Image: pexels
If you ask anyone who’s been in parenthood for more than a decade and a half, they’ll tell you one thing for sure. Investing in your child’s education is among the best ways to help them secure a brighter future in adulthood.
Gone are the days when the basic high school diploma would suffice in helping a young person land a fulfilling and well-paying career.
Today, and as evidenced by employment trends over the last couple of years, more and more professions require a college degree, if not a diploma or tertiary education certification.
Alternative Funding Options For Your Child’s College Education
Of course, you may not need to seek funding alternatives when you need to pay your child’s college tuition if you have some money stashed somewhere, perhaps in a bank account. But in the modern world, where the costs of living seem to be spiking by the day, being a parent is never a walk in the park. Saving up for your child’s college education can sometimes be more than overwhelming.
Thankfully, there are several avenues you can exploit when seeking funds to see your teenage child graduate college and build a life for themselves. One good option is to look into the best private student loans for parents, but it is not the only one.
While exploring your options, below are three that you might find worth your while.
1. Student Scholarships
As a parent, your child may become a beneficiary of this type of college funding that’s absolutely free, and hey, who doesn’t like free money? This financial assistance can be from a variety of sources, including the government, private institutions, or individual wellwishers.
Additionally, there are learning institutions that provide their students with direct scholarships, mostly based on academic merit and proof of financial need. To qualify for a scholarship, all that might be required is to fill out a short application form and meet the specified requirements.
2. Student Loans
This is among the ways that parents with a kid who needs to go to college can get themselves out of a sticky financial situation. As you might be aware, college tuition isn’t cheap. Student loans provide parents and students with flexible options depending on the financier. The most common types of student loans include:
Private Student Loans
As the term suggests, private student loans are usually an initiative from private institutions such as credit unions, banks, and even state agencies. Thanks to the competition in most private lending institutions, private student loans have become available at lower repayment costs.
And with the ever growing advancements in the fintech world, coupled with the explosive demand for educated brains, securing an online loan for students is increasingly becoming an easy task.
Federal Student Loans
These student loans from the federal government are a great option for parents looking to take their kids through college. The best part is that the interest rate on these types of loans is fixed.
There are four types of federal student loans, namely:
- Direct subsidized loans
- Direct unsubsidized loans
- Direct consolidating loans
- Direct PLUS loans
3. Savings
To help your child go through college uninterrupted, it’s critical that you develop a savings strategy. This is essential, whether or not you secure alternative funding because, after all, some funding options only pay for the tuition fees and nothing else beyond that! But with a savings plan in place, you can comfortably cater to your child’s other expenses,sometimes including part of the tuition.
Taking care of a child’s college expenses is every parent’s worst nightmare. Without a well-thought strategy, anything can go wrong. The last thing you want is to find yourself in a financial dilemma when the time comes to take your kid to college. By using the above tips, you can manage to pay for your child’s college expenses without straining yourself financially.
Leave a Reply