Tuesday, August 16, 2011

How Will You Handle Your Children's College Tuition?

With my first of four children starting college in a few weeks, my wife and I are struggling to figure out how to afford four years of tuition for 4 children. Counting this year, we have 3 children that will be starting their freshmen year in college over the next 3 years, then we get a break for awhile since our 4rth child is only 10.

So how are you handling the college tuition thing? Are you covering the entire cost of your kids tuition or are you having the kids pitch in via their own money or student loans? We plan to pay for as much college as possible but I'd really love to put some of the responsibility onto the kids, so they have some skin in the game. Of course we'd still help them pay off any loans, but having their names on the loan will hopefully incent them to do well in their studies.

What type of loans did you find work best for you? We applied for a parents PLUS loan and my son also applied for a Student Loan through Sallie Mae. The PLUS loan turned out to be the better deal for us. So much for putting the loan in the students name.

With interest rates so low, why are college loan rates so high. The PLUS loan is fixed at 7.99% and the student loan rate was even higher than that, and was an adjustable rate.

Would love to hear some other comment on their college tuition experiences.

Double KLM

5 comments:

  1. why are the interest rates on student loans so high. That makes no sense at all to me. I can refinance my house for under 4% but a student loan is over 8%. A great article appeared in the newspaper this week about the unbeleivable amount of debt being accrued by college students. The article said the amount of debt is way out of proportion with the value of the education these days, based on the poor economy and the difficulty graduates are having finding decent paying jobs upon graduation. Those that do get jobs have to spend so much of their income to pay back loans that the govt coud create a huge boost to the economy by simply forgiving a large chunk of the govt loans. All that money being used to payback loans would instead be pumped back into the economy!!! Very interesting!! Love to hear your take on this!!!

    AP

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  2. Doesn't matter how bad the economy is, one thing you can be certain of is that college tuition will continue to go up!! Where will this all end?

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  3. I have no idea how I'm going to be able to afford college tuition for multiple kids. Everyone keeps telling me that I'll figure it out in the end but I'm not certain. I feel like I'll be taking on major debt to fund college educations that in this economy won't be of the same value as the cost of tuitions.

    I struggle to make my monthly bills even though I make a decent salary. The govt tells me I make too much money to qualify for financial aid and they say that I can afford these huge tuitions based on my salary. They obviously aren't sitting next to me each month when I try to figure out how to pay all my monthly bills and how I need to keep adding debt onto my home equity line of credit!!!

    All this madness needs to stop!!! We need a tuition strike!!!!

    JG

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  4. Come on lottery tickets!! Don't let me down!

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  5. Found a great personal description of the Upromise program on Hub Pages. If interested in free money for college, it's a must read. Check out

    http://doubleklm.hubpages.com/hub/Saving-for-College-is-Hard-How-About-Some-Free-Money

    It's entitled, How About Some Free Money for College? I Earned Over $5000 for Doing Next to Nothing!

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