By ASHLEY BANKS
Staff Writer

It’s that time of year again. November marks the time when students to begin deciding what their daily schedules will look like for the next semester. Choosing classes is something that should be given a lot of thought.
Electives are a great way to explore your interests outside of your major, but they should be chosen with care. Tuition at Piedmont is $831 per credit hour. The amount it costs just to enroll in classes adds up quickly and that doesn’t even include the additional costs of textbooks.
Textbooks can range anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars each semester. This means that full-time students at Piedmont can expect to pay upwards of $10,000 a semester just to attend class.
With so much money being put into them, the classes you take should be looked at as an investment. Treat your education like any other investment and make your decisions wisely, especially for electives like music lessons. Chances are you could learn the same thing outside of the classroom at a much lower cost.
This should especially be kept in mind when you consider the amount of debt that is usually accumulated by college students.
According to CNBC, outstanding student debt was at $904 billion in March and has grown by $293 billion since 2008. EconomicFreedom.org recently released a short video that compares the country’s student loan situation with the housing bubble. It predicts that there will be a student loan crisis that will be even worse than the housing market crisis.
Student loans follow you forever. You can’t absolve them through bankruptcy. Student loans isn’t a pleasant topic for most college students. Most of us want to put our loans in the back of our minds and just deal with them when the time comes to start paying them back.
Students should be more conscientious of the amount of money they are spending on their education and the amount of debt that they are accumulating. It is something that needs to be thought of when selecting classes.
Take classes that you need or that you know will have a definite benefit for you. Try not to take classes just to fill space in your schedule. Think before you register.