How to Pay For College - The One Thing You Must Have to Maximize Aid

Before you attempt to figure out how to pay for college, there is one thing you must have if you hope to be successful. Sure, lots of money in a college fund would be great, but if you are like most families hoping to maximize aid and minimize out of pocket costs for college, the one thing you must have is time.

Unfortunately, most people feel there is not enough time in the day to take care of regular daily activities like work, managing the household, and getting kids everywhere they need to be at different times. As time challenged as you may be, someone will have to find the time, or make the time necessary to properly navigate the financial aid and college funding process. The best way I can stress this point is to share with you a question that I will often ask when doing a group presentation. If you wish to test this, ask a group of friends or co-workers the next time you are with a group of people. The larger the group surveyed, the better the point will be made. By show of hands, how many of you fairly consistently read the newspaper every day? Note how many hands go up. Then define reading the newspaper as follows: Not every word, every page, of every section and not skimming the headlines and reading the 2 articles that interest you the most; but spending a good 20 to 40 minutes almost every day. By show of hands how many read the paper? I can almost guarantee that the number of hands that go up will be less than the first time you asked. Then ask those who did not raise their hand the first time, and those who put their hand down after defining 20 to 40 minutes of reading, why they do not read the paper regularly? Most will say there is not enough time. Some will say it is too negative or depressing.

I am here to tell you that there is more to this college planning than you can imagine; especially if you are going to become educated and spend the time to do everything you can to stack the odds in your favor; so you pay as little for college as possible. Applying for financial aid is not something you can typically bang out in one weekend. You can't pick a date and lock yourself in your room or study and be done with it. Except for the most organized individuals, it takes a bit of time for many just to pull together all the information they will need to complete the financial aid forms, (tax returns, W-2 forms, and other financial statements). Depending on the schools of interest, there may be more than one financial aid form with different deadlines. (Everyone should complete the FAFSA form, but you may have to complete the CSS Profile Form or possibly a school specific aid form). One of the comments we most often hear from families is that they are overwhelmed by the process. To avoid being overwhelmed, you must determine early on who is going to make the time to understand and master the process.

Every family is going to pay more than they expect, but there is no reason to pay more than necessary. So your first challenge before you wait too long to begin is to determine who in the family is going to schedule, the time to do this the right way. If you are struggling to find time to read the newspaper for 20 to 40 minutes, you need to figure the issue of time out, or perhaps seek the assistance of an expert who can navigate you through this important, yet expensive, life event. By Chuck Drawbaugh