College 101

The True Cost of College

2012-01-11T14:11:00.000-07:00

How can anyone afford even a year of college? Have you seen the sticker price of some schools?

I tell my kids to ignore the sticker price...for now. Cost is important when choosing a college, but looking at the sticker price isn't going to tell you the true cost of going to that school. You really won't know what the final cost will be until sometime between March and April prior to the fall that you plan to enter school. That's when schools send out their financial aid award letters.

Some Do's and Don'ts when applying to college:

1. Don't discount applying to a private college just because the sticker price is several times higher than a state school. All of my college-aged kids have applied to private colleges and were offered generous financial aid packages.
(Some were much more generous than others). Several of my kids have gone to private colleges and their debt load has been very similar to that of my kids who went to state schools. Many private colleges have large endowments which make it possible for them to offer generous scholarships to students.

2. Do apply for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) as soon as you can after January 1st. Be sure to apply every year your child is in college. Also, be sure you're visiting the ".gov" site. There are imposters that might ask you to pay. You should never pay for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid!

3. Don't wait until you've completed your taxes to file the FAFSA. You can estimate your taxes on FAFSA and file an amended FAFSA after your taxes have been filed, if necessary. The sooner you get your FAFSA submitted, the sooner your son or daughter can get in line for financial aid. You choose which schools will receive the FAFSA report, so be sure your child has applied to the schools to which you're submitting the FAFSA. (This should have been done already, but if they still haven't applied, be sure they get their application in by the deadline. Each college may have a different deadline. Check with the college(s) you are interested in attending. You may also want to ask your college about their definition of an application deadline – whether it is the date they receive your FAFSA, or the date your FAFSA is processed.To see the federal aid deadlines for each state for school year 2012-2013, click here).

4. Don't assume that just because your income is in the six figure range you won't qualify for financial aid. Particularly if your student is applying to a private school, where tuition is often in the $40k to $50k range, you will likely qualify for some type of financial aid. It could be in the form of grants, federal loans (both subsidized and unsubsidized), or work study, or a combination of all of the above.

5. Do your research. Find out what scholarships and grants are offered by your top choice colleges. Most student aid comes in the form of institutional grants; therefore, you'll find more money for school when you attend those colleges that offer the best scholarships, grants and other financial incentives.

6. Do apply for outside scholarships once you've done all the above. You might have your heart set on a school that doesn't have much in the way of endowments or scholarships, but that shouldn't dissuade you. Use an internet search engine such as Fastweb, to help sort through the thousands of scholarships available. According to scholarship guru, Ben Kaplan, the harder it is to apply for the scholarship, the greater are your odds of winning. His book, "How to Go to College Almost for Free," has loads of practical tips for scholarship hunting.

7. Do contact the financial aid officer or the admissions officer at your top choice school to ask for more aid, if needed. Especially if you can show that school B has offered you more aid than they have offered you, they may be able to find more money to make their offer more competitive. Remember, the colleges you have applied to attend for four years stand to make a great deal of money from you. You need to be a wise and careful consumer and shop around. They want your business.

Is the Cost of College Worth It?

2012-01-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

Yes.

For kids who go to college, work hard, stay on track to graduate within a reasonable amount of time AND major in a marketable degree program, college IS worth the cost, despite rising tuition rates.

A recent report from Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce states,

"A Bachelor’s degree is one of the best weapons a job seeker can wield in the fight for employment and earnings. And staying on campus to earn a graduate degree provides safe shelter from the immediate economic storm, and will pay off with greater employability and earnings once the graduate enters the labor market. Unemployment for students with new Bachelor’s degrees is an unacceptable 8.9 percent,1 but it’s a catastrophic 22.9 percent for job seekers with a recent high school diploma—and an almost unthinkable 31.5 percent for recent high school dropouts."

The report also explains that when combined with experienced college graduates, the unemployment rate for all Bachelor degree holders goes down to 5%.

The key here is to pick a major that is marketable and a school that will help the student achieve that goal within a reasonable amount of time.

Of course, we still need electricians, plumbers, carpenters and other skilled trades. These fields often command higher wages that some entry level jobs that require a college degree. Not every student is cut out for college, but if your student isn't college bound, strongly consider he take additional vocational classes to learn a trade.

Suspended Adolescence: The Twixters, and Why Parents Need to Be Concerned

2012-01-05T21:46:00.000-07:00

The problem of delayed adulthood has been documented in the press and by society in general. My home state of Colorado has voted to allow unmarried “children” to stay on their parent’s health care plan until age 25. There are now at least 30 states who mandate delaying adulthood responsibility of children by requiring they be covered under their parent’s health plan. Most of these set the age at somewhere in the mid- to late twenties, but New Jersey has put the age at 31, and New York and Pennsylvania aren’t far behind by setting the guideline at age 30. How would you have liked being called a “child” at age 30?

The Twixters

Sociologists and economists have noticed the delayed onset of adulthood in our society and have expressed their concern in several mainstream articles. Time magazine did a cover article in January 16, 2005, called, “Grow Up? Not so Fast.”

“Some of the sociologists, psychologists and demographers who study this new life stage see it as a good thing. The twixters aren't lazy, the argument goes, they're reaping the fruit of decades of American affluence and social liberation. This new period is a chance for young people to savor the pleasures of irresponsibility, search their souls and choose their life paths. But more historically and economically minded scholars see it differently. They are worried that twixters aren't growing up because they can't. Those researchers fear that whatever cultural machinery used to turn kids into grownups has broken down, that society no longer provides young people with the moral backbone and the financial wherewithal to take their rightful places in the adult world.”
This difficulty with growing up seems to be hitting young men harder than young women. We women who came of age since the women’s liberation movement in the 1970’s, have been told we can “have it all.” As a result, we’ve rushed headlong into life, eager to earn our degrees and become CEOs and supermoms, astronauts and admirals, politicians and presidents.

Young men, on the other hand, have been attending college in fewer numbers and dropping out in greater numbers. This should be cause for concern.

In September, 2008, Newsweek ran an article entitled: “Why I Am Leaving Guyland: Peter Pans aren't as happy as they seem.”

"Today's guys are perhaps the first downwardly mobile—and endlessly adolescent—generation of men in U.S. history. They're also among the most distraught—men between the ages of 16 and 26 have the highest suicide rate for any group except men above 70—and socially isolated, despite their image as a band of backslapping buddies. According to the General Social Survey, a highly regarded decadeslong University of Chicago project to map changes in American culture, twentysomething guys are bowling alone when compared with the rest of society. They are less likely to read a newspaper, attend church, vote for president or believe that people are basically trustworthy, helpful and fair. Meanwhile…the percentage of 26-year-olds living with their parents has nearly doubled since 1970, from 11 to 20 percent, according to economist Bob Schoeni's research with the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan."
Clearly, American manhood is in trouble. Most colleges today are predominantly female. By the year 2012, it is estimated that 60% of bachelor degrees will be earned by females compared to 40% of bachelor degrees earned by males. Women are topping the deans’ lists in colleges across the country and earning graduate degrees at a higher rate than men. This isn’t just a problem for young men, it’s a problem for young women who are looking to marry a young man who is intellectually on par with them. As a recent Wall Street Journal article pointed out, women are finding it more and more difficult to find a husband who earns more than they do. As a result, more and more professional women are opting for single motherhood. Yes, manhood is in serious trouble.

It's never too late

Our young people, particularly young men, are in a state of suspended adolescence and one way of waking them from their slumber is by having them take responsibility for their own educational advancement.

When our first child was applying to college, we were naively clueless parents who had made the noble decision that we weren’t going to pay for our kids to go to college. They would figure out their own paths in life and we would stand in the doorway waving to them as they ventured out to make their mark in the world. My husband and I had been self-motivated students who navigated our own college searches and assumed everyone else was equally motivated. Sometimes I marvel at how much my kids are like me, while at other times I marvel at how different they are from me. Such was the case when our eldest was a senior in high school.

Our smart, beautiful and talented daughter, had no idea what she wanted to do or where she wanted to go to school. Halfway through her senior year she made the decision to attend a large state university about 70 miles from home, and her best friend from high school was to be her roommate. What little money she had managed to earn at her after school job was spent on a fantastic trip to New York City with her theater school. Additionally, she applied to only two schools, and missed the deadline for several scholarships. She didn't apply for any outside scholarships. (She did, however, apply for and receive several scholarship offers from the two colleges themselves). It's not that she was a senior slacker, she was more of a deer-in-the-headlights senior.

To make matters worse, my husband is a successful engineer which means we don't qualify for a lot of financial aid, despite the fact that we had ten kids at home.

I remember going to one of the many seminars that colleges like to hold for parents of new freshmen and being told for the umpteenth time how we parents are paying for our kids to get a great education and wondering if I was the only parent there who thought that wasn’t such a great idea. After completing our FAFSA* and seeing the government thought it was a pretty good idea for us to pay tens of thousands of dollars per year for our oldest child to go to college, and after receiving our “financial aid award letter” from her school informing us that we had been “awarded” a parent loan of $10,000, I was starting to get worried. What if it really was impossible for her to make it on her own? How would we possibly be able to afford the cost, even if it was one of the most affordable schools in the state?

Finally, I asked a financial aid officer at the school, “Is it possible for a kid to pay their own way through school?” I expected to hear how difficult it is, that only a few, very motivated kids could do it, and they would have to be diligent about finding scholarships and working hard during the summer months.

She answered, “No.”

That was it. She didn’t entertain the notion for more than a second. Just, “no.”

At that moment, I determined that if I ever figured out an affirmative answer to my question, I would let others know about it.

By the way, our eldest daughter did manage to graduate from college with a manageable amount of debt through hard work and frugality and is currently planning on pursuing her PhD in plasma physics in the fall of 2010.

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*FAFSA stands for “Free Application for Federal Student Aid,” but don’t let that friendly title put you at ease. The “EFC,” or Expected Family Contribution is the amount the Feds say parents should pay towards their child’s college expenses. The figure is equal to approximately ten times what most parents think they can afford.

Why Kids Should Pay Their Own Way Through College

2012-01-05T20:48:00.000-07:00

Two of my kids have navigated their way through the undergraduate years and are paying back their student loans. Two more kids are currently in college and are using student loans to pay their own way. Two more kids are graduating from high school this May and will soon be faced with the decision of which college gets their money.

Notice I said "their" money. Not "my" money. It's their thing. They get the education, they accrue the debt. I'm the coach/cheerleader/guidance counselor on the sidelines warning them of financial minefields and giving them charted paths with which to navigate the seas of college funding and scholarships, with a whole lot of work study thrown in the mix.

I wasn't always so sure my kids could handle this kind of financial stress. In fact, when my oldest was getting ready to start her undergraduate years and we got her financial aid "award" letter which "awarded" us a $10,000 Parent Plus loan, I was pretty darn intimidated.

Yet she survived and even thrived. She didn't have a cell phone her first semester, but purchased one with her own hard-earned cash second semester. She didn't have a car until Grandma gave her one...which ultimately broke down and had to be towed away to the scrap yard the week of her graduation. In fact, she still doesn't have a car, but she gets around just fine on public transportation which she uses to get to her doctorate level classes in plasma physics. Yep, lack of a car has not slowed down this gal one iota in her pursuit of her education.

There are plenty of people out there who will emphatically tell you it’s impossible for a kid to pay their own way through college these days. I know. That’s what I’ve been told over and over again. Even as my own kids were doing it.

I’m here to tell you that’s balderdash. It is possible for a kid to pay their own way through college today. It’s not easy though. There’s no magic formula or secret scholarship. There is hard work involved. But I believe the sense of accomplishment and the maturity which develops over the course of a student’s undergraduate years will be more satisfying than having mom and dad foot the bill for four or more years only to graduate with a psychology degree and no idea of what to do next.

Some parents feel it is their duty to pay for their kids to go to college. If you have the means and if your kid isn't going to take you for a ride and party for four years, then I say, "Good for you!"

I want to tell all the other parents out there it’s okay to NOT pay for your kid to go to college. You’re NOT a bad parent because you aren’t footing the bill for a $100,000 or more education. You’re NOT being selfish by protecting your own retirement account and credit rating. You’ve probably gotten where you are by your own hard work and it’s time to let Junior grow up and experience some of that American work ethic and pioneer spirit that has made our country strong.

I know many parents who aren’t comfortable with that. They tell me how they graduated with lots of student debt and how hard it was to start a family, buy a house, keep a car running and pay their utility bills. They want more for their kids. They want their kids to have it all right away--without having to sweat or worry over mounting debt.

That’s a noble thing, wanting to take care of your kids. It’s not bad to want to help them avoid debt. But it might be keeping them from growing up.

We live in a technologically advanced world where everything we could possibly want is literally at our fingertips. We have more variety, more choices, more luxury goods than any other civilization at any other time in history. Life is good. Life is easy. Easy credit and the natural human desire to “keep up with the Joneses” have made bankruptcy and losing one’s home all too commonplace.

I propose that your kid will be better prepared in life to avoid financial disaster if he learns how to make it through college on his own (albeit borrowed) dime.

Good ol' natural consequences

There is an adage in parenting philosophies that says natural consequences are the best punishments to apply to children when they break rules. For example, if Sonny doesn’t get his homework done, he doesn’t get to play his computer game. As Sonny matures, these consequences become more severe, because his actions take on greater importance. If Sonny cheats on a chemistry final exam he could fail the course and lose his spot on the football team.

Now, apply this adage to paying for college: If Sonny doesn’t pass his classes, he doesn’t get any credit toward graduation, but he still has to pay for the class. If Sonny doesn’t pay off his student loans his credit rating suffers and he might lose his job. If, however, mom and dad have paid for Sonny’s college education and Sonny has no stake in it, he can continue to fail classes without worry. And if he doesn’t have any student loans to pay back, he can use his paycheck to buy himself more stuff, while mom and dad continue to pay the bills.

Coming soon: Suspended Adolescence--the Twixters