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Health & Fitness

My Kid is Going to College and I'm Going Broke!

Does financing your child's college education mean that one day you might have to file for bankruptcy?

My kid is going to college, I'm going broke! Does this sentence sound familiar?

I met a few friends for breakfast the other morning at the . When my children were in elementary school, I used to do this quite often. We would drop our children off at school and then meet at the diner. As the children grew, many of the moms returned to the workforce and schedules changed.

We would sit and chat about everything that was going on in our lives, mostly involving our children. Now, we were moms with college-aged kids or older. Our conversation revolved around the high cost of that college education.

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I have been dealing with these costs since 2004 and meeting them has been a sacrifice. If you have been on a college campus lately with their sprawling grounds, numerous dorms and large staff you can see that it must take a great deal of money to keep it all functioning.

I remember touring many campuses when my daughter was trying to decide on a school. We would be up in Massachusetts and meet families from New York. Then at the New York colleges, we would meet families from Massachusetts. It seemed that everyone wanted to go to a university in a different state than in which they lived.

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City College is a great and affordable choice but students would be commuting to them rather than dorming. Through my children, I have seen what a wonderful experience it is to live on campus, but a costly one.

Many of the clubs and social activities are in the evening so the commuter student is at a disadvantage. Back in the "old days" when I went to college, no one lived on campus. I did not know I was a "commuter;" I was just a student. One of my college friends, who came from upstate New York, lived with her aunt's family while attending college. Now everyone wants that full college experience.

I laugh when I hear these financial experts talk about saving for college. Many schools today are up to $50,000 a year for tuition and room and board. Even if you start when your child is born, how can you save $200,000 in 18 years? What if you have more than one child? Raising children is an expense all along the way. Add that to a mortgage and car payments, food bills, energy bills and hopefully a vacation once in a while and you are now finding it impossible to save that amount of money!

How do you finance such an education?

Well, I have a cousin who took out a parent loan for her daughter. The young woman graduated nine years ago and my cousin is still paying off the loan. A friend of my daughter's took out his own loan and in three years has paid off less than a quarter. He has an apartment, car expense, and of course, monthly bills, so he can only pay back a little at a time. These loans never seem to go away. It is as if you have a mortgage before you ever buy a home. I can understand how some people begin to drown in debt.

What is going to happen in the future? Will the middle class family be able to afford private colleges? Perhaps students will return to the "old days" and live at home while attending a local college. If we want a future where our young people are being well-educated then we must try to make it more affordable.

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