10 Things Not to Buy for Your College-Bound Student

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This post comes from Jeff Somogyi at partner site DealNews.

College is expensive. And it’s not just the tuition. Chances are your child will also have to buy books, which are increasing in price faster than tuition, new clothes and even some housewares to furnish a dorm room or apartment.

With all this spending going on, the line between need and want can get a little blurred. Though ultimately a lot of these expenditures are up to the parental unit, we’ve put together a list of things that you might think a college student needs, but that you could easily avoid buying for back to school altogether, if you’re trying to save as much money as possible. (And while you’re at it, check out all of our back-to-school guides for further buying advice.)

1. A printer

Parents: Since your time at college, most schools have entered what is now being referred to as the digital age. That means that professors increasingly accept, or even prefer, papers and assignments delivered paperlessly via email. Outside of homemade fliers for frat parties, modern students may find they never have to print a single piece of paper, so why invest in a printer?

Sure, they might run into that one, ancient, crusty old professor who quips, “I’ve never had to reboot a pencil!” as he glares at all the laptops he’s seeing, but most schools offer printing facilities that are either free or cheap to use.

2. A tablet

Unless their major is pharmacology, your average kid can get through their entire college career without having to touch a tablet. Why? Because there are currently two types of tablets that you can buy for a student: super cheap ones that can’t replace a laptop in functionality, and ones that can handle more advanced tasks — like the new Windows Surface Pros — but are super expensive.

The days of tablet-based computing for students are coming, but they’re just not here yet. Until then, tablets aren’t necessary when you have a relatively well-equipped laptop.

3. Expensive bedding

Unless your teen’s college stocks its dorm rooms with extra long mattresses, you shouldn’t invest in any particularly special bedding. Bobby and his friends are probably going to destroy the whole setup by eating and drinking recklessly on his bed with great frequency, so grab the bargain-bin bedding deals instead of the 600-thread-count sheets.

Your kid is going to have to buy all new bedding after he graduates, anyway, so why spend a lot on something that is, for all intents and purposes, disposable?

4. An HDTV

As old people, you might think that your kid will need a TV to watch NBC’s Must See TV on Thursday night, but the times they are a-changin’! Heck, we’re pretty sure that millennials don’t even watch TV on TVs anymore. These Internet-agers tend to consume their shows and movies via Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and the like, so a laptop is all they’ll need.

If they do want to watch something on broadcast TV like us old folks, most colleges have TVs in common rooms or other meeting areas. If your kid says she needs a TV for playing video games, it’s OK to remind her that college is for studying. But if you’re just a big softie who can’t say no, consider giving her a hand-me-down set instead of a new one.

5. An iron and ironing board

No college student has ever been seen using an ironing board. Ever. If you don’t want your kid to look like a rumpled mess, it may be smarter to buy a wardrobe of wrinkle-free clothes.

6. Clothes

Speaking of clothes, can we be real for a minute? “The Freshman 15” is when kids, alone and unguided in their eating (and drinking) habits for the first time, tend to overdo it a bit at the dining halls. The result: packing on about 15 pounds in the first year.

We’re not saying it’ll happen to your kid, but just in case, why not save the majority of the off-to-school wardrobe budget for after their weight settles? Buy clothes too soon, and you’ll be re-buying them a year later, once your young one discovers their meal plan entitles them to all-they-can-eat frozen yogurt.

7. A high-end laptop

Our unscientific estimate shows that 99 percent of all college students use their laptop for little more than word processing, Wikipedia-ing, and watching YouTube. These kids don’t need eight cores of processing power to put words onto the screen.

Moreover, since laptops have become lighter and more portable, they’re being carried far and wide, but lugging a laptop all over campus means an increased likeliness of damage. Would you rather receive a phone call from your kid telling you that he spilled a can of Mr. Pibb onto a cheap-o laptop or a high-end model?

8. A mini fridge

No, not all kids are lazy. But which do you feel a college student is more apt to do: 1) Take an hour out of their busy schedule to walk to the local supermarket and choose healthy and nutritious items to snack on throughout the week, or 2) stumble out of bed at 1 p.m., or whenever hunger makes them get up, and hit the dining halls? If you answered “1,” then you have either raised a robot, or you’ve never met a teenager.

A student’s only real need for in-room cold storage will mostly apply to the occasional leftovers and carton of milk, and those can easily be kept in a communal fridge anyway. Save a couple of bucks and pass on the mini fridge rental option that many schools offer, and certainly avoid on buying one, because your kid likely won’t have a use for a refrigerator that can only hold a single frozen pizza after college.

9. An external hard drive

Cloud storage is free and plentiful. Just by signing up for Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive alone, your student can have access to 30GB of free cloud storage. Add in Dropbox, Amazon Cloud Drive, Apple iCloud and a host of smaller services, and you’re pushing almost 100GB of storage for free. And it can’t be stolen or lost or broken, either.

If your response was, “What about for laptop backup and crash recovery purposes?!” then know this: College students will remember to back up their laptop as often as they remember to iron their clothes.

10. An Apple iPhone

Though not typically considered a back-to-school item, if your kid just happens to need a new iPhone right before school starts, we suggest you hold off. Not only do new iPhone models tend to be released shortly after school is in session, but our deal archives also show that whenever Apple announces a new product, current generation Apple devices fall in price. It’s well within your right, as a parent, to force your kid to use his (gasp!) old iPhone until that happens.

Giving a pass on all the items above will definitely help keep the back-to-school spending down, but it’s far from an exhaustive list. Parents, what back-to-school items have your kids been asking for that you plan to skip? Students, what items are you not having any luck convincing your parents to buy you? Tell us in the comments below.

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