There’s been a great deal of chatter around the topic of free college recently. Because a lot of that chatter is along the lines of, “Why save for college? It’s going to be free!” I think it’s worth a quick review of the content of actual free college proposals. This week, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Pramila Jayapal introduced the…
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Before your student chooses a college– or starts dreaming of an unaffordable one– here’s some data they need to see. A recent Harris Poll on behalf of CNBC Make It’s “Middle-Aged Millenials” series showed that more than half of older millenials– those aged 33-40– regret taking out student loans. Of 1,000 such adults surveyed, the average amount borrowed was just…
I’d put this question on my top 10 list of frequently-asked questions. When are college costs actually due, and how do you pay them? Is that actually two questions? Your first college payment is the deposit which is paid when you accept admission on or before May 1. Usually this is a nominal (relative to college costs) amount, typically ranging…
May 1 is looming, so many families are facing some big decisions. I’m trying to centralize tools for the key parts of acceptance in a single post. Below are a set of links to the key financial issues involved. First, though, I want to talk about cash flow planning: how much can you spend out of pocket every year? Most…
Why do economic downturns always result in college tuition increases? Because higher education is one of the few—if not the only—services a state provides where it can offset budget shortfalls by passing the cost on to the consumer directly. For the current school year, this has been tricky: having recognized that the online education they’re receiving is an inferior product…