Archive for November, 2007
There has been considerable uproar since a variety of Liberal Arts colleges decided to not participate in the US News and World Report annual rating of colleges. I cannot begin to describe the amount of times I’ve heard friends compare their colleges. One of the biggest comparisons is relative ranking. Sometimes I wonder; do rankings really even matter? For example, my older sister graduated from Ohio State with a degree in English (OSU isn’t known for having the most stellar English department), but nonetheless she graduated and ended up at Fordham Law. Her roommates her freshman year were graduates from Yale and Dartmouth, respectively. I’m sure they outranked Ohio State in a wide variety of academic areas, yet my sister ended up at the same exact Law School. She ended up being hired by a very prestigious law firm, and now makes a sizeable amount of money. So, do rankings really matter? Were her roommates that much better off because their colleges received higher ratings?
I think there’s no simple answer (as both sides have valid arguments). However, I feel that while rankings may give you a little bit of a boost when looking for a job, it’s much more important to see what you did in college, rather than how your school was ranked. I guarantee someone who gets straight Cs at Harvard will not be as appealing to a perspective employer as someone who earned straight A’s at a state school. I know too many students get into highly ranked colleges and expect it to automatically make them better than everyone else looking for jobs. Just because a school is highly ranked, doesn’t mean it will be the best fit for you. It also doesn’t mean that you’re guaranteed to get the best job in your field. At the same time, brighter students tend to seek out the higher ranked colleges, so one might think that the overall educational atmosphere would be better. But, again, what’s the goal of college? To get a degree, in order to get a job. Will going to a highly ranked institution always translate into a higher salary?
The last thing is that rankings really can be deceptive. Many students can make their colleges as easy or hard as they want. If students look for the easiest classes, with the easiest professors, their college experience, and degree will reflect that. Students who challenge themselves in highly ranked, and unranked schools will both probably benefit from a strong education. Some schools deciding to not be involved in the US News and World Report rankings is a very big statement. Schools are realizing that when it comes down to it, being able to brag about being top ten in a certain area is great, but might ultimately be unfair to the thousands of schools that still have fantastic programs, but just don’t break the top 10. Should students not apply to certain universities simply because some report doesn’t rank them high?
So, do college rankings really matter? If the BCS is any indication, ranking colleges in any spectrum (either academically or athletically) can be quite challenging, and sometimes woefully inaccurate.
But I digress, what do you think?
November 27 2007 | Admissions and Pre-College Decisions | 1 Comment »
…unless you absolutely have to
I am in Biology 101 this quarter (yes I know, easy class, but it fulfills a GEC; General Education Credit), and the book was supposed to be about $100. Previously, I’d always been a good boy and purchased every textbook for every class. I shared a textbook a few times, but even then I helped pay for it. So, I thought to myself, “let’s try something new.” I didn’t purchase the textbook right away, and decided to wait and see how the class is. Well, it turns out, I certainly didn’t need the textbook. Every lecture comes with a nifty PowerPoint presentation with all the information on it. We don’t even need to do readings from the textbook. I’d finally successfully avoided getting ripped off.
So, here’s the monumental tip: don’t buy your textbooks right away. If the class is conducted mostly in lecture, and you think you can get through without having to read from the book, then don’t buy it.
There are many ways to save money on textbooks; not buying them is the most financially beneficial. Of course, some classes need the textbook (or lab books, or special editions of textbooks, course packets, etc), but you will always find out in a week or two. Sometimes, you find out the very first day of class. I’d lost money too many times (one time I bought an Economics textbook that came in pages, binder ready. We never once even opened the book because the class was entirely lecture notes. Of course, the store wouldn’t buy the book back at the end of the quarter because it wasn’t bound. I learned my lesson.).
You should never sacrifice your grades just for financial reasons. However, more often than not, you’ll run into a few classes during your college experience that don’t ever use the textbook. Take advantage, and save some money.
November 21 2007 | Financial Advice | 2 Comments »
Welcome to the November 18, 2007 edition of the Carnival of College and Finance. Once again, we have sifted through all the submissions in an attempt to bring the best possible content. Once again, there were a variety of spam submissions, mostly in the financial segment. Once again, I must remind everyone that very few college students already have mortgages…and if they do, well I feel bad for them. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy at least a few of these posts (I know I did).
College Fun
For those interested in a little fun (hopefully they’re of age), Shawn Farner presents Bouncing: A deadly beer pong weapon posted at I Love Beer Pong, saying, “After a tough week of classes and exams, it’s nice to play a little beer pong. Here are some tips for sinking the bounce shot.” Of course, you don’t ever have to drink in college. You can actually still play beer pong without drinking (either make your friend drink or use root beer!)
College Humor
If you want to see a list of funny sites on the internet, specifically for college students, Ted Reimers presents College Humor posted at CampusGrotto.
Credit Cards
ISPF, a fantastic and originial name by the way, presents How Much Credit Can a Student Get? posted at Grad Money Matters.
Mr Credit Card presents How to Reduce Credit Card Debt? posted at Ask Mr Credit Card’s Blog.
Finance
C. Worrall presents Saving for Your Children’s Education posted at CFO Yourself.
This submission forgot to give me a name. However, it’s a good post nonetheless. Cheap dates for college students posted at Tips from a college student.
Yet another submission about why people “shouldn’t” go to college. Although I disagree strongly (and one of the purposes of College and Finance is to show students and parents how to manage finances AND get the education), I’ll still give the alternative view an audience. Zenofeller presents The reason you don’t want to go to college posted at zenofeller.com.
The Career Counselor presents Seven Strategies to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck posted at ask the CareerCounselor. I pretty much have to live paycheck to paycheck, so this was solid advice for me.
Silicon Valley Blogger presents Cheap Ways To Learn And Feed Your Brain posted at The Digerati Life.
Everything Finance presents Investing is boring. Well, It should be! posted at Everything Finance. We at College and Finance agree that it’s never too early to start investing.
Kalyn presents Managing Finances in Your Twenties posted at LifeEdit.net.
Loans
Raymond presents No Rush To Pay Off My Student Loans posted at Money Blue Book.
TV Girl presents How Did I Get Here? – Part VI: Student Loan Consolidation Is a Pain in the—yeah, that posted at TV Girl and Money.
Bonnie Krueger presents How Do I Find The Cheapest Student Loans When Rates Are Getting Higher? posted at Student Loan Consolidation.
Other
Aundi presents A Student and His Budget: Traveling Abroad posted at Queercents, saying, “For postgraduate education, Aundi at Queercents was looking for something characterized as “exponential” and discusses how money comes into play with these experiences.”
Dhawal presents How much will you actually need?? posted at After-Grad.com.
Scroll past the onslaught of Google Ads, and you’ll find some solid content for those interested in law school.Sam presents The Real Dope on Law School posted at Surfer Sam and Friends, saying, “Will you concentrate on public interest law, leading to a job in the public defenders office or a non-profit organization like Legal Aid? Or will you shoot for a large law firm, concentrating your studies in another direction? Is your destination investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, insurance defense, environmental, antitrust, or securities law, litigation practice, or real estate. Do you see yourself as a litigator?”
Students
Alanna presents Why ID Thieves Like College Students | BBB Consumer Education posted at BBB Consumer Education.
That concludes this edition. Hopefully you learned something new, or were at least entertained. Feel free to submit your blog article to the next edition of The Carnival of College and Finance using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
November 18 2007 | Carnival | 2 Comments »
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