In case it isn’t obvious, there are more costs for college than the massive tuition required by most colleges. On top of the massive amount of money that has to be paid to even go to the school, that doesn’t include textbooks, board (most of the time), food, clothes, phone bill, vehicle costs, or anything else really. In this essay I am going to quickly summarize some of the college expenses that you don’t generally think about as often.
The first and most obvious of these expenses is textbooks. New textbooks are an outright scam. Oftentimes, they are written by the professor that is teaching the class. Every so often, the will release a new “revised†edition with little to no change from the previous one, and they will encourage students to buy the new, more expensive copy, even if they already have an old copy. On top of that, it is not included with the tuition, and so you are forced to either buy one or do without. The best way to avoid this scam is to buy a used copy and/or and older version of the book to save money, and you will be losing virtually nothing because it is the same book.
Oftentimes, dorm rooms or housing is not included with the tuition of the college, and it has to be paid for separately. This shouldn’t take you by surprise, but it is still a separate expense that has to be paid.
Food, clothes, communication costs, vehicle costs, and other personal costs are all things that you will likely have to pay for during college. If you don’t take these things into account, then you will have some issues later down the line when you do need to pay for them.