Scholarships for College Freshmen are Often Wasted

Higher education is one of the biggest expenses a person incurs during a lifetime. Many people attend college thanks to scholarships for college freshmen and student loans. If you're fortunate enough to be attending school on a scholarship or with a lot of help from parents or family, then you may not be considering your financial situation carefully enough.  In fact, many freshmen waste their college scholarship.

Those who pay for their own college, work their way through college or make big sacrifices to get there often do better financially because they are already well-trained in money management and time management. College preparation isn't just about taking entrance exams and attending parties, after all. Money management and budgeting will help make your freshman year less stressful.

First of all, if you don't already have your college textbooks, be prepared for the high cost of them. Depending on the classes you take and the required books, it's not unusual to spend $300 on textbooks for just one semester. The cost can actually be much higher than that. Look into buying used books through various places online that offer them, eBay and through the college library. There also may be a rental program that allows you to pay a fraction of the cost of the book and allows you to return it when the semester is over.

If you worked a job during high school then you already have some money management skills. Perhaps you've been saving for years through odd jobs or an allowance. But if you're not familiar with handling a budget and juggling money to make ends meet, your year as a college freshman could be an eye-opener. Just as you're now living independently in a dorm and essentially learning to be an adult, you're also now in charge of a budget. If you have a meal card with a set number of dollars loaded on it and that has to last to the end of the week or month, you'll very quickly find that making wise food choices means that you won't be forced to grab something out of a vending machine and call it a meal when you're food allotment runs out.

If you want to make your food dollars and your general budget stretch and still have some money to go with friends to a movie or to get a pizza on whim, sit down at the beginning of every week or month and write out a tentative budget. It doesn’t have to be too detailed or complicated, but make yourself aware of how much you can safely spend on different things instead of just guessing as you go along and then finding that you're running short. Financial maturity is part of being adult, and as a freshman year college student, it's one of the things that you'll learn that's at least as valuable as any class credit.

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