Using light to brighten up your dorm room
How college presidents embrace technology
Required on scholarship apps: your Facebook password?
Shopping on a college budget
Fun facts about Ramen
The ultimate spring break guide
What to do on campus after football season
Making cocktails in your dorm room

Whether you’re a first year student or heading back to campus for yet another year of academics and parties, there is indisputably one book you need to bring along with you: Debt-Free U: How I Paid for An Outstanding College Education Without Loans, Scholarships, or Mooching Off My Parents, by Zac Bissonnette.

I know what you’re thinking: Why would I want to read a book about paying for college when I’m already in college and I’m getting by with student loans/ my parents’ generously footing the bill /or a scholarship?

Well listen up, pretty lady – whatever your situation is you will absolutely get some insight about paying for college that will, without a doubt, help you make better decisions when it comes to financially making it through four years, as well as helping you protect your future post-grad life.

Throughout history, paying for college has been a major issue on everyone’s minds. But although it’s something everyone always seems to talk (and worry) about, it is one thing that usually gets pushed to the side in the application process. Students send their applications out, they get their acceptance letters back, and then – and only then – the question of paying for that highly accredited university to which they’ve been accepted pops up. But with the cost of a college education rising at a pace in polar opposition to our economy, financial disaster is almost inevitable.

Without a lot of financial planning, people turn to student loans, which, as any college student who has taken them out knows, are a major stress-factor that can impact the rest of your life. Not only do students feel like they have to take out more and more loans to supplement an income during college, they feel utterly lost, especially in a world where financial aid offices will tell you anything. In Debt-Free, Zac explains “The role of the financial aid office to make sure that the students the school has admitted are financially able to attend – through whatever means necessary.” Because colleges don’t work as financial advocates for students, more and more students are falling down the rabbit hole of student debt. However, consider Debt-Free as a personal guide that will walk you through all things financial in the college world, by whatever means necessary. Read More »

Another reason to love Target

Do you send nude photos to your boyfriend?

For real!?

And Linds is back!

Finance your degree the smart way

How to pull off a Jersey Shore theme party

I LOVE you, Hulu!

What I am about to type might shock and disturb some of the readers. However, for the sake of our internet browsers’ sanity, I am just going to say it: There are more websites out there besides Facebook and Google.

Did everyone survive that truth? Though I adore a good Facebook stalking sesh and Googling my name from time to time, I believe that the following sites don’t get enough cred. So let’s bookmark these babies and get our computer mouses (mice?) acquainted with them sometime soon. Perhaps on the next study break, after the email has been checked several times or maybe when we finally realize that the cute guy in Bio has his profile set to private. Bummer.

1. Notecentric.com: No more unwanted panic attacks from losing Wednesday’s notes from Chemistry. Notecentric is a web based note taking application that allows you to type, store and organize all your notes onto one site. All the notes you type are saved and stored together so stray lectures on loose leaf will no longer be an issue.

2. Chegg.com: I think we can all admit that the last place we want to head to at the beginning of the semester is the bookstore. Although we can hardly resist a new hoodie, it’s the close to $700 that we spend on books each semester that puts the dent in our bank accounts and our spirits. Chegg is a textbook rental site where college students can sell their books to the site and also rent books. You simply order the books, have them shipped to you, and return them at the end of the semester. A sweet bonus: Chegg plants a tree every time someone rents books; financially AND environmentally friendly! Read More »

College is expensive. Really, really expensive. Even with scholarships and financial aid, most of us are left wondering how we are going to pull this off.

Of course, there are several ways to approach the issue:

1. We could go to Mom and Dad (assuming they could help in the first place, or that you want them to – this is a slippery slope to giving them more influence over our futures than some of us our comfortable with)

2. We could take out a loan (but that means lots of scary paper work, co-signers, and debt)

3. We could sell our virginity

3. We try out the newest trend: human capital contracts.

In my opinion the name sounds a lot scarier than it really is. It might just be me, but the words “human” and “contract” ooze creepiness and give me visions of living as a sex slave for the rest of my life. Fortunately for me, thats not the case here. Read More »

Why on earth anyone watches beauty pageants other than to tune in and pray that the contestants fall on their asses is beyond me.

But to actually be in a beauty pageant? Nooo, but thank you.

The NYTimes reports that these contests are much more superficial than you think, and that’s not saying a whole lot. It turns out that many of these girls are duped into thinking they’re gonna win a ton of money and scholarships of some sort, but they never reap the educational or financial benefits.

Ashley Wood, a pissed-off ex Miss USA who never got the money she actually won, said,

“You are talking about an organization that is promoting itself as the largest scholarship provider for women in the world….When contestants try to collect their funds, they encounter one obstacle after another.”

These problems have something to do with all of the local and state pageants that are scattered around the country being tied under the national pageants, and apparently, local pageant winners hardly ever collect – the states could take these local pageants to court, but they have limited control over them in the first place, and to even do that would cost more than what these girls are actually owed.

One girl was even told after winning a pageant that instead of the scholarship she was promised, she could just take home some gowns!! Are you kidding me? Read More »