Eek! Your child is now 14, and you don’t have a dime saved for college!
If you have children who are in middle school or high school, and you haven’t yet saved anything for their college education, you’re not alone. A recent MarketWatch study showed that 30 percent of parents haven’t saved anything for their children’s college education. Some deliberately choose not to save, but others would like to save but find their money instead must go to immediate expenses every month.
If you haven’t yet begun to save for your child’s college education, there are things you and your child can do now to prepare for college, even if you won’t be able to save money for them to use for college.
Not Your Responsibility
The first thing you must realize is that paying for college is NOT your responsibility. Certainly, it would be nice if you could help your child pay for college, but before you do that, make sure you’ve taken care of your own financial future.
Your first focus should be paying down debts (if you have any), paying off your house, and saving for your own retirement. Once your children are independent adults, they’d much rather that you have your own savings for the rest of your life so that they don’t have to swoop in during their own middle age to help you financially in your later years. Take care of your needs first.
Match What They Save for College
If your child has the initiative to save for college, and you have the funds available, consider matching what your child saves for college. We’ve done this since our children were small. We don’t have money in the budget to save hundreds of dollars per month for their college fund, but when our 9-year old contributes $10 to her college fund, we match it and have it in an investment account. This way, your children have a stake in their college education; you’re not just giving them money.
Consider Working at the Local College
Have you considered working at the college, if there’s one nearby? Most colleges offer tuition discounts for employees’ children, no matter if you’re employed as a professor, janitor, or groundskeeper. If you’re employed at the university, you will get this benefit.
When I taught at a community college, one of my benefits was that all of my dependents could attend for free. Now, my husband teaches at a university, and his dependents will receive 75% off tuition. This is our main plan for paying for college—our children will attend the university my husband works at so they can get a steep discount.
Focus on Good Grades and Activities
Your child should spend her high school years getting the best grades possible and becoming involved in extracurricular activities. Many kids this age would prefer to get a part-time job at the local fast-food restaurant, but that is very short-sighted. If she is able, your child should instead focus on getting good grades and making herself well-rounded by displaying leadership potential, joining and participating in extracurriculars, and volunteering. These skills will make her a better college and scholarship candidate.
Take AP Classes
If your child has the intellect and the motivation, encourage her to take Advanced Placement (AP) classes. Not only do these classes show colleges that your child has the ability to handle the rigor of college, but if your child passes the AP test, these classes can also help your child earn college credit for high school classes taken.
Some students take one or two AP classes and earn 3 to 6 college credits that way, while others take many AP classes during their high school career and can earn enough credits to essentially start as sophomores at college because they’ve earned so many credits in high school. There’s one less year of college your child has to pay for.
Just be sure your child first checks to see if the university he wants to attend accepts AP test scores.
Applying for Scholarships Is Your Child’s Part-Time Job
There are many scholarships out there for students, but finding and applying for them takes time. To successfully cover some or all of their college expenses with scholarships, high schoolers really need to consider finding and applying for scholarships for their part-time job. There are books and websites that list hundreds of college scholarships, the more obscure, the better.
Sure, a regular part-time job would be nice, but if he can win scholarships, he can earn thousands of dollars for college, which will have a more positive effect on his finances than a part-time job as a teen. The more scholarships he can find, the less he’ll need to take out in student loans, which means when he graduates college, the money he earns can go toward his future, not his past by paying down student loans.
Have Your Child Get a Job That Pays for Their Education
There are many businesses today, such as Starbucks, Disney, and Verizon, that offer their employees reimbursement for their college expenses. Keep in mind; this might not be a solution for everyone as many of these employers limit reimbursable expenses to $1,000 to $5,000 a year, meaning the student will have to go to college part-time, or they only pay for certain classes related to the employee’s current job. However, this is a nice perk that many companies offer.
Attend Community College First
Community colleges can be a great transition to college because the class size is generally smaller than what you’ll find at a university, and the cost is much, much lower. Some community colleges even offer scholarships, making the cost even lower. I earned a full-ride scholarship to a community college when I went to one, which made my first two years of college completely free! Don’t discount this option.
Consider Applying to a Free College
Throughout the country, there are a handful of private universities that offer a free college education. For most of these schools, the student must be from a particular area or a certain economic class. Also, most of these colleges require that students work on campus about 15 hours a week. Some of the schools offer a scholarship to provide free tuition for four years, while others provide both tuition and room and board for free.
Consider Applying to an Ivy League School
Yes, you read that right. Many Ivy League schools no longer charge tuition for students from lower class or even middle-class backgrounds. For instance, at Princeton, if your family makes less than $140,000, your child will get all tuition paid for. If your family makes less than $65,000, tuition and room and board will be completely free. Of course, your child must still have the grades and skills to gain admission to an Ivy League school, which isn’t easy.
If you haven’t yet saved for your child’s college education or you don’t have the means to do so, take a deep breath. There are plenty of ways you can help your child get a college education that won’t cost them tens of thousands of dollars that they must pay back later.
