  The College Board reports in its latest Trends in Student Aid that more teenagers are borrowing money to go to college. The average student receiving a bachelor’s degree graduates today with about $19,000 in debt. That’s not surprising given the increased cost of a college education – some $60,000 at a public university and more than $100,000 at a private college.
What is surprising is that the fastest increase in borrowing is among families with incomes of more than $100,000 a year! That’s because most parents are lousy savers.
According to Fidelity Investments, parents have saved about one dollar for every four dollars they will need to pay for their student’s college education, including tuition, fees, room and board. Fifty-one percent of families have less than $5,000 per child according to the College Savings Foundation.
Part of that is because they are convinced they earn too much to qualify for financial aid (although $97.1 Billion in financial aid was doled out last year), and they don’t even apply. The financial aid formulas take into account income and assets of both the parents and students. But it also takes into account how many students the family has in college, how much the college costs, even the age of the parents, so the situation is different for every family. Plus, there are ways to maximize aid eligibility.
For that reason, every family should apply for financial aid for college, regardless of income.
|
