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The college years were a really exciting time, I spent five years in college and had some of the best years of my life. In college I learned quite a few tricks for getting by and staying ahead of the game.

Here in this post I will discuss the following:
(1) Getting Money for College (that doesn’t have to be repaid).
(2) Getting Textbooks for less and making money off the textbook return system (arbitrage).
(3) Things you Need in College (ie: Fake ID, Safe, Ritalin, etc.)
(4) How to Get Prior Exams, Assignments, and Term Papers for your courses.
(5) An Easy Way to Make Extra Spending Money around Campus
(6) Spring Break!

Getting Money for College

The majority of college students need help to pay for college. Tuition rates are going up every year and most colleges and universities are run like businesses to make a profit. Thus students are looking for ways to pay for their college education.

Student loans may be a necessity, but there are also other sources of funding that could help pay for school. There are many opportunities to be awarded funds that do not have to be repaid, as student loans do. Most people don’t realize these programs are out there and never apply for this free money.

FastWeb offers a service where you fill out a simple application and they see if you qualify for any existing scholarships, grants, or financial aid programs. It also gives you the opportunity to create your own scholarship program! Try it out. It can’t hurt because it’s a free service and you may just find that they give you money for school.

How do students get money in the form of grants? Students apply for government grants for college by filling out the The Free Applicaton form on these sites. By completing this application form, students will be automatically matched with aid programs that they qualify for.

Grants are always free money and do not have to be paid back. Grants may come in the form of federal grants, state grants, or even local grants. Students will learn which grants they have been awarded after they fill out these forms and get the results back in the mail within a few weeks.

You can also take a look at Scholarship Expertsfor similar grant and scholarship programs. It’s also free to sign up and see if you qualify for grants or scholarships.

The majority of people who use these free services will find that they will be unknowingly awarded free money for college.

College Textbooks

Don’t ever buy textbooks from your college bookstore. It’s a total rip off, college books are expensive enough, however colleges will often try to mark up the prices of their textbooks as much as 50%-100% more than retail price of the book. They even do this with their used books. They make so much money off this textbook markup. So if the retail value of the book is $60, expect to pay anywhere from $90 to $120 for this book at the bookstore.

Buy all your text books from your local Borders Books, Barnes and Nobles, or order them online from Amazon.com for much less than the price that books cost at your college bookstore. Amazon.com also caries used books and allows you to sell your textbooks online to other college students.

Chegg.com is a new service that allows students to rent text books at a fraction of their cost. They ship the same day with priority mail so that you will receive the book within 3 days. You can use the promotion code, WinterRent to get an additional 5% off.

Make Money from Textbook Arbitrage

Since the college book stores have such a large markup on their textbooks this leaves an opportunity for stuents to make money off their system.

Here is what to do:

When the semester starts go to your college bookstore and get the prices of all your books. Go online and buy your books with the cheapest price you can find new or used. It’s a good idea to end up with at least a $30 difference between the price of the online store and the bookstore. So if a used math textbook is $68 at the bookstore, try to buy it for $38 online.

Now that you got all your books for a cheaper price continue on with the semester until the end. You are already ahead of the game because you paid less than full price on your books.

At the end of the semester the bookstore will start buying books back from students. Most college bookstores don’t ask for receipts when buying books back from students. So go to the bookstore and see how much they’ll give you back for the book. Remember that math book you bought for $38, you might sell it back to them for $53. You earned $15 -not bad- but say if you sold them 5 books then that will be a total of $60 that you made

Let’s assume that the bookstore will only buy the math book for $33, this means you lost $5.

DO NOT sell them the book. Wait until the new semester starts and post an ad for the book.

Here is what your ad should look like:

Math Textbook
Excellent condition
Price: $55
Bookstore price: $68 used book
                             $80 new book

There has gotta be someone who will buy the book from you.  It’s definitely a good deal for them too!

Also look around campus through out the semester and I am sure that you will find textbooks that people lost or left behind from time-to-time. You also may be able to sell these books back at the end of the semester.

Things You Will Need in College

FAKE ID

If you are under 21 years old, it would be super beneficial to have a fake drivers license. Most college and fraternity parties allow underaged people to drink alcohol, but a fake id will allow you to go to bars, night clubs, and purchase alcohol at liquor and grocery stores.

This will also allow you to make some extra spending money through buying money for your friends and having a slight markup on the price.

Be sure to get a quality fake drivers license from a reputable site which uses proper hologram and barcode technology.

The ID Shop - Cost $100.00-$130.00
I-D-E-N-T-I-T-Y.org - Cost $100.00
ENovelty ID - Cost $99.00

Check out my post on The Low Down on Fake ID cards for more information on these fake id cards.

SAFE

If you have anything that you want to keep safe or you don’t want to get caught having then I would suggest getting a small safe to place under your bed. Things occassionally get stolen in the dorm rooms and campus security may have the right to search your room without your consent. Therefore you want to keep your valuables and things you don’t want to get caught with in this safe.

Dorm buildings often has fire drills. These fire drills are not only to prepare students for a potential fire, but they also give campus security the opportunity to search dorm rooms during the 20 minutes that everyone is outside of the building.

I was friends with a campus security officer who was trying to determine if a particular student was firing a paintball gun out his dorm window. So they scheduled a fire drill and then searched this students room and he was caught red handed.

SCIENTIFIC CALCULATOR w/ a large screen

On many math, science, and engineering exams the professor will allow students to use calculators. Some students use traditional calculators, but I always found it beneficial to use the large screened scientific calculators because these allow you to pre-program them with formulas, terms, or anything else written that might help you with the exam. I always spent days getting info from the textbook into my calculators before my exams. I used a TI-85 calculator which was the hottest thing in that day, but I am sure that there are much more hi-tech calculators that can also be used.

RITALIN PRESCRIPTION

Ritalin is one of the most over prescribed drugs out there today. It helps you to concentrate and focus. You can get a prescription for ritalin either from your general practitioner or based on a referral written by a psychologist or psychiatrist.

This drug is not only good for late night work and cramming sessions, it can also be sold for $5 a pill and is in very high demand. However, there is some risk to selling this stuff so be careful!

There is one more advantage! Most colleges allow students with a prescription for Ritalin to take all exams untimed! Therefore you have a clear advantage over most of the other students. I did not know about this until the end of my sophomore year of college. Sometimes it helped, other times it was not necessary.

OLD EXAMS, TERM PAPERS, and ASSIGNMENTS

One of the advantages to being in a fraternity or sorority is that they save all the exams, term papers, and assignments of all the members in their library arranged by major, by course, and by professor. Often times I found that professors would reuse alot of the same assignments and exam questions and sometimes they would not change at all. This gives you another unfair advantage over everyone else.

Try to find students who have taken a particular course and see if you can get the work that they did in the course from them. After taking a course offer copies of your work to other students in exchange for favors.

There are also companies which sell term papers that can be used to help you to do a good job and cut down on the time that you would spend writing them on your own.

Duenow.com is the world’s largest online essay and research paper website and is used by more than 3 million students a year. DueNow.com provides students of all ages and levels unlimited access to over 40,000 essays, book reports and research papers for an average charge of just $9 per paper.

Make Money Promoting Local Businesses

There are tons of businesses near most colleges that want to advertise on campus and sell goods or services to the students. However most colleges won’t allow these businesses to solicit on the campus themselves and will charge them with trespassing if they do so.

Fraternities and sororities at my school made thousands of dollars each semester going to local business and offering to help them advertise their business by sliding take-out menus and flyers under all the dorm room doors on campus, put up flyers on bulletin boards, or promote their business in other ways.  The college can’t do much to stop a student from promoting a local business. 

There were two pizza and wing delivery restaurants, a chinese delivery restaurant, a local laundry service, and a few other businesses that wouldn’t mind paying $300-400 to pass a restaurant take-out menu or flyer under the doors of all the students on campus.

Doing this once would often boost these businesses sales between 25-40% and they would make thousands of dollars more in sales within a few days, sometimes even within a few hours. Therefore we were able to even raise the price as high as $1,000 for a couple hours of easy work.  It was highly effective and profitable so the businesses didn’t mind paying these prices.

Reward Yourself during Spring Break

SpringCity.com is the travelocity of SpringBreak travel and events. They offer the best Spring Break deals at the best prices and can show you exactly how to find the action!

StudentCity.com is the leader in Spring Break Travel for college students in the United States. Their mission statement is to “Help students organize and promote trips which enable them to celebrate youth through travel.”

StudentCity.com travels more college students than any competitor on spring break each year, to over 30 destinations. The site focuses on college age travelers, ages 18 to 24.

StudentCity.com is partnered with MTV, Maxim, American Eagle, Rock Star Energy Drink, and others. You will benefit by traveling with the largest and most reliable company in the business.