The College Search and Four Important Lessons for Parents

I was searching Google blogs this afternoon and ran across this gem, which I urge parents to read: Four Fatal Errors Parents of College-Bound Students Make.

The post on College Search GamePLAN - The Blog is short, sweet and oh-so-right-on-the-money. It's a quick read but in case you don't have time to click on the link, here's a quick overview of the key tips offered:

1. Make sure you have a sound financial strategy in place before beginning your college search.

2. Billions of scholarships DO NOT GO UNCLAIMED each year - furthermore, the way scholarship funds are allocated by colleges means that value of the scholarship could actually be deducted from the financial aid package, resulting in a zero net gain

3. It's a fallacy that only highly visible (top U.S. News ranked colleges) offer the best educational opportunities

4. College selection and admissions has become so complex that many families don’t start soon enough - start at the beginning of a student’s junior year

Please note: This article was written by Howard Verman, director of Strategies for College, and published in collaboration with Lauren Starkey of Examiner.com

Image by Cecile Graat

Student Loans: Borrower Beware!

Michelle Singletary, the personal finance (and nationally syndicated) columnist for The Washington Post, issued some dire warnings in her September 20, 2009 column, After College, Student-Loan Sinkhole Awaits. According to Singletary, the current financial crisis in mortgages, business lending and credit cards also extends to student loans, as follows:

The percentage of those loans in default grew to 6.7, up from 5.2 percent in 2006. The figures represent borrowers whose first loan repayments came due from Oct. 1, 2006, to Sept. 30, 2007, and who defaulted before Sept. 30, 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

In other words, the department reported, nearly a quarter-million student-loan borrowers went into default during that year.

Gulp. And there's more...

Go to StudentLoanJustice.org and read the stories of "victims" living under crushing student loans. Also go to http://www.defaultmovie.com and watch the poignant trailer from "Default: The Student Loan Documentary." The feature-length film chronicles the stories of borrowers who, years after leaving school, are trying to repay loan balances that have ballooned to two or three times the amount they borrowed.

For so many, the heavy borrowing is unsustainable... Until there is a sustainable solution, there has to be a sea change in the view by many parents and students that college at any cost -- no matter how unaffordable -- is worth the years of financial burden and perhaps ruin.

The more I learn, the more discouraged I get. People at either end of the economic spectrum have access to money to pay for college, but if you're somewhere in between - even struggling to pay bills and keep your head above water financially - you'll be hard pressed to afford a college education for your child. Borrower beware, indeed.

How Does Your Child's College Search Differ From Yours?

Things change... and so it goes with the college search. Protocols that existed for generations have changed dramatically over the past 25 to 30 years and our children are conducting their college searches in very different ways than we did.

Take me and my son, for example. We didn't discuss colleges when I was growing up, outside of college football, that is (my parents didn't attend college). I chose my alma mater because it was convenient (in the city where I lived) and affordable (I put myself through school).

Conversely, we've discussed college with my son as long as he can remember. When it comes to the college search process, he and I are learning together because I never participated in any of the usual college planning activities. Furthermore, we are doing a great deal of research online and when I was in college, computers were still a novelty and NO ONE had a home computer.

Leave a comment and tell us about your college search. How "old school" was it? What aspects are more different today? What hasn't changed a bit?


Laptop photo by Simon Wong

Tuition-free Colleges are Real!

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus - and this time he's bringing a tuition-free college education. You don't necessarily have to be destitute to be eligible, either. It seems too good to be true, but it is.

In researching these colleges, a good place to start is the list of 8 Tuition-Free Colleges on mentalfloss.com. Be sure to note that tuition-free doesn't necessarily mean expense-free: "Free" may not extend to room and board, incidentals, travel, etc. Furthermore, "free" might require work-study. Some schools offer limited majors, such as the Curtis Institute of Music. Nonetheless, if paying for college is a concern then taking a look at these schools is a worthwhile investment of your time.

As I dug around looking for an up-to-date list of tuition-free colleges, I found that the list of eight schools is frequently cited but not exhaustive - by a far stretch. A far more extensive list is 100 Free College Rides You Don’t Need Daddy to Pay For on advantageedu.com. Be sure to review this list! Although it may be dated (it was posted in January 2008), much of the information is sure to still be valid. Besides colleges in the US the list also includes a handful of schools in other countries.

Please leave a comment if you know of other colleges and universities that have tuition-free programs or other programs to help offset college costs.

Photo by Thomas Campbell