Who Pays for College?

The ad read: wearing these jeans will make you look like you lost 10 lbs. For just a minute, I dreamt of my nice skinny, before children and aging body. Then I realized, only two ways existed for me to look like I lost 10 pounds—actually lose the weight or squish my body into something that was a girdle disguised as jeans (no way I am going there!) or jeans so tight I would be arrested for indecent exposure. Neither was as appealing as my dream.

Just like the magic jeans, my girls have a vision of the magic college. This college will fulfill all their desires and Mom and Dad will pay for it.
Neither the jeans nor the college exist. Currently, my assistant’s two oldest girls are in college with very little out of Mom and Dad’s pocket towards their education. Along the way, I learned three absolute truths about paying for college.

The first truth starts with an exercise: raise your hand if you feel you are responsible for your child or children’s college education? Then leave your hand up, if your parents paid for your college education. Something changed over the last generation. We have become a generation of enablers, not helpers. A college education is the responsibility of the child—the person owning the education. Of course parents can help, they should help to the extent they are able. But remember, you CAN borrow for a college education; you CANNOT borrow for retirement income.

The second truth is college admissions and funding is a game. And all games, like gambling, have rules. If you learn the rules and use them to your advantage, you might win the game. But if you don’t learn the rules or play the game, you won’t ever win. And sometimes you get lucky and walk away as the Powerball winner, but not very often.

The third truth is the government is not going to pay for my child’s education. They will give away money to contractors, but they have no interest in providing the education needed for the next generation of Gross Domestic Product producers.

These three truths have guided me through the college process. I have learned the rules, played the game and helped parents win 3 years of college for one child at a mid-price private college and one year of college at a low-priced private college with about $2000 total out of their pocket to date.
Once you accept the above truths, you can learn the rules, play the game and win. Over the next few months, we will discuss the rules of the game and how to use them to your advantage. We will help you navigate the admissions and financial aid process. But this will only work for you if you will put in the required effort. Truth number four, if you want money, you have to work.