With the continuing rise of college tuition, a student's part-time job is no longer enough to pay for their postsecondary education fully. American families need to be smart and plan ahead for their child's university plans.
Letting your child pay for his or her college education can be a way of teaching them about finance. Moreover, this can also help them be serious about their degree since they are sacrificing and investing a large portion of their time and resources for it.
Federal data revealed that majority of students from families earning over $106,000 a year help pay for their college education through work or loans. However, parents should also be careful of putting too much financial pressure on their kids since this may lead to burnout and demotivation, which could result to dropping out or struggling with huge debts for years.
Part-Time Work
Students can help their parents with paying for college tuition through part-time work. While this may not be enough to pay for all college fees, it can cover other payments needed such as for books or for mortgage.
According to CNN, federal education data found that students who do part-time work for about 12 hours a week were able to get better grades than others who do not work at all. Kalman Chany, author of "Paying for College Without Going Broke," said that this may be because a job schedule would require discipline on students.
Limit Loans
Parents should learn the ins and outs of federal aid and loans. The more money is in the student's account, the less need-based aid he or she may get. Parents can maximize this by making the financial adjustments necessary during the first half of the child's junior year of high school since the FAFSA uses tax information from two years ago.
They should still limit the loans that their child will be getting, though. One rule of thumb is to limit the total borrowing to the student's expected first year's salary after graduation.
