Admittedly part of this financial crisis is of our own doing. Parents and students don’t exercise all of their options when searching for assistance for college tuition and all of the related costs. Many assume a Pell grant is sufficient — uh, not quite. There are untold numbers of scholarships and grant resources that remain available and virtually untapped.
“For example, the Department of Agriculture has a great program that provides tuition, a computer and a job. I could not find a student who was interested. That is a shame, because … there are resources out there, but students, parents and counselors have to find out where they are,” says Ruth Woods of the Indianapolis Black Alumni Association.
But the other part of the college cost crisis involves expenses that aren’t covered by scholarships and grants — in that case, students and parents may have to resort to taking out conventional bank loans. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but the return on investment far exceeds the risk. While parents and/or students may have to borrow anywhere from a couple of thousand to tens of thousands of dollars depending on the school, experts estimate that college graduates earn in excess of $1 million during their professional careers.
One more catch: Mom and Dad’s credit may not be looking so good in light of the economic upheaval we’ve all suffered over the past couple of years, so students may have to enter the grown-up world of debt and interest rates and take out the loan themselves. –roz edward
