Continuing on with my discussions about the relative cost of school and such, I have found another interesting example for all of those parents out there that are wondering, “Should I start saving for my child’s post-secondary education ?”. I have already scratch this topic a little with, So That is What $50,000 looks Like, but read on, it will be entertaining.
(the computer is not included in that price)
First, a question: What does $350 look like at University (or to a parent of a child who is at College/University) ? Look at the picture on the right hand side of this, those two books. Those two books represent $350 or so in costs (the computer on top of the books is a lot more).
Big deal, says you? Yes, maybe that isn’t that expensive, except those two books are for only 1 course, and in some programs like Engineering or Computer Science there can be many courses with many very high-priced texts. A good number to remember is typically programs have at least 5 courses per term, with two terms a year and a four-year program, you have about 40 course sections that could have some expensive books to buy (or even more interesting expensive lab fees).
More numbers for thought would be that the Basic CESG (grant for your RESP) for a year is $500 (if you have max’ed out your deposits to your child’s RESP), so these two books pretty much almost ate that whole grant.
Do you still think an RESP is something that can wait for when your child gets older?
I’m doing my MBA now (at 40) and have found that textbooks are very expensive but often you can find the ‘indian’ or ‘international’ edition of the same textbook printed on less expensive stock but with the same content/pagination etc as the north american edition for about 40% of the cost, even once you include shipping. Not all books are done this way, but a surprisingly large number are.