at the “best” private colleges having broached $300,000, and the best public college educations costing well into the six figures, more and more people who aren’t wealthy are questioning the value that such an experience will provide. And increasingly, folks are wanting to evaluate and consider the alternatives, which this unique guide will also help you to do.
Foolish Assumptions
Whenever I approach writing a book, I consider a particular audience for that book. Because of this, I must make some assumptions about who the readers are and what those readers are looking for. Here are a few assumptions I’ve made about you:
You want the best for your kids and would like to understand the pros and cons of different options before making an informed choice. (Note: While the vast majority of readers of this book are parents, I expect that some inquisitive teens are readers too — that’s great! For simplicity, please accept my apologies for choosing to write as if parents are the readers so that sentences like the one before this aside aren’t more complicated.) Because money doesn’t grow on trees and you’re not super-wealthy, you want value for your money and need to contain costs.
You have some understanding about the reputation of particular colleges but don’t know how that translates into post-graduation job and career prospects.
You’ve heard some rumblings from young adults and perhaps even your own teenagers about alternatives to college, and you’d like to know more about those options and whether they may make sense for your offspring. It’s not unusual these days for parents and teenagers to have different aspirations and expectations. I hope and expect my book to get both sides to see the other’s point of view and bring you closer to a happy agreement or compromise!
You’d like a more detailed understanding of how college financial aid, scholarships, student loans, and such works.
If any of these descriptions hit home for you, you’ve come to the right place.
Icons Used in This Book
Throughout this book, you can find friendly and useful icons to enhance your reading pleasure and to note specific types of information. Here’s what each icon means:
Beyond This Book
In addition to the content of this book, you can access some related material online. Head to www.dummies.com and type in “Paying For College For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the search box to find additional tips.
Where to Go from Here
If you have the time and desire, we encourage you to read this book in its entirety. It provides you with a detailed picture of how to best make post–high school decisions to maximize your returns while minimizing your costs. But you may also choose to read selected portions. That’s one of the great things (among many) about For Dummies books. You can readily pick and choose the information you read based on your individual needs. Just scan the table of contents or index for the topics that interest you the most.
Part 1
Understanding Paying for College
IN THIS PART …
Check out college prices, the job market, and the value of higher education.
Find out how to save and invest for college and other goals while your kids are young.
Get your kids on board with making a connection between working and earning money.
Chapter 1
Confronting High College Prices and the Modern Job Market
IN THIS CHAPTER
Planning ahead. When you have kids, even if you’ve been a live-in-the-moment, what’s-up-today kind of person, it’s hard and could be costly not to do some thinking about your children’s future.
Think ahead to an important and often bittersweet milestone - high school graduation. Many parents look back at the prior 18 or so years and wonder where all that time went and how fast it flew by. When your child graduates from high school, you may breathe a sigh of relief and feel a sense of accomplishment. But, what will Johnny do next and how will he (along with you) make that difficult decision?
Most parents envision their kids heading off post-high school graduation to a hopefully “good” college for four years. If that’s what you did and had a mostly positive experience, of course it’s natural to want the same for your own kids. Maybe you didn’t attend college and have felt that you missed out on particular career options or some needed time to grow up and explore what’s out there.
You may have concerns about the path you did or didn’t choose or have spoken with others who do. A recent Wall Street Journal poll found that 47 percent of Americans no longer believe that having a college degree will lead to a good job and higher lifetime earnings. Among Millennials, only 39 percent continue to believe in college. And for some good reasons — high and rapidly escalating costs, increasingly specialized jobs which most college educations don’t prepare you for and the political climate on many college campuses that may not match what you want