Your college student may already have a strong base of knowledge before he even sets foot on his college campus.  It is possible that he can get college credit for his knowledge by taking a CLEP exam.  The College Level Examination Program, administered by the College Board (the SAT organization) offers students the opportunity to demonstrate mastery of college level material and to earn college credit for information learned through independent study, on-the-job training or internships.

CLEP exams cover such areas as American Government, US History, Psychology, Sociology, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Literature, Composition, Biology, Business, Math, or World Languages.  There are 33 exams which cover material taught in courses a student would be likely to take in the first two years of college.  Each test covers one course and is worth anywhere from 3 to 12 credits.  Exams are 90 minutes long, are taken on a computer in a lab, cost $80 plus a small administration fee, and students receive their results immediately.

Read more

The question of whether or not your student needs textbooks in college is not as simple as it seems.  The simple answer is ”Yes, of course.”  The more complex answer may be, ”It depends.”

The cost of college textbooks is high. No one would argue that. The cost of producing most textbooks is high, most textbooks are required so students do not have choices, and the costs are passed along to the students.  One study conducted by the College Board has estimated that most students should expect to pay approximately $1200 annually on textbooks.  Many students, and their parents, have not calculated the cost of textbooks into their college costs.  So students are taken by surprise, and may feel that this is an additional, and therefore optional cost.

Because of the high cost of textbooks, many students are opting out of buying books.  The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) found that approximately 30% of seniors and 25% of First Year students said that they did not purchase books. The Student Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), in a non-scientific survey of 1,905 students at 13 colleges found that 70% of students said they opted out of books for at least one course.  However, 78% of those students believed that they would not do as well in that course without the book.

Read more