10 Tips for Improving Teacher-Student Relationships

BY LAURA McKINNEY

 

You can get a lot out of your classes by attending, listening, and paying attention. But, you can really get a lot out of your classes if you establish good relationships with your teachers. Not only can they help you with the classes they are teaching, there are many other ways they can help you with your academic life. They have a lot of information that can help you to get ahead of the game. They can also be there if you need an understanding ear or help finding various resources for school, as well as mental and physical health. Here are some tips that will help you improve the teacher-student relationship.

1. Introduce Yourself Immediately – Right after your first class, go up and introduce yourself to the teacher and let them know how excited you are about the class. Talk to them regularly, and soon enough they will remember who you are.
2. Research Your Teachers – Go online and look up your teachers. Find out who they are, their hobbies and interests, and in particular, their research interests. This is a great way to find out which teachers are going to be able to help you get more specific information on certain subjects.
3. Visit During Office Hours – When you visit teachers during their office hours, but outside of classes, you have more of a chance to get to know them and really establish relationships. In time, you will discuss more than academics, and you will have a good source for advice on many things in life.
4. Participate in Class – If you are not participating in classes, the teachers aren’t going to expect much from you. They will think that you do not have an interest, and they will spend more time on the students who are active in class and show that they want to learn.
5. Tell them Your Goals – “You have professional goals. Tell your teachers what those goals are. Not only will it show them that you do want to learn, it will also open a door for you to go to them for career advice, and even letters of recommendation,” suggests an expert from Call Wiser.
6. Get Good Grades – This may seem like a no-brainer, but it is just as important as class participation, if not more so. When students are not getting good grades, their teachers don’t tend to take them very seriously. If you are trying and can’t get your grades up, talk to your teachers about the problem and ask for help.
7. See them After Class – Whenever the opportunity arises, stop and talk with your teachers after classes. This is an excellent time to ask any questions you may have about lectures, thank the teacher for the class, etc.
8. Be Confident – Don’t just participate in class. Be confident about your participation. Show your enthusiasm for what you are learning. The more you do things like this, the more you stand out, and the teachers will take notice.
9. Stay in Contact – These days, most teachers provide students with email addresses that they can be reached at for questions. Take advantage of this. Stay in contact so they don’t forget who you are. Ask questions about lectures, assignments, or about anything that you may be confused about.
10. Be Passionate – You are taking classes for a reason: to get you into your dream career. Obviously, you have a passion for it, so show your teachers that passion. If you are taking an archaeology class because you want to be an archaeologist, share this with your teacher. They will get to know you better, and be more apt to help you find ways to reach your career goals.

 

Lorraine McKinney is an academic tutor and elearning sp

Why Hobbies at College Are No Less Important Than Classes

BY SYLVIA KOHL

To be successful at college one does have to put a lot of time and effort into one’s studies and steadfastly go ahead towards a definitely set goal. It is also important to alternate periods of hard work with periods of rest and relaxation – although you can achieve significant results by working non-stop, they tend to be rather short-lived, for burnout usually follows not far behind.

However, there is relaxation and relaxation. Although partying and bouts of hard drinking can help you unwind, they can hardly be considered very constructive. A much better use of your time would be adopting a hobby and keeping up with it in your free time. Why? Let’s see.

1.    It Helps You Develop Diverse Skills

It is often said that the best rest is a change of activity, and a hobby can easily serve you in this capacity. It allows you to drastically change the type of work you do from time to time, helping you maintain a mental edge and develop your hidden potential in process. It is better if your hobby is completely unrelated to your major – thus you will be able to avoid getting tired while acquiring new skills. For example, a computer science student can benefit from studying a foreign language, and vice versa.

2.    It Can Bring You Money

Hobbies shouldn’t necessarily be expensive and highly time-consuming activities. A hobby can just as well bring in money as it can spend it – if you make your hobby into a business or a business into your hobby. Make crafts for sale, find and resell rare stuff on the Internet, or simply make and sell cheap business cards to both train your creativity and make a quick buck.

3.    It Clears Your Mind

When you are completely preoccupied with the technical side of your hobby, whatever that is, you don’t think about anything else. You get rid of all the fears, concerns and worries about exams and grades, at least temporarily. And chances are, after you get a feel of what a wonderful feeling it is, you will try to transfer this attitude to the rest of your life. We achieve the best results when we whole-heartedly concentrate on the task at hand – and a hobby can help you achieve the necessary clarity of mind.

4.    You Meet New People and Explore New Social Circumstances

Any hobby has a community concentrated around it. When you take it up you get a legitimate reason to get in touch with its members – and thus you can meet people you won’t otherwise meet, which is always a good thing. In addition to that, a hobby circle is a completely controlled environment – you don’t owe anything to anyone, which means that you can contribute and participate exactly to the degree you want. College is a good place to meet new people to begin with, and taking up a hobby brings it to a whole new level. For example, if you take up creative writing and join your college’s writing club you are free to choose whether you are going to limit your communication with other members to your creative endeavors or allows yourself to get closer to them.

5.    It Improves Your Creativity

People tend to be much more creative when they are completely focused on an activity they enjoy. And the good thing is, this creativity can overflow and seep into other activities – which means that you can sometimes suddenly get an inspiration concerning your other tasks when doing something completely unrelated but, well, inspiring and exciting. Many people claim to get excellent ideas for their creative work when participating in physical activities: sports or hiking, for example.

All in all, taking up a creative and constructive hobby is both an excellent way to relieve extra stress and improve your results as a student. When you are fresh, calm and full of creative energy you are much more likely to succeed than when you are tired, distracted and worried.

Sylvia Kohl is an IT teacher with more than 8 years of professional experience. Her main spheres of interest are e-education and she convinced that learning process doesn’t stop after years in school and university.

Federal And State Student Financial Aid : Problems And Opportunities

BY BRANDON KING

Students are faced with a plethora of options ranging from good (scholarships) to exploitative (high interest private loans). This article will help you sift through the often overwhelming number of options out there when it comes to student aid and enable you to decide which, if any, is right for you.

Financial aid comes in many shapes and sizes, from grants and scholarships to low-interest loans to work-study programs. If you are a student attending a post-secondary educational institution in America, you’ll find financial aid provided by educational institutions, private companies, and federal and state agencies or foundations.

Most students will want to exhaust both federal and state options before considering loans from a private company, which charge higher rates of interest. Understanding this is important.

Financial Aid Opportunities for Students: Financial aid is designed to help a student cover costs ranging from tuition fees to housing and other important expenditures incurred while they are completing their education.

When applying for federal financial aid, you must complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) as a first step. You may then qualify for some of the below opportunities:

1. Grants: Grants come from several government departments, public and private trusts, colleges and universities in the United States. However, getting a grant is not that easy.Eligibility is determined by one’s academic merits and financial need. Some grants provided by the government are:

• Federal Pell Grant: This grant is based on the estimated family contribution (EFC) of an individual, which is determined by the FAFSA.
• Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant: The FSEOG is for students whose FAFSA results show exceptional financial requirements, like being among the lowest EFC.
• Institutional Grants: These grants are offered by educational institutions and are typically based on a student’s academic achievements. Other grants that are based on financial need or a combination of both academic results and financial requirements.
• State Grants: These grants are based on a student’s financial requirements and vary by state.
• Private and Employer Grants: These grants are given to the individuals eligible to work in a private organization.
• TEACH: The Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education grant is given to students who took additional classes and performed a particular job to get the grant.

2. Education Loans: An education loan is different from the grants or scholarships as the money has to be repaid after a certain period with (often high) added interest. Under education loans, students have several options like private loans, federal student loans, federal parent loans and loan consolidation.

• Federal student loan programs: This loan is given directly to the student, and he/she is responsible for repaying the amount with interest after a given period. The federal student loan programs have low rates of interest, and do not require any form of collateral or credit check. To make it easy for the students to pay their loans, this program offers several extended repayment terms and deferment plans.
• Direct Subsidized Loans: Some students try to get direct subsidized loans because of the low amounts of paperwork involved. But, the students can only borrow the amount they actually require for their school. Any additional expenditure is not covered by the loan.
• Federal Parent Loans: As the title suggests, these are federal loans that are given to the parents of students who are still dependent on their parents. Variations of this are the PLUS Loan or Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students.
• Private Loans: In addition to the above loans, private loans are provided by financial institutions like banks and other private lenders. You can expect much higher rates of interest on these loans and fewer deferment or repayment options. Use only as a last resort.

Getting an education loans is nothing, but investing in your future. There is a myth that education is not a sound investment, when actually education is the best investment an individual can make. However, students should be very careful while making this investment. They should be well informed of the institutions that offer such loans, their terms and conditions, etc.

3. Scholarships: Scholarships can be from state, educational institutions, private agencies and websites. A quick search for private scholarship opportunities returns results like this, this, and this. Like grants, these do not need to be paid back, and are awarded based on several factors like merit, creativity, etc. Students can easily search for the scholarships on search engines like Google using queries like: “scholarship” “apply now”.

Problems with Federal and State Financial Aid

You know the old saying that nothing in life is free? This definitely applies to most forms of financial aid. Be careful that you aren’t selling your tomorrow just to make today a little bit easier.

An additional complication of financial aid is that many students who are enrolled in internet courses or distance education programs have restricted eligibility or are not eligible at all for federal student loans. Too often, the only type of loan available to students in such scenarios comes from private companies that charge exorbitant interest rates.

Graduate students, unlike undergraduate students, are only eligible for unsubsidized loans. However, they can also borrow Graduate PLUS loans, which depend on the credit rating of the student, have higher rates of interest than undergraduate financial aid, and accrue immediately.

One last option for students seeking a private loan to consider is Sofi, which is a private lender that offers lower interest rates and more favorable repayment terms than competitors like Sallie Mae.

Brandon King is an entrepreneur who moved to China after graduating university in the middle of the Global Financial Crisis. He runs an HR company that specializes in helping people pursue job opportunities in Shanghai, China.

 

An International Student’s Guide to College Health Care

By David Gutierrez

Health care insurance is a major part of life in the US, so all students coming to this country must understand exactly how it would work for them. The majority of schools require mandatory insurance, which is good as there is no such thing as free medical care for international travelers in America. Only a rare few programs can accept an international student, but their medical services are extremely limited and won’t do much good in an emergency situation.

As an international student in the US, you need to follow the news about health care as the changes in this field affect your life directly. You also need to know how to find the best insurance policy and what factors to consider when making this choice.

Health Care Costs for International Students in the US

The main reason why international students should get medical insurance even if it’s not mandatory in their colleges is the cost of health care in the US. A single visit to the emergency room can turn into a thousand dollar bill mailed to you within weeks of the event.

Student Health Care centers usually located on campus offer cheaper services, but even those can sum up to make a hefty dent in your bank account. Also, you must understand that these medical facilities may be unable to render the exact kind of service you need, so you’ll be referred to an off-campus professional, which means an increase in costs.

Obamacare (ACA) and Its Effect on Students

The so-called ‘Obamacare’ (Affordable Care Act) is a topic of great controversy regarding medical insurance. One of the most common complaints about it is the penalty one has to pay when their policy doesn’t meet the criteria specified in this act.

Luckily, as international students aren’t American citizens, they are exempt from this law as long as they retain the status of ‘non-alien residents’. This includes all holders of F, J, M, and Q visas. However, when you spend over five years in the US, your tax status changes to ‘resident alien’. At this point, you will be subject to the same regulations as US citizens in regards to medical insurance. It means that you’ll have to look for an Obamacare-compliant policy.

Those are usually more expensive as they are designed for a lifetime. Some more news is that the new Trump Administration is vying for a health care reform. The new American Health Care Act has failed to get passed into law, but it’s reasonable to expect new ACA alternatives soon. Both current and aspiring international students should stay tuned for more Health Care Reform information.

The Best Sources of International Student Medical Insurance

It’s true that medical insurance is mandatory for most schools as well as some types of American visas (J1 and F1 in particular). However, these rules rarely stipulate that your policy must come from some specific provider. This gives students a chance to seek out the most affordable insurance. The options you can choose from are:

• Independent insurers.
  These policies usually are more expensive, but they might be better suited for your personal needs.
• College insurance programs.
  Many schools offer specialized insurance policies. They are more affordable and designed specifically to fit an average student. You can also be 100% sure that this policy will be accepted by the Student Health Center in your college.
• Student organizations.
  The majority of international scholarship programs, like Fulbright and USAID, offer insurance packages of their own. These might be mandatory for the students participating in the program.

Unless required to purchase a specific type of policy, you should always shop around and compare all the options on offer. Be sure to consider not only the size of the premiums but also your unique health needs so that you truly make the best choice.

David Gutierrez has worked in the field of web design since 2005. Right now he started learning Java in order to get second occupation. His professional interests defined major topics of his articles. David writes about new web design software, recently discovered professional tricks and also monitors the latest updates of the web development.

 

 

5 Ways to Improve Your College Presentation Skills

BY TES PAJARON

A lot of people find public speaking to be a bit intimidating – even when they’re speaking to a group of their peers. Unless you’re overtly extroverted or strongly charismatic, giving a college presentation may come as a bit of a challenge. You want to make a great impression, prove to everyone that you’re well researched and of course get topgrades. Preparing can help you find the confidence you need to nail your presentation, and your grade will reflect your effort.

1. Learn More Than You Need to Learn

One of the easiest ways to make a presentation more interesting is to provide listeners with facts they wouldn’t have had easy access to. Yes, you do need to discuss the basics, however it’s what happens when you go beyond the basics that makes a presentation truly interesting. Pepper your presentation with interesting facts or even jokes about the subject matter. You won’t be regurgitating a textbook or a study if you have enough additional information to spice things up a little bit. You can even get your audience involved. These new tidbits will keep people engaged in what your presenting.

2. Know When to Fake It

Eye contact is important in a presentation. You want to acknowledge the people who are listening to you. They’re giving you their attention, and the least you could do is return the favor. If you feel too nervous to commit to actual eye contact with the people you’re standing in front of, you can always fake that eye contact. By looking at inanimate objects in the distance, it will appear as though you’re shifting your glance from person to person. You’ll appear engaged, but you won’t actually be distracted or uncomfortable.

3. Memorize as Much as Possible

Nobody wants to watch you read. It’s a great idea to have notecards with your talking points to help you keep your presentation on track, but if you spend most of your time looking down, you’re minimizing your presence. Have the main points on notecards and memorize the parts connecting these points. Don’t be afraid to adlib a little bit. As long as you’re hitting all of your major talking points in a reasonable amount of time while maintaining a connection with your audience, you’re going to be just fine.

4. Time and Pace

Your college presentation will usually have to adhere to some kind of timeframe. Maybe you have to fill a minimum of five minutes and a maximum of ten. If you’re feeling jittery or you’re simply tired of the material you’ve learned, you may rush through your presentation and fail to meet the time limit. When you practice, time yourself and adjust your pacing. You can stretch a little bit of material a lot farther with practiced pacing. A few pauses for your listeners to digest the information and a steady talking speed can actually reduce the amount of things you’ll need to say in order to make your time. However, make sure you leave yourself enough time to cover all of your points.

5. Be Comfortable

If your shoes are killing your feet and your belt is on too tight, it’s going to be difficult for you to concentrate and engage with your audience. You want to look nice standing in front of your class, but you don’t want to look awkward and uncomfortable. If your narrow pointed toe shoes are making it painful every time you step down, your audience will be able to see it in your face. Dress nice, but dress casually. You’ll be able to breathe, move, and think better in clothes designed with your comfort in mind.

Practice makes perfect. Once you think you have a good idea of how you intend to deliver your presentation, practice it until your delivery becomes second nature. Also if you feel you need to brush up on your presentation & business skills be sure to check out online courses on the topic. It’s a lot less intimidating to do something familiar in front of a group than it is if you feel out of your element.

With a background in business administration and management, Tess Pajaron currently works at Open Colleges, Australia’s leading online educator. She likes to cover stories in careers and marketing.

6 Reasons You May Not Graduate on Time

 

By MEREDITH KOLODNER, Hechinger Report

 

Graduating from a four-year college in four years may sound like a fairly straightforward venture, but only 41 percent of students manage to do it.

That matters. The longer it takes, the less likely a student is to make it to graduation: A quarter of students drop out after four years, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, and most say it’s because of money. Cost, indeed, is a major issue for many families — in-state tuition and fees run $8,940 on average at public institutions, $28,308 at private ones. Many of those who finish in five or six years have either unnecessarily drained their parents’ bank accounts or end up in a lot more debt.

We asked educators to identify the biggest obstacles to a timely graduation. They talked about students who aim for a four-year finish but fail to take the right courses in the right order. Other students conclude that graduating in four years isn’t so important, and cut back on classes to make more time for play.

Here are the six roadblocks most cited, and ways to tackle the problem.

Working Overtime: Quit After 25 Hours

There is no doubt that a student debt crisis exists in the United States, and an entire generation is buckling under its weight. But that doesn’t mean debt should be avoided at all costs, experts say.

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“Students who are worried about debt sometimes work more and then reduce their course load,” said Robert Kelchen, a professor of higher education at Seton Hall who studies student debt. “But by working instead of studying, they may find it more difficult to graduate on time.”

About 40 percent of undergraduates work 30 hours a week or more, though a new study finds that more than 25 hours can get in the way of passing classes, especially for low-income students. Only 45 percent of students who work more than that are able to keep their grade-point averages above 3.0, according to the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. The percentage goes down as the hours go up.

Dr. Kelchen makes the point that income-based repayment plans introduced by President Obama allow students to manage their debt. Some universities, too, are offering incentives to keep students from working too much. Temple University gives $4,000 grants to eligible students who agree to work no more than 15 hours a week off campus.

Melanie Tucci calculated that she would have to work about 30 hours a week as well as take out loans to make it through college when she started at Temple in 2014. With the “Fly in 4” grant and other scholarships, she was able to quit her two jobs, one in retail, one in an office. Instead, she has worked 12 hours a week at internships connected to her career interests.

“I’ve actually been able to take 18 credits some semesters,” said Ms. Tucci, who will graduate in 2018. “It’s allowed me to focus more on my schoolwork. I could never have done it all if I was working at some retail job 30 hours a week.”

The 12-Credit Fallacy: Take 15

Most colleges define a full-time course load as 12 credits a semester, which is, not coincidentally, the ceiling for receiving the maximum Pell grant and most state financial aid. But degrees usually require 120 credits. Do the math — most students don’t, and it’s difficult to catch up: You need 15 credits a semester on average to get through in four years.

“It shouldn’t really surprise us, but it is remarkable how many students simply aren’t made aware of what they need to do to graduate on time,” said Rebecca Torstrick, assistant vice president for academic affairs at Indiana University, which last fall began dangling a financial carrot in the form of banded tuition: Students can take up to 18 credits for the price of 12. Many public and private universities have similar setups, moving away from per-credit tuition to a flat rate for 12 or more credits.

It’s all part of an awareness campaign called “15 to Finish,” pioneered at the University of Hawaii in 2012, that has taken hold in dozens of states.

Taking more credits has benefits other than cutting time to a degree. Since 2015, when Florida State University began to counsel incoming freshmen on the wisdom of 15 credits, those who took the advice have actually earned higher G.P.A.’s.

Transferring: You’ll Lose, Usually

How can this be: Most students need more than four years to graduate yet end up taking, and paying for, many more credits than they need. Colleges and universities usually require 120 credits for a bachelor’s degree but students graduate with about 135, on average, according to data compiled by Complete College America, a nonprofit research and advocacy group.

Some states’ figures are even higher. Students at regional state colleges in New Mexico graduate with an average of 155 credits.

One reason is the difficulty of transferring credits from another university or a community college. A third of students transfer at one point in their college careers. Nearly 40 percent of them get no credit for any of the courses they have completed and lose 27 credits on average — or about a year of school, according to a 2014 federal study.

Many colleges have developed articulation agreements to honor credits earned from other institutions. But often that isn’t enough. A university may accept the credits, but the department of the student’s major may not — and at most colleges, the decision rests with the department.

Even within a system, credits may not be accepted. One four-year college within the City University of New York, for example, may not accept credits toward a major from another. That’s because professors control syllabuses for their courses. A course that counts toward an English major at York College may be heavy on analytical writing, while one at John Jay College, even though part of CUNY, requires research competency. (To help address the problem, in 2013 CUNY designated that three courses in each of its most popular majors would count toward requirements on every campus.)

Unfortunately, the only way to know for sure whether credits will transfer to a new college is to ask. Most administrators will want to review a syllabus from your former school for comparison. And make sure to ask about credits within a major.

“Sometimes students just look at how many credits will transfer and make their decisions from there,” said Maria Campanella, director of the health sciences office of student services at Stony Brook University of the State University of New York. “What they really need to ask is, ‘How many will apply to my degree?’ ”

Major Problem: Don’t Veer Off Course

Picking courses can make students feel like kids in a candy store — there are so many possibilities. The process is overwhelming, with thousands of classes. “Archaeology of Human Origins” may sound interesting, but if you wait too long to focus on your economics major, you may not get in all the requirements you need. The problem is magnified if a prerequisite is offered only in the fall. Missing one means waiting a full year. And what if it’s full? Expect even more delays if you change majors.

“We think what they want is flexibility, but actually what they need is structure,” said Tom Sugar, president of Complete College America. “We think we’re doing them a favor by letting them explore without guidance, but we’re really steering them away from success.”

Colleges have begun to address the problem by pushing students to declare majors earlier, or at least narrow their areas of interest, so that they can chart out a path to a four-year finish. Toward that end, digital advising tools have become increasingly common.

Instead of scrolling through a course catalog, students at many colleges can now create schedules on interactive maps that aid in fulfilling core and major requirements. Let’s say you are a Florida State University student looking for a class to fulfill its history/social science requirement. Click on course options on its degree map and it tells you which requirements each course fills. Instead of taking some random history course, you might choose “History of Science,” which counts toward both F.S.U.’s “Diversity in Western Culture” requirement and the state-mandated writing requirement.

No Social Life: Join Something

Some students slowly disengage because they never really feel part of a college community. Social isolation and depression can affect academic progress, especially for students living away from home for the first time. Studies have found that students who don’t become involved in campus life, whether through friendship networks, clubs or sports, are more likely to drop out.

Sometimes students worry that committing to activities outside of classes gets in the way of doing well academically, but often it’s the opposite.

Calista Damm, a freshman at the University of South Florida, joined the ad club, the film club and one called Swipe Out Hunger as she struggled with her coursework, particularly algebra. “It’s been really important to me,” she said. “It keeps me kind of sane when I go to my clubs. I’m not just thinking about homework 100 percent of the time.” She added: “It can be hard to meet people freshman year so it helps with that, too.”

Living-learning communities, which house students who have similar personal or academic interests, have long been a strategy to help students develop social networks and more easily find academic and emotional support. Universities report more engaged students and improved academic performance, especially for underprepared students.

Some universities now require that first-year students live in such a community. At the University of Iowa, all resident freshmen must sign up for one of more than 25 living-learning communities. And because adjustment to campus life can be especially difficult for underrepresented students, who may feel unwelcome or stigmatized, the university has recently hired peer mentors to live in its “Young, Gifted and Black” housing and its “All In” living-learning community, opening in the fall for L.G.B.T.Q. students.

Falling Behind: Three Strikes And …

College has always been a lot to manage, but these days students are juggling more distractions than ever. They work more hours outside of class, they are more likely to commute and have family responsibilities, and now there’s social media vying for their attention. All of these factors can distract from schoolwork, requiring much tighter time management. It’s hard to cope.

“Many of our students did great in high school, but they come here and don’t realize that you can’t just study the night before for a test,” said Zulmaly Ramirez, an academic advocate for first-year students at the University of South Florida. “They used to spend 80 percent of their academic time in class and 20 percent on homework.” In college, that’s reversed. (One U.S.F. effort: an app called “Cold Turkey” that blocks social media for an hour or two so students can study without disruption.)

Springfield College in Massachusetts wants students to take more responsibility. It has raised the stakes in an effort to force students to manage their time better; administrators call it the “three strikes rule.” Students on academic probation must meet weekly with a coach, who helps them prioritize their work and connects them with tutoring services. Three missed meetings are grounds for expulsion.

“We have found that you can’t just tell them that they’re on academic probation; you need to press the immediacy of the problem,” said Mary Ann Coughlin, Springfield’s associate vice president for academic affairs. “Because it’s not worth it if they’re coming and treating us like a country club and enjoying the facilities, and not getting the academic benefits.”

Meredith Kolodner is a staff writer at The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on education. This article was produced in partnership with Hechinger.

Creative Ways To Pay For College

BY DANIKA McLURE

Earning a college degree isn’t cheap.

For those who have been through the process themselves, this point is obvious. According to Today, the average cost of attending university is nearly $13,000 for a full year of tuition, while private school tuition is nearly $28,000. The average cost for a year at the top 10 schools in Forbes’ ranking of America’s Top Colleges is nearly $64,602 each year. 

But while costs have been increasing, the job market has largely been unable to keep up, meaning that having a college degree no longer guarantees a well paying job. Colleges and universities have since had to overcome a number of obstacles to prove that their degrees will be valuable for their students.

“One obstacle has been the poor ways in which colleges have conveyed the importance of the liberal arts,” Professor Jay Halfond of Boston University’s Metropolitan College wrote recently. “The escalating cost of higher education has accelerated the pressures to show the tuition ROI. This, in turn, has raised serious questions about the value of non-vocational learning,” he continued.

While this may be true, students still rely on higher education as a bridge to more gainful and fulfilling employment. Meaning that for many, high paying STEM and business degrees become a infinitely more attractive.  

Still, college affordability remains a hot button issue. Although some students may have the fiscal resources to make it through college without incurring huge amounts of debt, many students struggle with finances during their college years.

Thankfully, there are a number of things that students can do in order to avoid breaking the bank during their college years. With careful planning, students can help combat the trends of rising college tuition.

Take Scholarship and Grant Applications Seriously

Scholarships are one of the best ways to fund your college education, due to the fact that you never have to repay those funds. Scholarships are a great option for those who have worked to maintain a high GPA, excel in sports or extracurriculars, or are interested in the liberal arts. There are plenty of resources and databases available for interested students, including FastWeb, FinAid, and the College Board.

Similarly, grants do not have to be repaid. However, rather than being based on merit, grants are typically awarded to students based on their financial need.

Be Sure to Apply for Federal Student Aid

For those familiar with the higher education sphere, filling out your FAFSA each year is a normal process. The FAFSA helps individuals secure federal grants and state aid in order to help them more easily pay for college. In order to secure these federal grants, it’s important that you complete your form as early as January 1 of each year.

Use Loans Appropriately, and as a Last Resort

For many students, loans are unavoidable. In those situations, opt for subsidized loans if available. Subsidized loans are ideal, as the federal government pays the grace period while you’re in school, meaning that you’re not responsible for the interest rate until you begin repaying your student loans.

Choose the Right College

Private schools do have universal appeal, but there are a number of options that allow students to receive a high quality education for a more affordable price. For those interested in staying in their hometowns, public state universities often cost less, as do community colleges. Private schools with smaller classrooms are also an attractive option for those concerned with cost and quality of education. Regardless of where you choose to attend school, it’s important to be sure that your school has proper accreditation.

Pursue Tax Credits, If Possible

For students who are single filers on their income taxes, it may be worth it to explore tax credits. If you make less than $55,000 per year, you may qualify for a Hope credit, or a Lifetime Learning Credit, which could help to offset the cost of college.

Find Affordable Housing

Many colleges offer housing to their students in an effort to keep them connected with the college culture and provide a safe environment where students can learn and stay close to the school. Depending on the location of the school, however, on-campus housing may not be the most affordable option.

Unfortunately, many young students struggle with low credit scores, which could affect their opportunities to find off-campus housing. However, having bad credit doesn’t necessarily mean that students will be unable to find affordable housing.

As the finance experts at Fiscal Tiger note, bad credit doesn’t necessarily mean that those with bad credit will be disqualified for housing in fact, with honesty and negotiation, landlords and property managers are often keen on renting to those with a bad credit history.

Pay Attention to Your Food Costs

Most colleges offer meal plan packages to their students. However, those can be incredibly expensive. Be sure to pay attention to what your school has to offer, and from there, determine whether or not making food on your own is worth the time and money.

Find Affordable College Textbooks

While it can be convenient to get your books from the on-campus store, it’s also possible to find textbooks from outside sources at a better value. There are a number of online options available, including Amazon, that have textbooks available to buy or rent, which could potentially save hundreds of dollars a year.

Earning a college education isn’t cheap. For students interested in graduating from college debt free, frugal living is a must. By following the steps above, students will be well on their way to fiscal success.

Danika McClure is a writer and musician from the northwest who sometimes takes a 30 minute break from feminism to enjoy a tv show. You can follow her on twitter @sadwhitegrrl

Can Music Help You Study Better?

BY AMIR ASMITH

There’s usually two types of students – ones who study best in absolute silence and the ones who can only get work done with some background music. Some students actually believe music helps them focus better and study faster. They could be right.

Anyone who’s studied music journalism will tell you music is known to have a significant impact on your body and emotional state. Filmmakers have used crashing chords and rising tempo to make you feel excited or terrified while watching a movie. There are rumors that movies like Psycho and Paranormal Activity are so hard to watch because the directors added a low-frequency sound to the final cut that made the viewer subconsciously uneasy.

Music has been used for everything, from busting stress to putting people into hypnosis. So, can it also help you study better?

Fortunately, there’s been some academic research dedicated to answering this question. Unfortunately, the results are inconclusive.

The Science

In 2013, researchers at the University of Maryland observed a bunch of students trying to solve math problems. Half of them were left in a room with music playing, while the other half were left in complete silence. Just to be certain, the researchers further divided the class with music into two groups. Half of them were listening to slow piano music, while the other half were listening to a heavy metal band.

The study showed that heavy metal clearly wasn’t helping anyone study better. The students in that group did the worst. Silence, it seems, was the clear winner in this study. Students who completed their test in a silent room scored better than ones listening to piano music.

That’s not to say listening to piano music was useless. It helped calm the students and lowered their anxiety. Students listening to piano music said they felt motivated to focus better. However, the music was somewhat distracting, which is why scores were less than average.

Similar studies in France and Taiwan, however, found that music had a positive impact on worker productivity. High-intensity music helped workers complete routine tasks faster and with fewer errors. Low-intensity music helped cut stress. How this boost in productivity translates to students studying for college exams is unclear.

Conclusion

For most students, it’s simply easier to study in a quiet place. Silence is, perhaps, necessary for cognitive tasks like learning a new skill. Some students prefer studying with ambient sounds. As long as the sounds are soft and instrumental, their focus won’t be impacted.

For students who absolutely cannot study without music, a better solution would be to study in a noisy cafe or with white noise in the background. Everyone has a unique method of studying and picking what works best for you could actually be the key to success at college.

Bio: Amira Smith is a photographer and recent college graduate, who still cherishes her life in college. She writes short novels and devotes her time to helping animal shelter in her hometown.

Healthy Eating Tips for Students

BY SYLVIA KOHL

College years may seem like the best time of one’s life – you meet new people, take part in wild parties, take up new activities and in general have more freedom than at any time before or after. It is, however, also rife with stress, crunch times and all-night exam preparation sessions – which are just some of the reasons why many acquire unhealthy eating habits when at college. At the same time, keeping your diet healthy and being mindful of how and what you eat can considerably improve your success at studying and lay foundations to a healthy lifestyle for which you will be grateful in the years to come. So how should a student go about it?

1.    Start Your Day with a Good Breakfast

Breakfast is widely considered the most important meal of the day. By skipping it, you severely limit your ability to process new information throughout the day which is, of course, detrimental to your learning. Lack of time is no excuse – start getting up earlier and read up on some quick breakfast ideas.

2.    Stock up on Healthy Snacks

When you are studying late or have too much on hand to spend time cooking or eating out, hunger always sneaks up on you unexpectedly. When you are tired the allure of a vending machine’s fare, chock full of corn syrup, sugar and fat, can become irresistible. However, if you keep healthy snacks like organic chocolate, nuts, dried fruits, granola or suchlike on hand, it will be easier to just dig into them.

3.    Drink a Lot of Water

Optimal water intake for a grown human is about eight glasses per day; if you lead an active lifestyle, you may easily need twice as much. Coffee, tea, and sodas don’t count. In addition to generally being beneficial for your well-being, it helps you eat less. Most people eat much more than they need, and to a certain extent, it is caused by them not drinking enough water. So, by increasing your intake, you will take additional care of your waistline as well.

4.    Eat Natural Whole Foods Whenever Possible

Processed foods you see everywhere today are specifically designed to provide immediate gratification, artificially sweetened, full of flavor enhancers and so on – but they possess very little regarding nutritional value. Natural whole foods may be harder to come by and more expensive, but they are full of nutrients (which means that you need to eat less) and are good for your health – which means that they are more of an investment than an expense.

5.    Eat Less Sugar and Salt

Sugar contains a lot of calories but isn’t exactly rich in nutrients. It may provide a pleasant sugar high that can make you feel energized and ready to take on the world, but this feeling is fleeting and is soon replaced by its exact opposite – which means it is inefficient as well as instrumental in causing obesity and tooth decay. Salt is necessary for the functioning of our bodies, but not nearly in the quantities most modern people consume it. You see, both sugar and salt are rather hard to come by in natural conditions in which humans have evolved. Thus, our brains are hard-wired to eat them whenever we can find them, which plays a sick joke on our health in today’s world in which both are easily available.

Maintaining a healthy diet is important at any stage of life, but students are probably among those who can benefit most from it. By establishing healthy habits at this formative period, you have a chance of laying a sound foundation for your entire life.

 

Sylvia Kohl is an IT teacher with more than 8 years of professional experience. Her main spheres of interest are e-education and she convinced that learning process doesn’t stop after years in school and university.

Expand College Experience, Consider Study Abroad

BY MELISSA BURNS

College students often hear from their elders that they should travel while they’re young; there’s little doubt this is an excellent piece of advice even if it is easier said than done. However, one way to achieve the dream of traveling as a student is by taking advantage of the hundreds of study abroad programs available worldwide. These programs are an amazing opportunity offered to undergrad and graduate students that allow them to increase their global awareness. Not only will these students get to experience a different culture, meet new people, expand their horizons and see the world, but they will also be furthering their academic development.

According to the Institute of International Education (IIE), the number of U.S students studying abroad has been slowly rising in recent years. A clear example of this trend you can find in the IIE’s Open Doors report, which states that the number of participants for the 2014/15 academic year saw a 2.9% increase from the previous year.

If you are an American college student and would like to reap the benefits of participating in a study abroad program, have a look at the list below featuring some of the most popular ones. Once you make your choice, you can grab your passport, acquire a traveler’s insurance plan and have a life-changing experience.

 

Popular Study Abroad Programs

• Latin University of Costa Rica. Provided by Sol Education Abroad, this study abroad program is an immersive Spanish learning experience in the city of Heredia, Costa Rica. Participants are registered as full-time students and are placed in a homestay with a local family so that they’re fully exposed to Costa Rican culture.
  Sol Education also offers programs in Argentina, Mexico, and Spain. You can read more about these programs here. 
• Bond University of Australia. Located in Gold Coast, Australia and provided by The Education Abroad Network (TEAN), this university is one of the few in the world that has a similar academic calendar to the U.S. Participants can choose from a vast array of courses and internships, while they enjoy the amazing beaches of Australia. The program also includes a 6-day Excursion in Cairns to explore the Great Barrier Reef.
  TEAN also offers programs in New Zealand, Thailand, China, and Singapore. Head to their website for more information. 
• American College Dublin. For an unforgettable experience in Ireland, American College Dublin (ACD) offers a study abroad program for U.S. students that includes housing, excursions, and courses on international business or performing arts. ACD is located in the heart of Dublin, where the students will have access to the rich history and culture of Ireland.
  Read more about ACD’s program here.
• IES Abroad in Vienna. IES Abroad is an organization that offers multiple study abroad However, Vienna is by far their most popular destination. With options of programs ranging from Psychology to Music History and Performance, IES Abroad offers English and German-taught classes to its students. As well as the chance to experience a beautiful city and culture.
  IES Abroad also has programs available in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Australia, China, and several other European countries. Read more on their website.

Most of the providers mentioned offer financial aid to students who meet their requirements. Others have special partnerships with certain universities, so be sure to check with your college administration office for information on these and others programs.
Making the Choice

As evidenced above, there are hundreds of study abroad programs available to choose from. The few mentioned are just four of the most popular programs according to the reviews of students in Abroad101. If none of these options appeal to you and you are still hesitant on which program best suits your needs, you should ask yourself what do you want to study? Where do you want to do it? And, when can you go?

Melissa Burns graduated from the faculty of Journalism of Iowa State University in 2008. Nowadays she  is an entrepreneur and independent journalist. Her sphere of interests includes startups, information technologies and how these ones may be implemented.