Check list for college

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 27, 2009, 4:15 pm
Checklists for Parents of College Students
By Lisa Belkin
Among the emails responding to my post about sending your son to college were two lists.

The first is from Houston Dougharty, vice-president for Student Affairs at Grinnell College, who has spent much of his 24-year career advising parents on how to prepare their children (and themselves) for this new chapter.

There are five things you must talk about before your kids leave (or shortly thereafter, if you read this and feel the need to play catch up…) he writes:

What’s the communication plan? Given the many easy ways we can communicate these days (cell phone, texting, Twitter, e-mail, etc.), students and their parents should agree on how –- and how often –- they will communicate during the school year. Determining this in advance can help keep parents informed and connected, while fostering the student’s sense of independence –- a critical step in the early days of a new college experience.

Who sees the grades? College students’ records are protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). It restricts institutions from releasing grades and other educational records without a student’s written permission. Students and parents should discuss what level of disclosure is mutually expected and acceptable, as well as what campus policies address this matter and what releases may need to be signed.

What about sex, drugs and alcohol? Many students have experimented with these while in high school, but for some, there will be new temptations. Fortunately, this generation of students tends to be open to advice and feedback from their parents about these critical issues. Success in the first year of college is often linked to a student’s capacity to make good social choices.

How to manage all this time and freedom? Few high school seniors have had to be fully responsible for waking up, getting to meals, scheduling study and work and creating their own curfew. Good habits for using tools like alarm clocks, day-planners and calendars don’t come naturally. Also, when the winter holiday break brings students back home for a few weeks, do the old high school years’ rules still apply?

Whose experience is this, really? Families need to have a plan for taking advantage of campus information and resources so that parents are confident their children are enjoying a positive learning environment while allowing them to create their own college experiences and advocate for themselves.

The second is from Kiplinger.com, and includes “Ten Things College Students Don’t Need.” You can read the complete list here. It includes:

New textbooks. To avoid paying unfathomable new-book prices, see whether your university offers a rental program — such services are most often available for the school’s core-curriculum and prerequisite classes. Or rent from a Web site such as Chegg.com, where you can save up to 85%. Order the book for a one-time fee — for example, about $60 plus shipping for a $180 calculus book — keep it for a semester, then return it with free shipping, or you could buy it. (Chegg even plants a tree for every book you rent.)

You could also head to the used-book lot. BigWords.com searches the Web for the best prices on used textbooks. Always search for a book using its ISBN number — not just the title — to make sure you’re getting the right book and the right edition. Also check with professors about peripheral materials that come packaged with textbooks, which used books may be missing.

Printer. Here’s what you can save by skipping this unnecessary item: about $50 for a printer, $30 for replacement ink and $9 for a pack of paper. For about $10, your child could buy a flash drive instead, save his 20-page term paper on it and print the paper in the campus computer lab, which you may already be paying for. Some schools include a technology fee in room and board costs — $100 per semester in some cases.

Cable TV. These days, you don’t have to foot a hefty cable bill when your child can catch the latest movies and TV shows online. Hulu.com, Veoh.com and Fancast.com let you download current TV shows for free. The movies offered on these sites are slightly old, but you can get a Netflix DVD-rental subscription for as little as $5 a month. For $9 a month, you get unlimited DVD rentals, plus on-demand streaming to your computer or TV through a Web-enabled device, such as an Xbox 360 or a TiVo HD.

A credit card. The average freshman amassed more than $2,000 in credit-card debt during the 2007-08 academic year. Starting in February 2010, Uncle Sam will try to help rein in that first-year frivolity with stricter credit-card rules: Anyone younger than 21 will need to prove his or her ability to repay any debts or have a parent (or someone else 21 or older) co-sign card applications.

Before the new rules kick in, help your student stay in the black by telling him not to get a credit card until he’s proven that he’s responsible with his money. Talk with him about finances and get him started using a debit card.

Big meal plan. Brain food is important, but avoid loading up your child’s meal account with enough money to feed the football team by researching the campus rules carefully. Each university has its own meal plan, whether set up for a certain number of meals per day or a certain amount of money per semester. Often, the money does not roll over from year to year — if you don’t use the money, you lose it. Best to start low and see how much your student uses. Many colleges will give you the opportunity to replenish the meal plan midyear.

You could also supplement your kid’s meal plan with gift cards to the local grocery (or the local pizza joint). Or you can buy gift cards at GiftCertificates.com.