purchase it from them at a lower cost, or if you’re lucky enough, they will give it to you. There are other ways of acquiring the textbooks to fit with your budget which can look like renting out the textbook for a semester, borrowing it from the library, or purchasing the book from former students of the course. Be strategic when it comes to acquiring these textbooks because it is only beneficial if it stays within your budget. Get tips on how to reduce your textbook costs.

Diversity

College can be a different diverse environment for most of its students. Learning more about diversity on your college campus should be something that plays into your final decision of where you want to continue studying. Learn more about why diversity is important and should be a part of your college decision process.

Graduation Matters

The first step is getting into college, and the hardest part of college is graduating from your intuition. It matters that you graduate.

You can even upload your personalized financial aid letter to the DecidED database to see how financial aid is broken down. This can help you determine your financial aid questions. The end goal in college is to graduate! Learn more about why graduation matters.

Advisors

If you are an advisor for students navigating the college process, you can also sign up for an account as an advisor that will be able to see your students financial aid personalized reward letters, and explore more about campus graduation rates, environment, college expenses, and more important information before enrolling into a college. 

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