Consumer Credit Counseling Services

--ClearPoint’s Consumer Credit Counseling Service (CCCS) agency offers shopping strategies for cash-strapped consumers

A haircut in Los Angeles at swanky Vidal Sassoon for $21. An hour-long massage in Austin for $35. An acupuncture or Chinese herbal consultation for $35 in Manhattan. Or, free income tax preparation in Madison, Wisconsin. What do all of these deals have in common?

Each service is given at an educational institution, be it a vocational school, training school, or college, by students learning their trades and seeking hands-on experience.

Since they are learning, expect appointments to take significantly longer than usual. The pupils do work slowly, but you’ll receive more personal attention than ever before. Students are thoroughly monitored by the faculty, licensed professionals in their fields. We’ve noted examples* of the types of services available to thrifty consumers:

Dental Care
In Richmond, Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Dentistry is home to several public dental clinics. Students provide comprehensive dental care for about half the price of private dental practices. At these medical centers, patients must carve out three hours per appointment.

Similar programs are offered at dental schools throughout the country such as the University of California at Los Angeles, University of Southern California (also in Los Angeles), University of Washington (Seattle), Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond) and the University of Tennessee (Memphis).

Vision Care
Like dental care, employer health insurance lacks when it comes to affordable vision care. Again, colleges of optometry are great resources for help with eye exams, contact lenses, sports vision training, and eye diseases. A few to check out include Pacific University outside of Portland, Oregon, University of California’s Berkeley School of Optometry and Indiana University School of Optometry. Comprehensive eye exams lasting at least 90 minutes cost $119, $88 and $70 respectively.

Massage Therapy
If you’re in need of solutions for overuse injuries, chronic neck and back pain, postural distortions, sports injuries and the cumulative effects of stress, students schools like the Cortiva Institute—with 11 locations from Washington to New Jersey— provide therapeutic massage and bodywork at very reasonable prices.

The Steiner Education group also has schools in nine states with public clinics, like the Virginia School of Massage in Charlottesville, VA where a 50-minute full-body massage is only $25. These students offer therapeutic massages, structural bodywork, and trigger point therapy.

Beauty and Cosmetology Schools
Check with local beauty, cosmetology and hair care schools. Supervised by professionals, students perform free or low-cost haircuts services—hair cuts, manicures and facials.

Students at Paul Mitchell the School Portland, for instance, a Paul Mitchell partner school in Oregon, gives cuts, color, perms, and conditioning treatments. Their deeply-discounted prices are easily accessible on their site. A perm and haircut currently runs $19.95. Paul Mitchell has schools in 38 states.

Students of Vidal Sassoon’s Sassoon Academies and the Aveda Institute also offer discounted hair care. (As a bonus, Aveda’s $20 cuts include tea and a free product sample and they also discount massages, facials, exfoliation, and nail services) These schools can be safest for coloring and trims rather than a complicated, layered cut. After all, these students are learning!

Acupuncture
Interns from the master’s program at Portland’s College of Oriental Medicine, give treatments in acupuncture ($22), massage ($22) and Chinese herbs ($5 consultation, herbs extra).

Student clinicians at the teaching clinic at Bastyr University in Seattle provide low-cost natural medicine treatments (acupuncture, Chinese herbs, nutrition counseling, and other naturopathic care) for health conditions like allergies, headaches, immune system deficiencies, depression, and chronic pain.

And residents of the Twin Cities in Minnesota can visit any of five clinics run by Northwestern Health Sciences University. The school provides a variety of health care services, including chiropractic, acupuncture, Oriental medicine, massage therapy, healing touch, and naturopathy.

Gourmet Meals
Pros-in-training at culinary institutes can serve up some great money-saving meals. $3.50 will buy you a dinner entrée, two side dishes, and a drink at the New Community Corporation’s “Culinary Café” in Newark, New Jersey. The daily homemade soup and sandwich combo is discounted to $3.

Bistro! meals at the Community Culinary School of Charlotte (North Carolina), for instance, are held alternate Thursdays during class sessions at 1 p.m. and are free to the public (donations are accepted).

Phone and Internet research will help you discover training programs serving the public, but digging, along with a sense of adventure, will allow you save big and learn more about what your own community has to offer.

*Our Consumer Credit Counseling Service (CCCS) agency does not endorse or recommend any of these organizations.