Education Financing

November 24, 2009 admin
in

Whether your post high school education is vocational or academic training, the required years of study and can be very expensive. A college education can cost more than $100,000 at a private university. Among colleges and universities, government-sponsored schools, especially two-year community colleges, have the lowest costs. A vocational education, to prepare students for a particular trade such as electronics, cosmetology, medical assisting or bookkeeping, can require less than four years to complete but still cost as much as $20,000.

Education costs include:

  1. Tuition - the charge for instruction and use of facilities
  2. Room and board - charges for housing and meals
  3. Various fees, such as those for activities, parking, health care
  4. Books and supplies
  5. Transportation

The best way to ensure your child has enough money to pay for a post-secondary education is to start setting aside savings every month when the child is a baby. Starting early will allow you to put your funds in federally insured savings and let compound interest add significantly to what you save. For example, $29 invested every month at 5 percent interest will yield $10,000 after 18 years. If you start saving when your child is 12, you will need to save $119 a month at 5 percent to have $10,000 when your child is 18.

There are many sources and types of financial aid available to qualified post-secondary students. They include:

  • Grants and scholarships that are gifts that do not need to be repaid.
  • Government and private education loans that usually do not have to be repaid until the student is out of school. Failure to repay a loan can ruin a student's or parent's credit rating and make future borrowing difficult.
  • Work-study programs offered by some educational institutions to allow students to work while they are in school, often on campus, to offset some costs.
  • Students may qualify for financial aid based on the following:
  • Merit, that is, the student's excellent academic, athletic or artistic performance in high school
  • Financial need

The best sources of information on financial aid are:

  • The world-wide Web. Go to http://www.students.gov as a starting point.
  • High school counselors
  • Individual schools' student financial aid offices