Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

How We Plan to Help Our Kids with College

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How We Plan to Help Our Kids with College

My husband and I have been on a tight budget for most of our married life. Luckily, one of us has always worked at a college, so we planned to send our kids to college where ever we worked so that the kids would get a tuition discount. Since our budget was so tight, we didn’t have the money to save for college (we still drive an 18-year-old vehicle!), so this plan worked perfectly. . .until it didn’t. My husband couldn’t pass up an excellent job opportunity last year—our oldest’s senior year in high school—so he left his job at the university. While staying at his old job for the tuition discount was tempting, the new job offered a better position, more money, and more opportunities for advancement. However, we then had to work out how we plan to help our kids with college.

Since we had zero saved, we knew we’d have to take a non-traditional track to get our kids through college.

How We Plan to Help Our Kids with College

We had our kids in our mid-to-late 30s, so we are focused on retirement savings now that my husband has a better job. Still, we plan to help our kids with college as we can. Here is the plan. (We have one in college and two more who will be in college in the next four to five years.)

Pay for Community College

Our oldest currently attends a community college. He received a scholarship that pays half of his tuition. We cover the other half.

Likewise, we homeschool our younger two, so we plan to have them take dual credit classes at our local community college when they’re in high school. We will pay for those classes.

Pay for Some Living Expenses

Our oldest lives with a family relative out-of-state while attending community college. We pay for all of his groceries every month. We also pay for any medicine he needs, haircuts, and his college books.

He does not currently have a car, but if he gets one, he will be responsible for the gas and car insurance. (We’re hoping he waits as long as possible to get a car so he doesn’t have any added expenses.)

Give Them a Set Amount

When our oldest transfers from the community college to a four-year university, we have told him we have a set amount we can contribute to his education. He knows what that amount is. To pay the difference, he will need to take out loans and/or get a job. We’re hoping he chooses the most economical option, so he doesn’t saddle himself with student loans.

When our younger two go to college, we will also let them know the set amount we can pay each year.

Encourage Applying for Scholarships

We have encouraged all of our children to apply for college scholarships. The more scholarship money they can earn, the less they will hopefully have to pay in student loans.

Final Thoughts

College is costly. Unfortunately, our plan to get 50 percent off tuition at the university my husband was employed did not work because he left the job. While that was unexpected, we have found ways to help our kids pay for college.

Read More

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How We’re Helping Our Teen Save for College

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College is getting more expensive every year, and with the student loan crisis, more and more students and parents are trying to forego student loans.  Avoiding student loans, if possible, is a smart way to go.  We should know; my husband and I are still paying off his student loans from graduate school, which he finished eight years ago.  So, we want to do everything we can to help our own children go to college without accruing any debt.  How we’re helping our teen save for college involves a multi-pronged approach.

How We're Helping Our Teen Save for College

How We’re Helping Our Teen Save for College

There are four ways we’re helping our teen save for college:

Using an Employee Discount

My husband is employed at our local university, so our children will get 75% off the price of tuition.  While this school currently costs approximately $12,000 for in-state tuition for a year, our children, thanks to the discount, will only need to pay $3,000 a year.

Matching Our Teen’s Savings

From the time our children were young, we set up a savings account for college.  We match each dollar that our child saves in this account.  Our three children all have varying balances, and one of our children is a much more prolific saver than the other two.  While this account won’t cover their $3,000 a year that they will have to pay for college, it will likely cover their textbooks for several semesters.

Paying for AP Tests

 

How We're Helping Our Teen Save for College
Photo by Ben Mullins on Unsplash

Our teen is bright and this year decided to challenge himself with an AP history course.  We paid for the AP test that he will take in May.  If he scores a 4 or a 5 on this test, he will be able to earn college credit for the course.

Next year, he plans to take several AP classes and tests, and we’ll pay for those, too, in the hopes that he can score high enough and reduce the amount of time he needs to be in college.

Finding Scholarships

Our teen took a practice PSAT at school, and while his score was okay, it wasn’t stellar.  Since he has a 4.0 in school, if he can raise his SAT score by at least 100, he will qualify for a $6,000 scholarship from our university.  (The higher the scores, the higher the scholarship amount he qualifies for.  If he could get his score even more than 100 points higher, he would qualify for an even larger scholarship.)

We don’t have money to pay for SAT tutoring, but having it would be valuable, especially if it helps our child raise his score and qualify for the scholarship.  I found a scholarship offered through a private foundation that could be used for SAT prep.  We applied, received the scholarship, and he’s begun tutoring this semester.

Final Thoughts

Money has been tight throughout our marriage, so we’ve never had much money to set aside for our children’s college education.  (Our priority has been paying off our student loans and saving for retirement.)

However, helping a child in other ways rather than just paying tuition outright can also be valuable.  This is how we’re helping our teen save for college.

 

The Higher Education Path Not Taken

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I’m not sure about you, but I have a hard time with keeping myself from constantly over-analyzing everything.  You name it, and I’ve analyzed it.  Even things that I cannot change, like my choice in Colleges.  Should I have gone to a different college?  Perhaps.

If I look at it from a strictly financial perspective, the answer is a definitive yes.  I went to Jamestown College, which is a private school.  While it isn’t the most expensive private school you can choose, it’s not nearly as affordable as a state school would have been.  Instead of the student loan debt that I am paying on now, I would have only about half of it had I gone to a state school.  Maybe less.

If I had gone to a school closer to home, I could have saved money over the summers by moving back in with my parents.  Traveling home would have been a far cheaper endeavor, and certainly would have been a shorter endeavor.  It’s over 950 miles from Jamestown to Hamilton, MT, where my parents live.  Even with the best car I had, mileage wise, it cost at least $200 to drive home and back.  And that’s without stopping along the way at a hotel.   And don’t even get me started on the money I could have saved on laundry by bringing it home and using the washer and dryer at home!

Of course, not every decision in life can be judged solely by it’s financial merits.  (Not that I was all that adept at anything financial back then anyways.)  Something as important as college has many factors that go into it’s choosing.  For me, the money did come into play simply because my family didn’t have much of it, and I needed to be able to get enough financial assistance to go to the college I chose.  I also wanted to play football, so the college had to have a team.  I’m not a big fan of lots and lots of people, so the school needed to be smaller.

Having had pretty good grades in high school, I was able to get scholarships and financial assistance to go to all of the schools that I applied to.  I had ruled out the main state schools as being too big.  They also got ruled out because I wouldn’t be able to play football.  In the end, the choice came down to a smaller state school, a private school closer to home, and Jamestown College.  All offered everything that I was looking for.  All were good schools.  What it finally came down to was friendliness.  Of the three schools I had narrowed it down to, only JC took the time have a enrollment counselor call me.  The football coach at JC was the only one to call me and personally invite me.

Sorry, I’ve gotten off on a tangent, and it’s turned into a bit of a love fest.  But, there’s a reason for that too.  It’s the funny thing about college.  No matter where a person goes to college, the college they went to was the awesomest college ever!  It’s not about the money.  It’s not about the education.  It’s not about the faculty, or even the sports teams.  Those all play a part in the choosing of the school, but, really, play very little part, if any, in how you feel about the school.  No, the college you attend is the best school because of the people you meet, the adventures you have, and the growing up (hopefully) that you do while you’re there.

When I think back on my higher education, I can say that I got a good education, but I can also say that I could have just as easily gone anywhere and gotten a good education.  I was able to play a couple of years of football, and that was cool.  I could have played at several other schools too.  I certainly could have gone to a cheaper school and had less student loan debt when I was done.  But, what really made college, college was the people I met.  Either directly, or indirectly, through college, I met my wife, and made so many friends.  We had so many shenanigans!  And that is what made college worth every penny.

Let’s do something fun.  Tell us all what college you attended in the comments below.  Maybe we’ll find some fellow alumni!  (Also, I’m curious how many of you are Ivy League-ers. 🙂 )
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