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The college cost crisis will be the next item that generates national attention.  In 2008, we had the housing crisis that led to the banking crisis.  In 2009 it was the health care crisis.  In the early part of 2010, it was the oil spill crisis.  Soon, I believe the problems connected with college costs will become the hot topic nationally.

In the 34 years that I have been working with families on this topic as a former College Admissions Director and current High School Counselor, I have never seen it as challenging as it is now.  College costs have risen exponentially, resources from federal and state agencies have been constant or have decreased, personal financial resources have depleted, and flexibility to use the equity of one’s home has been diluted.  Yet never have we placed a higher premium on a college education.  Our competitive society leaves little option for the individual with only a high school diploma.  

Ten years ago, only 5% of college students used independent student loans to help finance their education.  Today, nearly 25% of students are using them.  Normally, these independent loans are utilized after the maximum federal student loan (currently a $27,000 four year option).  This extraordinary dependence on loans has significant long term consequences for these students, their parents, and society as a whole. 

All parties must participate to develop solutions.  Students have to become more financially aware of their role.  No longer can parents allow students to choose the college of their choice leaving the parents scrambling in the end trying to determine how to pay for it.  Students are significantly invested today in their own education with debt.  They need parents and educators to help them understand this debt obligation – help them learn what is reasonable and the negative impact that they can create for themselves if they extend themselves beyond.

Encourage your High School Counselor to download the classroom session, “The Economics of Your College Choice – Finding Financial Fits,” available on the home page of the website.  This lesson can be a valuable addition to the Guidance services offered at your high school or it can even be used in an Economics class. 

The lesson will emphasize 5 ways that a student can participate financially in their college choice.  It will also show them how to cooperate and communicate with you, the parent, so that everyone is on the same page working to develop a list of affordable college options. 

“The Economics of Your College Choice – Finding Financial Fits,” can be a catalyst to begin to solve this next national crisis.

The 2010-2011 academic year is less than a month away.  I know we all want to enjoy the rest of the summer but before you know it, those of us in education as a teacher, counselor, dean, or administrator will begin the year with high expectations. 

For me, as a High School counselor, although I try to be helpful in a variety of ways, nothing gives me more satisfaction than to be a part of a cycle that begins in the fall and ends on May 1^st when a student makes a final college decision – one that truly “fits” the student.  Having been in the counseling arena for over 35 years, the idea of fit has certainly evolved and developed.  For most of us, fit was based on acquiring as much information as we could about the student, acquiring as much information as we could about colleges….and then helping students develop a list of colleges that seemed to be the right fit. 

Again, historically the information was primarily both academic and social/emotional.  If we could find colleges that could meet those needs, we were doing our job!

 Today, the economics of the world has changed all that.  A new fit idea has emerged, a “financial fit”.  

In the strategies section of the website, you will view seminars that lead you to these “fits.”  In the classroom lesson coming this fall (a lesson that can be downloaded by high school counselors and shown to students in a computer lab), I will teach students how to complete a worksheet to get them on the path of finding these financial fits.  In our net cost estimator seminar I will teach you- the parents – how to use this new government initiative to nail down these “fits.” 

These “financial fits” are the colleges that you want your son or daughter to focus on…the colleges where you want your son or daughter to apply.  These “financial fits” are schools that will keep you away from excessive borrowing. 

If you are a senior parent, I highly encourage you to keep reading my articles and viewing the seminars I recommend in the timeline I provide.  In 2010-2011 my hope is that it won’t be just the seniors that I work with at my high school, but it will be you, - students and parents across the country – that I will help.  Soon we will begin the quest for those “financial fits.”