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Sep 06, 2010, 03:54 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by (JD)
But truly IDK anymore about how that all works and I judge no one (except that "student loans" are NOT smart.) When I went to college I had two preschoolers, a spouse who still expected me to keep home and food on the table, worked a full time sales position to help do that, and took 16-22 credit hours a semester and passed. I also attend church 3x a week, and was involved in Scouting.  |
That's all fine and good for you but how much you can do and how much you observe other do is subjective. I'm sure there are kids these days who can do all that, and that there were people in your generation who could never handle all that at once.
Also keep in mind our unemployment rate is abou 10% right now. It doesn't sound like much until you live in say.... a small town with 2000 people. there might be 15 entry level jobs or so available. There are 199 other people competing against you for those jobs. How does a kid fresh out of high school with no job experience at all compete with maybe 100 or so other kids exactly in their position? And how can all of those kids compete with recently laid off adults who need the money and are experienced at not only working but also finding, applying for, and interviewing in jobs in such a way that that would make them as desirable as possible to an employer? How can college kids that need to have a scedule worked around compete with still more expirienced adults and younger kids that can come in at any day/time since they are out of school?
I'm applying for financial aide right now so I can hopefully start attending college next spring or fall (maybe look up some grants/scholarships? But I don't know what's available for people already graduated from HS) while I really, really don't want to take out loans I will most likely HAVE to in order to pay for classes. I'm sorry but I am not going to wait until the job market is kind enough to stand a chance of getting a job and I know that I'm going to college because it's the only way I could work the job I want and live the lifestyle I want.
In any case: back on topic, the cost of textbooks is really high but then at least they are your property and not the school's. If you don't want to sell it for some of your money back then you could keep it for as long as you want and potentially save some paper by taking notes directly in the book instead off needing a zillion and one notebooks.
If you are really lucky you could ask a previous student of that class and they might have the textbook you need. That's how I got my Spanish textbook for free when I was in high school since we needed to buy our Spanish textbook for the college level class. It's what most of the kids in my class did. This might not work though because the classes often change their textbooks year to year (our Spanish teacher actually had to fight with the college to NOT change the textbook we needed so we could do this and not have to pay $100+ for them on top of paying for the class itself!) and unless they are your friend or something they'd probably want to sell it to you anyways
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