College is very expensive, as we all know, so there is no shame in being nervous about how you are going to come up with the money to pay for your child’s college education. Luckily, with a bit of planning and foresight, you can actually do it without spending a penny of your own money. Here are some tips on how to do just this.
Fill Out The FAFSA
If you are new to all of this, the FAFSA is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The form can be complicated so it is best that you help your child fill it out. The FAFSA can ensure that you are getting the opportunity to apply for as much aid government-provided aid as possible. These will range from free grants to public student loans.
Get A Job
Not you, but your child. There’s nothing wrong with working part-time while you’re in school or having another way of making money such as a paid internship. By working while also attending school, your child can learn the value of working hard for what they want to achieve and may also take school more seriously when they have something at stake as well.
Go to College While in High School
This is actually quite a popular thing to do for those students who are advanced in certain courses. Ask your child’s guidance counselor if they would qualify to take college-level classes while they are still in high school. They are free of charge, just as with any other high school class, and they transfer over to accredited colleges so that your child will not have to take those particular courses at the university. There are also possibilities of testing out of certain classes if you can prove you are beyond the level of the required course.
Secure a Private Student Loan
These types of student loans have significant differences from public loans. They are not backed by the government and are instead provided by private lenders such as banks. The benefit of these loans is that they offer a fantastic way to build credit for the borrower, i.e., your child, and they can often offer better interest rates and terms than do their government-backed counterparts, making it easier to make repayments down the road once they’ve secured regular income.
Consider The ROTC
The military has a program called the ROTC that will pay for all or a portion of your child’s college tuition. They commit to a certain number of years of military service and in return, the military agrees to pay for a comparable amount of tuition. Of course, there are some strings just as with any scholarship, such as maintaining a satisfactory grade point average and staying out of trouble while at school.
Employer Reimbursement
If your child already has a job, their employer may have a college tuition reimbursement program that pays them back for any tuition spent on a program applicable to the industry in which that company does business. In other words, it has to apply to gain a career within that company.
