How to Afford College

I think it is safe to say that college is expensive, so how does a family afford to send their children to get a great education without sacrifice?

 

There are countless solutions offered on how to minimize student debt, and most recently is legislation that has been created by Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. His suggestion is extreme: make college free for everyone by collecting more taxes from Wall Street. You can read more about the legislation here.

 

My question is this: how can we make college more affordable without making society pay more? If we make something free, the money has to come from somewhere, right? How do we do this?

 

Taxing Wall Street may not be the best solution. When the economoy is doing well and there is ample money to tax—great. But what happens when the number of college-goers swells and we hit a recession? How do we get enough money to continue paying college? Furthermore, how do we enforce compliance at schools to keep their prices down and to make sure any government money they receive goes to students (not buildings, administrators, etc.)?

 

My solution: plan to pay. I would say you should plan that there will be some expected out of pocket cost for college. If laws like this pass in the future and the system changes, that is wonderful. What I see missing most of all in this student debt crisis is proper planning.

 

The average family saves $12,000 per student to attend college. That doesn’t even cover the Cost of Attendance for one year of college. When savings is not enough, then what?

 

Financial Aid forms are long and confusing. Families often overstate assets, ignore the forms altogether, or miss important deadlines. If you plan ahead to fill out the forms and research how to fill them out, you can qualify for school-based and government-based aid and pay what is reasonable and affordable for you.

 

Want to know my super easy solution? Call College Planning Experts for a College Planning Analysis (661) 295-9946. We value this one hour meeting at $97, but if you reference this Blog—it is FREE. The reason I recommend just coming to talk to us is this: instead of talking about major, monumental changes to the system (which is great, don’t get me wrong), let’s take action on what you can be doing now to take control of the current system. Make it work in your favor. College Planning Experts can give you the resources to get started on this process, or we can make life especially easy by just doing it for you. Let’s make your college dreams an achievable reality.

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