Ways to Save Money in College

Nearly every student who attends college is looking for ways to save money. For example, if you drink a lot of coffee each day, it is not too smart to buy an expensive cup of Starbucks coffee every morning. Instead, invest in a coffee maker or a Keurig to save some money. 


According to the USA Today, if you gave up buying a 16 oz Grande coffee from Starbucks ($2.10) every day, then after 247 days you would be able to buy an I-Pad Mini ($299). Of course you still need coffee so the average cost to make a 16 oz cup of coffee using store bought coffee such as Folgers or Maxwell House is $.08. Another way to save money would be to buy a Brita water filter for your dorm room and use that for the whole year instead of buying bottled water every week. According to Hearts.com, a planetary well-being site, if you were to replace 150 throw away plastic bottles of water with tap water per year, you would save about $225 per year

Another easy way to save money in college is to be your textbooks from places like Amazon and Chegg. These sites almost always have lower prices than college bookstores. Sites like these are a huge relief for college students. Here is a quick breakdown how much the average college student spends on books each year and where that money goes, according to the National Association of College Stores (NACS).

• The average college student spends $1,168 per year on books and materials
• 20% of the textbook's price goes directly to the store to cover operating costs (employees, etc)
• Roughly 75% of the textbook's price goes directly to the publisher

That's a lot of money that is being spent on textbooks, however, the textbook industry has a few more tricks up their sleeves when it comes to increasing the price of textbooks. 

• Publishers often include add-on items in the books such as access codes to websites and downloadable programs, which increase the price of the textbook even more
• According to a survey done by the 2011 U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a new edition of a textbook is released every four years.

Many college professors and deans openly admit that a new version of a textbook often contains very minimal changes and sometimes the textbook doesn't even need the new version.