Cash starved students struggle with added expenses

Classes at Pierce College are less expensive than most university courses, which is why a lot of students choose to attend a community college prior to a higher-level institution. At $46 a unit, a student can be a full-time for less than $600 a semester. If someone actually wants to pass these classes though, they will have to spend a significant amount of extra money to purchase classroom essentials. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to take and pass a class with the prices it costs to actually attend.

Most professors require a textbook. The textbook can range anywhere from $20 to $300 per class. Some professors allow an older edition of the textbook while others limit student’s choices to a more expensive, hard-to-find online version. In addition to that $300 textbook, the class can require a $50 in-class work booklet and a $90 online tutoring lab and homework aid. That $140 class is now toppling over $500. How are students who have dedicated their time to education expected to be able to afford the additional costs?

While the Pierce bookstore offers a “rent-a-book” program, students are required to bring in a copy of their classes, a credit card, and student identification in hopes of receiving 40 percent off a book that they will only keep for sixteen or less weeks. This rental book must come back undamaged from sixteen long weeks of collegiate studying for a student to not be additionally charged.

Affordable wedding answers

Rent tables and chairs, and decorate simply with tulle, white lights, paper lanterns, flowers, and streamers. Use Pierce as a resource. The Horticulture Department will have students who can make arrangements and bouquets. Offer them a little money to be your florist and buy your flowers from Costco or from Downtown L.A.

“Dear Kate, Budget wedding?”Broke Bloke

Dear Broke, First of all, congratulations!

Finding the person you want to spend your life with is exciting, and officially beginning your life together should be a memorable event. What it should not be is stressful, chaotic, and debt-inducing. And yet, it so often is all of those things.

People often focus on the wedding and forget about the marriage. They pour all their time, money and resources into that one day when it should be going toward their relationship and building a life together.

Start with the invitations. No need to spend a small fortune ordering from a company when you can easily design and print your own.

If you don’t belong to a church where you can have the wedding for free or for a small price, consider holding your event at a park, and then assign some friends to hold down the fort to reserve your spot that day.

Check out the Music Department for a few violinists or cellists who could provide the music for your ceremony. For the reception, find a band that can handle a wedding crowd, or make an iTunes mix yourself and assign a friend to oversee it.

Photography is one thing you don’t want to skimp on, but there are many skilled photographers on campus that you have access to. Many have wedding experience, and others are dying for some. Ask for samples of their work, and pick a few. Many of them will work for little pay in order to get wedding experience into their portfolio.

Lastly, don’t feed everyone a full meal. Have a 2 p.m. wedding so that guests don’t assume they will be fed, and stick to snacks, drinks and cake.

Do you have a question for Kate?

Don’t shy away, ask Kate anything by sending an email to AskKateAnything@gmail.com. Those who have a question of a sensitive nature will be kept anonymous.

If a student can afford to buy a brand new book, the book buyback program is a complete joke, returning next to nothing in cash for a book that costs a small fortune. How are students supposed to learn, let alone thrive, when the mere cost of preparing for an A is astronomical?

Pierce also offers a semester-long $25-$30 calculator rental through a program in the math department, that helps students who can’t afford a special $150 calculator for certain math classes. While the rental program is a great idea, the supplies are limited, leaving students out that don’t run from their first class to rent a calculator. Calculator supplies are depleted in mere minutes and many students are left carrying another financial burden on their grade.

Fortunately for students, online options provide cheaper school supplies. Used books and class materials can be found at discounted prices, but must be ordered quickly as they go fast. Also, remember to order well before the start of classes to compensate for shipping as these materials are often needed on the first day.

Many classes can be completed without textbooks or unnecessary supplies and professors could easily supply students with photocopied pages of related material for the discussions or the school could provide the library with more copies of textbooks. In a day where technology is king, we could use more books online and have less of a paper trail in classes.