COLLEGE days may be the best of young person’s life but for parents they are among the most expensive. A recent Bank of Ireland survey estimates that it costs €10,400 a year to put a young person through a year in college.

Student accommodation
Rents have fallen by 25% during the housing crash. Good places to look for accommodation include college noticeboards, college housing or accommodation, shop and community noticeboards and newspaper classified ad. For those heading to college in Dublin the ‘Evening Herald’ is considered very useful. Word of mouth from friends and classmates is another good source of accommodation. Try to agree a monthly rate. Some landlords charge a weekly rate or a “four-week rate” - this adds up to more than a monthly rate, according to the National Consumer Agency.

Loans
Taking out a loan is one option to consider, but flexible repayment plans are essential to ensure that the debt doesn’t get too unwieldy to handle. Credit unions tend to knock the socks off banks and building societies when it comes to their interest rates on education loans. Many credit unions have rates as low as 4% if you are borrowing to fund an educational course. All the main banks offer student loans, with Ulster Bank the best value with a 7% rate for €5,000 borrowed over five years. The maximum loan amount is usually about €4,000.

Registration fees
If you are an undergraduate student at a publicly funded third-level educational institution you generally do not have to pay fees. However, free fees do not apply to courses in private colleges. There may not be fees in most colleges at the moment but there is an annual student services charge that all students (except those who qualify for maintenance grants) have to pay. It is also known as a registration fee and it covers student services and examinations. The amount of the charge varies from one institution to another. It was announced in Budget 2009 that there would be an increase in the student services charge from €900 to €1,500 for the year 2009/2010.

Grants
The maintenance grant, paid by local authorities, is the main source of financial help available from the State for. Family and/or personal income is a key factor that will be assessed when you apply for a maintenance grant but there are also some other conditions One in three students - or around 52,000 a year - are in receipt of a full or partial grant. Under the grant system, families with three or fewer children and with income of below €41,100 get a full grant for a child in college. A full grant is worth €3,420 for a student living away from home and €1,370 for a student living at home. Disadvantaged students can get a top-up on these figures.
You can  apply for the Higher Education Grants Scheme if you are a student undertaking an approved full-time undergraduate course of at least due years in duration or a full-time postgraduate course. This is paid by vocational education committees and essentially applies to courses in institutes of technologies.

Tax relief for third-level fees
Tax relief is available in respect of college fees paid in private third-level institutions, in institutions abroad and by repeat students and part-time students.
Tax relief is given at the standard rate (20%).

Credit cards
All the main banks offer special credit card accounts to students. But the interest rates and fees on these are just as high and nasty as the ordinary credit cards.
Ulster Bank is the most expensive as it charges 17.9% for purchases and 22.9% for cash withdrawals. National Irish Bank is at the other end of the scale with a rate for purchases of 11.6% on its standard card. However, money experts advise that credit cards are “inflexible fiends” and are best avoided as getting into debt on a credit card is one of the biggest pitfalls of college.