Comments on: Financial Burden of Failing a Course

By: pfincome

pfincome — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 02:11:17 +0000

Those are some really good points to live by. I have known so many people who spent a ton of money on college only to drop out or retake class after class after class. Fortunately, I got by enough to avoid that but was close.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:32:46 +0000

I actually just got a set of golf clubs for Christmas. I’ve never played, but I’m looking forward to it.

FOUR!!

By: Studenomist

Studenomist — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:18:06 +0000

@Steve That’s a fantastic way to look at the opportunity cost. Waiting a full year just to retake a course will definitely hinder your ability to meet your financial and educational goals. I also agree with you about planning for retirement as early as possible, I guess I will be seeing you at the golf course a lot.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:24:33 +0000

All of these are great points. I tend to look at opportunity cost a little differently. Many classes are only offered during a particular semester. If you fail a core class, you may have to wait a full year to retake the class. This just might push your graduation a full year back. Pushing graduation back means you start working a year later, which means your income takes a severe hit for one year. The best advice I was ever given was to start investing for retirement as early as possible. Failing that one class just might push your retirement back more than one year when you think about the magic of compound interest.

By: Studenomist

Studenomist — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:21:31 +0000

I forgot to mention that one common comeback to failing a course is that people will say the course has a high failure rate. You know what I do before I take a course with a high failure rate? I do a practice run the semester before. I try to attend as many of the lectures as possible and try to obtain a few sample exams just to know what I have in store for me when I do take the course. I wouldn’t recommend doing this often, in fact I would only recommend doing it before taking a course that you honestly think you will fail no matter how hard you try.

By: Vik Dulat

Vik Dulat — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:01:17 +0000

This happens so often in college. It is much easier to put all your effort the first time you take the class rather than repeating it and wasting more time and money.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:41:54 +0000

Amen.

Plus, they say that even if you retake the course often it will show up on your college transcript, which never looks good when you’re applying for various programs, especially grad school.

Just be smart. If you’re going to take a course, really take it and learn from it.