Larry Burkett often told the story about how he “squeezed four years of college into six” because he worked a full-time job while he attended college. He maintained that it actually helps students if they are required to pay for part of their own education. It's fine for parents to help their children with schooling costs as they can, but they should not feel obligated to pay their children's total school cost.

The ministry cautions students and their parents about borrowing money for college. Student loans are deceptively easy to obtain, but they are very difficult to repay.

We encourage you to let your children know how much you are willing to pay for their college education while they are still in high school. If they can find schools whose charges are no more than that amount of money, great. If not, they will need the help of scholarships, grants, summer jobs, personal savings, employment during school, and/or on-campus student jobs.

A list of sources where your children can find college funding is in the Library section of our Web site under Pamphlets and “College Funding Information”. There are many grants and scholarships available, which will become apparent as you look over this information.

Some other options your children can consider: (1) Research the possibility of taking some of their courses online. Many well-known colleges now offer this option for students who cannot live on campus; (2) Attend a local community college for the first two years to save money, then transferring to the college from which they want to graduate. It is not as important where they attend their first two years of college—the school from which they graduate is more important. This can save an enormous amount of money; (3) Check with the colleges they are interested in to see if any work/study programs are available; (4) Postpone further education until they have saved the money to pay for it.

Two books that could be very helpful to your children are Cost Effective College by Gordon Wadsworth and How to Go to College Almost for Free and Scholarship Scouting Report by Ben Kaplan, available at www.scholarshipcoach.com.

If your children are in elementary school or preschool, we encourage you to start saving and investing for their college expenses as soon as possible. For information on this topic, please refer to the article, “Saving and Investing for College”.