Applicant #6: Chris Young

Chris Young is a 19-year-old from Saint Jacob.

Chris's video application:

Chris online:

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Chris's current situation:

I'm working on my associates degree, which one day I hope to lead to a double major in communications as well as theater. Currently I am in a local productions of Godspell, and having a blast doing it. In the future my idea job, besides being an awesome spokesperson, would be a professional actor.

Chris's blog post:

Overlooking the high costs of tuition, student loans, and cafeteria prices which we as students have little to no control over, there is one sure fire way to prevented getting scammed. One of the biggest scams in college history is the bookstore. The bookstore tells students what they need, and how much they are going to pay for it. Both accounts from them are normally wrong.

These days finding money to fund school is hard pressed for anyone. Though for the most part we can’t change the school’s tuition rates, we can help how much we as students pay for books. The bookstore will want to charge you exceedingly high rates for something you can get for a fraction of the price. There are many websites out there that specialize in getting you the cheapest price for your money. The site that I use is “Cheap Text-books.” It’s like Google, but for text books. Another great way of saving money on textbooks is taking the time to email your teacher and see what they want you to do. Many professors will say that using an edition or two older then what the bookstore say you “must” have, is perfectly alright. So why spends ton more on a book that has one new pictures, or a few word changes. Also some teachers will say they will not ever have you open some books. What’s the point of getting a book, if it’s just going to sit in your car all semester.

Last semester I got six text books, five of which were rented and one of which I bought. I pay about 200 dollars for all of them. I ended up only having to keep, and not worry about reselling, five of them. My friend Jessica Spengler bought 9 books, from the book store, for 500 dollars. That’s 300 more then what I paid for many books, and she only had three more then myself. She sold seven of her books, and got a total of 35 dollars back. This is only speaking for one semester. Even though with renting I got no money back, I still only spent 200 dollars. Jessica on the other hand spend still around 465 dollars on nine books, in one semester. If you times that by two you’re spending 930 dollars with the books store, where if you rent or find the cheapest possible copy, you’re only spending around 400 dollars.

College is hard, especially in these rough economic times. The first step you need to do is get out of the clutches of the book store and find alternative means of getting books. Just do a quick Google search for “Cheap textbooks” or something along those lines and you are sure to save tons of money. Even just taking the time to find out if an older edition, or buying no book will work. There are many ways to save money on books, you just have to take the time to actually find them.

Chris