How To Get College Financial Aid - Part One

How To Get College Financial Aid - Part One

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How to Get College Financial Aid – Simple Strategies for Every Situation
Part One

This is not a good time to be the parent of a college-age kid. With a giant federal budget deficit and many states in financial difficulties, colleges around the country have found that the only way to get all the money they need is to ramp up tuition fees to levels never seen before—in other words, to fleece parents. Whatever budget you might have been thinking about to pay for your child’s education, there’s a good chance that you’re going to have to think again.

College tuition isn’t like any other major expense. If the price of plane tickets goes up, you can put off your vacation until the situation improves. If interest rates go up, you wait another year or two before upgrading your car. But as soon as your child finishes high school, he or she is going to want to go to college, just like his or her friends. That’s what your child has been working towards and that’s what he or she deserves.

Fortunately, there’s no reason to tell your child that his or her life plans are going to have to be put on hold until the economic situation improves or the state doles out more cash to the colleges. There are a number of strategies available that can help you pick up all the financial aid you need, no matter how hard the colleges try to make it for you. At the very least, with the right advice, you should be able to take a significant amount of pain out of the annual budget. In fact, make the right moves now, and you might even find it easy to pick up all the help you need.

These eight strategies will always help even when the colleges hike their fees:

1. Choose the Right Schools
It always makes sense to choose schools that have good financial aid packages. When a college’s fees are high, it becomes even more important.

When states hit financial trouble, one of the first things they do is turn off the spigot that pours cash into public colleges. They expect parents to open their wallets instead. That means the private schools that don’t rely on public funds can suddenly look a lot cheaper in comparison—and more importantly, they usually have much better scholarship programs and funding packages available, especially the free grants that never have to be paid back. When you draw up your list of schools, take another look at the private schools and try to include some that have great funding available. You might find it’s the easiest way to give your child an excellent and affordable education.

2. Change the Program
When you were trying to figure out how much your child’s education was going to cost, you were probably thinking of a four-year program at a college or university. But that’s not the only way your child can pick up a college degree. There are ways to change the program to bring down your child’s college fees.

For example, the first year at most colleges are pretty much the same. All those 101 and 102 courses start with the basics and build a foundation for the following years. Your child will get exactly the same knowledge whether he or she is at a state school, a private school or low-cost community college. That means you could start your child at a community college for the first year and then upgrade in the second, saving you thousands on those first-year expenses.

Another option is to have your child take classes in the summers. Summer classes could make it possible to finish his or her degree a year early, save you a year of college bills and head out into the workforce a year before his or her peers.

Finally, you could encourage your child to combine work with study. That would probably add a year to the program but would allow your child to contribute to his or her own tuition bills and send him or her into the employment market with experience and independence already under his or her belt—an asset in these competitive times.

Not all of these different programs will be right for your child—some require discipline, others a willingness to stay in town after high school graduation—but they’re all worth looking at with your child to see which can work for you and how much money you can save.

About the Author:
Ian Welham
Complete College Planning Solutions
(973) 467-0101
http://completecollegeplanningsolutions.com

One of America's leading college financial aid experts, helps parents get every cent of financial aid they're entitled to, even if you make a six-figure income. "College Savings Video Series" reveals proven ways to reduce college tuition costs by $5,000 to $30,000 a year. Normally $47, FREE for a limited time: http://collegeadmissionscounselor.org



Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com


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