Discuss College Financing with your Parents

Now is the right time to begin the discussion about funding for college with your parents. While you can’t do much about securing financial aid during your freshman year, you can come up with a plan for how your family will go about paying for college.

Your parents may have been saving for your college education since you were little. Or, they may not have been so fortunate. Either way, you’ll need to sit down as a family and discuss the reality of the situation. How much are your parents willing to spend on your college education? How much do they expect you to contribute? About how much do you expect to get in financial aid?

Answering these questions early on save a lot of grief during your senior year. You don’t want to fill out the FAFSA and realize in the April before you start college that you cannot afford to go due to lack of funding. There is always a way to get through school. You just need to start planning early to account for any difficulties along the way and to make sure both you and parents are on the same financial page.