Paying for College


Book Description

In the last 20 years, tuition has increased by a factor of more than 200 percent, which is 3 times the increase in earned income of the average family. It takes from 25 to 30 percent of a family's yearly after tax earnings to pay for a single child's college education. Utilizing their access to college counseling, admissions, and financial aid professionals at colleges and universities across the country, this father and son team have developed a program to make paying for college manageable. They enlighten, motivate, and encourage students and their parents to follow a set of 10 principles designed to help families get a handle on saving and financing a college education. Their mission is to reassure and to help families of every income level and at every stage of preparation to plan a strategy for paying for college.




Paying For College For Dummies


Book Description

Discover a concrete financial plan to finance a college education Financing a college education is a daunting task no matter what your circumstances. Bestselling author and personal finance expert, Eric Tyson offers tried and true strategic advice on how to understand loans, know your options, and how to improve your financial fitness while paying down your student loan debt. Armed with the checklists and timelines, you’ll be able to: Figure out what colleges actually cost Get to know the FAFSA® and CSS Profile(TM) Research scholarship opportunities Quickly compare financial aid offers from different schools Find creative ways to lighten your debt load Explore alternatives such as apprenticeships, online programs Paying for College For Dummies helps parents and independent students navigate everything from planning strategically as a married/separated/divorced/widowed parent, completing every question on the FAFSA and CSS PROFILE forms, understanding tax laws, and so much more. No other book offers this much practical guidance on choosing and paying or college.




Filing the FAFSA


Book Description

Every year, more than 20 million students and parents file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the gateway to federal, state and school financial aid. Families often worry about making costly mistakes, but this step-by-step guide provides expert advice and insights to: · Maximize eligibility for student aid · Avoid common errors · Complete the form quickly, easily and accurately Praise for Filing the FAFSA: I found Filing the FAFSA to be an up-to-the-minute, accessible and readable resource for those with a keen interest in the current federal application for student financial aid. –Nancy Coolidge, Office of the President, University of California Families need a guide that breaks down the application form into logical sections. Filing the FAFSA is an important tool in removing some of the mystery surrounding the financial aid process. –Verna Hazen, Assistant Vice President and Director, Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships, Rochester Institute of Technology With the plethora of information on the subject of completing college financial applications, it’s reassuring to find a guide that students, parents and even guidance counselors can look to for useful and accurate information. –Carlos Adrian, Associate Director, Financial Aid Compliance, Office of Financial Aid and Scholarship Programs, Syracuse University As a long-time financial aid professional, I am always looking for helpful tools to assist families in understanding the sometimes overwhelming process of applying for student financial aid for college. Filing the FAFSA is a tool that successfully combines the presentation of detailed information with easy to follow flow charts and summary boxes to guide families through the application process. It is filled with helpful hints and is a valuable resource for families navigating the complicated world of financial aid. –Diane Stemper, Executive Director, Office of Enrollment Services, Student Financial Aid, Ohio State University




College Success


Book Description







Debt-Free U


Book Description

This book can save you more than $100,000. These days, most people assume you need to pay a boatload of money for a quality college education. As a result, students and their parents are willing to go into years of debt and potentially sabotage their entire financial futures just to get a fancy name on their diploma. But Zac Bissonnette is walking proof that this assumption is not only false, but dangerous-a class con game designed to rip you off and doom your student to a post-graduation life of near poverty . From his unique double perspective-he's a personal finance expert (at Daily Finance) AND a current senior at the University of Massachusetts-Zac figured out how to get an outstanding education at a public college, without bankrupting his parents or taking on massive loans. Armed with his personal knowledge, the latest data, and smart analysis, Zac takes on the sacred cows of the higher education establishment. He reveals why a lot of the conventional wisdom about choosing and financing college is not only wrong but hazardous to you and your child's financial future. You'll discover, for instance, that: * Student loans are NOT a necessary evil. Ordinary middle class families can- and must-find ways to avoid them, even without scholarships. * College "rankings" are useless-designed to sell magazines and generate hype. If you trust one of the major guides when picking a college, you face a potential financial disaster. * The elite graduate programs accept lots of people with non-elite bachelors degrees. So do America's most selective employers. The name on a diploma ultimately won't help your child have a more successful career or earn more money. Zac can prove every one of those bold assertions - and more. No matter what your current financial situation, he has a simple message for parents: "RELAX! Your kid will be able to get a champagne education on a beer budget!"




The Opposite of Spoiled


Book Description

New York Times Bestseller “We all want to raise children with good values—children who are the opposite of spoiled—yet we often neglect to talk to our children about money. . . . From handling the tooth fairy, to tips on allowance, chores, charity, checking accounts, and part-time jobs, this engaging and important book is a must-read for parents.” — Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project In the spirit of Wendy Mogel’s The Blessing of a Skinned Knee and Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman’s Nurture Shock, New York Times “Your Money” columnist Ron Lieber delivers a taboo-shattering manifesto that explains how talking openly to children about money can help parents raise modest, patient, grounded young adults who are financially wise beyond their years For Ron Lieber, a personal finance columnist and father, good parenting means talking about money with our kids. Children are hyper-aware of money, and they have scores of questions about its nuances. But when parents shy away from the topic, they lose a tremendous opportunity—not just to model the basic financial behaviors that are increasingly important for young adults but also to imprint lessons about what the family truly values. Written in a warm, accessible voice, grounded in real-world experience and stories from families with a range of incomes, The Opposite of Spoiled is both a practical guidebook and a values-based philosophy. The foundation of the book is a detailed blueprint for the best ways to handle the basics: the tooth fairy, allowance, chores, charity, saving, birthdays, holidays, cell phones, checking accounts, clothing, cars, part-time jobs, and college tuition. It identifies a set of traits and virtues that embody the opposite of spoiled, and shares how to embrace the topic of money to help parents raise kids who are more generous and less materialistic. But The Opposite of Spoiled is also a promise to our kids that we will make them better with money than we are. It is for all of the parents who know that honest conversations about money with their curious children can help them become more patient and prudent, but who don’t know how and when to start.







The Price You Pay for College


Book Description

Named one of the best books of 2021 by NPR New York Times Bestseller and a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice pick “Masterly . . .represents an extraordinary achievement: It is comprehensive and detailed without being tedious, practical without being banal, impeccably well judged and unusually rigorous.”—Daniel Markovits, New York Times Book Review “Ron Lieber is a gift.”—Scott Galloway The hugely popular New York Times Your Money columnist and author of the bestselling The Opposite of Spoiled offers a deeply reported and emotionally honest approach to the biggest financial decision families will ever make: what to pay for college—a decision made even more confusing because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Sending a teenager to a flagship state university for four years of on-campus living costs more than $100,000 in many parts of the United States. Meanwhile, many families of freshmen attending selective private colleges will spend triple—over $300,000. With the same passion, smarts, and humor that infuse his personal finance column, Ron Lieber offers a much-needed roadmap to help families navigate this difficult and often confusing journey. Lieber begins by explaining who pays what and why and how the financial aid system got so complicated. He also pulls the curtain back on merit aid, an entirely new form of discounting that most colleges now use to compete with peers. While price is essential, value is paramount. So what is worth paying extra for, and how do you know when it exists in abundance at any particular school? Is a small college better than a big one? Who actually does the teaching? Given that every college claims to have reinvented its career center, who should we actually believe? He asks the tough questions of college presidents and financial aid gatekeepers that parents don’t know (or are afraid) to ask and summarizes the research about what matters and what doesn’t. Finally, Lieber calmly walks families through the process of setting financial goals, explaining the system to their children and figuring out the right ways to save, borrow, and bargain for a better deal. The Price You Pay for College gives parents the clarity they need to make informed choices and helps restore the joy and wonder the college experience is supposed to represent.




Tuition Rising


Book Description

America’s colleges and universities are the best in the world. They are also the most expensive. Tuition has risen faster than the rate of inflation for the past thirty years. There is no indication that this trend will abate. Ronald G. Ehrenberg explores the causes of this tuition inflation, drawing on his many years as a teacher and researcher of the economics of higher education and as a senior administrator at Cornell University. Using incidents and examples from his own experience, he discusses a wide range of topics including endowment policies, admissions and financial aid policies, the funding of research, tenure and the end of mandatory retirement, information technology, libraries and distance learning, student housing, and intercollegiate athletics. He shows that colleges and universities, having multiple, relatively independent constituencies, suffer from ineffective central control of their costs. And in a fascinating analysis of their response to the ratings published by magazines such as U.S. News & World Report, he shows how they engage in a dysfunctional competition for students. In the short run, colleges and universities have little need to worry about rising tuitions, since the number of qualified students applying for entrance is rising even faster. But in the long run, it is not at all clear that the increases can be sustained. Ehrenberg concludes by proposing a set of policies to slow the institutions’ rising tuitions without damaging their quality.