Let’s face it; college students these days know that it can be downright tough.  We have to keep up with grades, we have our appearance to worry about (a college student’s got to look good!), and we have to manage our money. Most of us must save up money for food and housing. With all these responsibilities and expenses, spare cash for the movies, museums, or other form of entertainment seems hard to attain, if not impossible.

Don’t worry students! There is a means to ease our burden and it lays in our hands— sometimes our jacket pocket or our wallets. It’s our student ID cards. Many think of it as just a rectangular piece of plastic that we have to schlep around, but with that card comes opportunities for student discounts for school supplies, electronics, travel agencies (for study abroad opportunities), food, theaters, museums, and many more.

Our student IDs gives us discounts with travel agencies such as STA travel, Student traveler, Tarvelosophy, Student Universe, and Smarter Travel. These travel agencies give student discounts on flights, hotels, and activities for study abroad all over the world.

Amazon Student, a service especially for college students, gives many discount opportunities for almost every item found on Amazon, if given one’s Student ID information while purchasing online.

Electronic stores like Academic superstore, the HP academy store, Journey ED, and Apple (online and offline) give an eight to ten percent student discount when shown a student ID. The GM College Discount gives college students discounts on all Chevrolet, Buik, and GM cars.

Many wouldn’t come to think that food shops and clothing stores would hand out student discounts – but they do! Fast food businessed like Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, Domino’s, Burger King, and Dairy Queen give a ten percent discount to college students on main course meals.

Clothing stores like The Limited, J Crew, Banana Republic, and Charlotte Ruse give a fifteen percent discount when purchasing merchandise in stores. Maybe it doesn’t cost so much to look good after all!

CUNY students with CUNY IDs in particular get a chance to explore the wonders of New York at a very low or no costs at all. CUNY students get free entrance to The MoMA, The Whitney, and The National Museum of American Indian History Museum.

Pay What You Wish museums like the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Natural History allow CUNY students to enter and pay any amount desired!

Places like the Wax Museum, the Guggenheim, Queens Botanical Gardens, New York Hall of Science, Museum of Jewish Heritage, Museum of Art and Design, The Jewish Museum, International Center of Photography and Brooklyn Botanical Gardens offer entrance to CUNY students for 10 dollars and under.

It turns out that this little piece of plastic does us wonders. With all the money it can save we don’t only get the arts for less but pretty much every thing can be found for cheap! Do not hesitate to ask local shops like Blockbuster, movie theaters and local diners about a student discount, you might just be surprised by the money you will save. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to start carrying this card everywhere.