Cutting down the rising cost of college isn’t as easy as clipping coupons or waiting for an “everything must go” sale. But there are smart ways to save, starting as early as the freshman year of high school.

By taking a tough high school course load, you’ll avoid paying for no-credit remedial college classes later. You’ll also be more likely to end up in Advanced Placement courses in high school that could land you college credit before you ever move into the dorms.

I missed that lesson during my high school senior year 11 years ago when I skipped a fourth year of math for what I thought were more interesting creative writing classes. For my choice, I spent my first semester of college in a refresher math class and still feel the sting whenever I get my monthly college loan bill. 

 

High School Counts

Emily Sole shares my pain. 

The 18-year-old from Traverse City, Michigan, handed over more than $600 this fall to Wayne State University for a no-credit remedial math class. She blames her high school sophomore year when she had an Algebra II class full of her best friends. “I goofed off,” she admits.

She took Geometry her junior year but passed on math her senior year because she wanted to take more classes that matched her interests, primarily business. 

Now as a college freshman, studying business administration, she regrets the move. She spends five hours a week in a computer lab going over basics she should have mastered already. 

“High school counts, and you don’t really think about that all the time,” she said.

 

Unprepared College Freshmen

Colleges now routinely test all students upon arrival to gauge how prepared they are for college level work. According to a report published by the American Diploma Project and Achieve, Inc.

in 2005, 70 percent of college instructors report spending some or a significant amount of time reviewing material that should have been learned in high school. The same professors estimate that half of the incoming freshman class is unprepared for college-level math and writing.

Why? College freshmen who feel unprepared for college admit that they weren't challenged by their high school program. Taking "bird courses" may seem like a great idea in the tenth grade -- but if you're planning to attend college, you'll regret that choice, for many reasons, later on.

 

Difficult Courses Pay Off

Planning ahead to maximize your course schedule in high school does pay off. 

Jim Levasseur, an 18-year-old from Mount Carmel, Illinios, knows that for a fact. His six Advanced Placement classes got him into Bowling Green University this fall as a sophomore with 33 credits. 

His freshman year would have cost an estimated $21,700 in out-of-state tuition and room and board at the school. 

The savings didn’t really affect Levasseur though. As it turns out, students who take more challenging courses also improve their test scores on college entrance exams by an average of seven percent. So because of his high scores on the PSAT, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation is paying his way through school. 

 

A Big Head Start

But he said the financial savings isn’t the most important benefit of earning college credit early. Having the work behind him lets him take classes he is more interested in earlier, including more in his major of computer animation. It also gave him a first crack at registering for courses as a sophomore honors student, practically guaranteeing he wouldn’t get shut out of any classes. 

Most importantly, it calmed his nerves about making the transition to college. 

“It’s sort of like a big head start,” Levasseur said. “You are confident in your ability to do work at the college level.” 

His advice to high schoolers today: “Work as hard as you can without running yourself into the ground,” Levasseur said. “You always have to be thinking about where you are headed.” 

 

Christine MacDonald covers education for The Detroit News.