If you as a parent are out of debt by the day your kid starts college, you’ll have more cash on hand to help with college bills. If you start the process of getting out of debt years before your kid starts college, you’ll have more cash on hand to save for college.
Either way, you’ll dramatically increase the chances that your child will graduate from college and begin adult life debt-free.
Today I’m featuring four amazinglyeasy steps to get out of debt, from best-selling author Dave Ramsey. These steps to get out of debt are so easy, you can fit them on a post-it note.
There’s no question about it—the ability to focus and concentrate for extended periods is absolutely critical to college academic performance.
The problem is—college debt can actually hurt focus and concentration.
In this article by college student Ashley Bulchandani on dailytarheel.com, she tells adults exactly how she feels. “As a current college student, I am personally struggling with college debt and paying off my loans.” She worries that “debt accumulation can stress out students and lead to negative behaviors such as drinking, smoking, working a lot, and not focusing in class.” She points to research showing that “excessive college debt results in overall low academic performance in college and low graduate school attendance.”
The happy news is that parents can help. A lot.
1. Restrain your urge to push your child toward education that comes with a high debt burden.
Surprisingly, prestigious Gallup research concludes that expensive education does not lead to a happier life, more career success, or more money. See the exciting, liberating article I’ve written on this subject here. Or see me talking about this here.
Today I’m featuring a 5-minute video clip from the popular TV show Adam Ruins Everything. This 5-minute clip is titled, “How College Loans Got So Evil.” It’s funny! But then again, it’s not funny at all—because it’s true.
Please share this post with every parent, teacher, guidance counselor, school staff person, government official, and college staff person you know.
Because we all need to know the truth—so we can take evasive action for the kids we love.
*Viewer discretion is advised
For clear, step-by-step help getting your kids through college debt-free, read on.
Parent, I urge you: DO NOT cosign a student loan for your child.
Today I’m featuring information from an article by nationally syndicated radio host and author Clark Howard. I consider this to be must-read info for every parent. After you read below, you can find articles by Clark Howard, listen to his radio show, view his videos, and sign up to receive his money-saving advice right in your email inbox at ClarkHoward.com.
Are you considering cosigning a loan for an adult child who needs a car, a student loan, or a credit card?
Here are 7 deeply concerning things you need to be aware of before you pick up that pen.
1. If you cosign a student loan, you may unwittingly strain future family relationships.
Nobody likes to think about this, but there’s an almost four in 10 chance that when you cosign a student loan, you will be the one who has to pay off the balance. A CreditCards.com survey found that of the cosigners they surveyed, 38 percent had to pay some or all of the loan balance or credit card bill because the primary borrower did not, 28 percent experienced a drop in their credit score because the person they chose to cosign for paid late or not at all, and 26 percent said the cosigning experience damaged their relationship with the person they cosigned for.
Parents, you feel a lot of pressure to get your kids into a “good” college after high school. An “Ivy League” university would be ideal! But is all the work and stress really worth it?
A 10th grader writes to tell me that his parents are worried that if he takes dual enrollment college classes in high school, he might be prevented from having “the full high school experience.”
Here’s his email to me:
“Jeannie, I know you strongly recommend dual enrollment college classes in high school for kids who want to get through college debt-free. I want to do dual enrollment full time in 11th and 12th grades so I’ll have two years of college done by the time I graduate from high school. But my parents are trying to steer me toward doing dual enrollment only just part time. They’re worried that if I take a full load of dual enrollment college classes in high school, I’ll miss out on ‘the full high school experience.’ What do you think?”
Could you one day have your social security checks garnished to pay for your kids’ college?
Yes.
You may be in danger of having your social security checks garnished and not even realize it.
Parents duped into taking out Parent PLUS loans to pay for their kids’ college can find themselves on the hook for hundreds or thousands of dollars each month, right at a time of life where they may be wanting to (or worse, needing to) retire.
A 35-year-old father of two recently contacted me in desperation, looking for help getting out from under $40,000 in student loan debt. “I’ve been paying $475 a month payments on this debt for years,” he said, “but because of interest piling up, I’ve hardly made a dent in it! I can’t buy a house; I can’t save for retirement; and we’re just scraping by every month, just barely able to pay our bills. Help!”
My advice to him was blunt. “You need to get aggressive,” I said. “Start doing insane, crazy things to pay this debt down as fast as possible.” I talked to him about finding an elderly person who needed a little help with home care and yard work, and moving his little family into one room in this person’s unfinished basement to save on rent. I talked to him about selling his nice car and taking Uber to the grocery store and public transportation to work. I talked to him about getting all of Amy Dacyczyn’s Tightwad Gazette books and adopting a whole bunch of her crazy, outrageous, creative strategies for saving money and paying down the principal on debt.
Parents, don’t let what happened to this man happen to your kid.
Does your son think that student loan debt is “no big deal’? Is your daughter balking at filling out scholarship applications because she mistakenly believes the lie that “everyone gets student loan debt—that’s just the way it is—it’ll be easy to pay my loans off when I graduate“?
Then buy or rent the documentary and consider watching it with the teens in your family.
“Broke, Busted, and Disgusted” is guaranteed to light fire in your teens to do all they can to avoid student loan debt, and in you to do everything you can to get your kids through college debt-free and into jobs they love afterward.
To keep debt-free college at the top of your mind as your kids are growing up, subscribe to my “email updates” using the form on this site, and then open it every single time it lands in your email inbox. It always includes a valuable timely article, plus info on my speaking and online specialty classes. (Use the directions here to make sure your email provider always sends my emails straight to your email inbox.)
Don’t let your kids become a student loan statistic.
Buy (or rent) the entire 53-minute “Broke, Busted, and Disgusted” documentary here.
Praise for Broke, Busted, and Disgusted:
“This makes me want to challenge every societal norm we have around borrowing for school.”
— Ryan T. – Madison, WI
“I’m appalled at how easy the process of borrowing money is for school.”
— Kay F. – Omaha, NE
“Students have to know that their decisions now have very serious consequences later. This film does that and more! There are many ways to get an education and many ways to pay for it, don’t accept student loans as your only option.”
There’s no part of parenting more important than setting your kid up for successful college and career life.
For clear, step-by-step help getting your kids through college debt-free, get your copy of my book:
It’s a reference book, so nobody reads the whole thing cover to cover. Pick out what you need to read in it using the fast-paced, 10-minute video instructions here.
You can see more than 100 reviews of it on Amazon at:
You can see why financial advising professionals love LAUNCH, here.
You can see the top 9 questions parents are asking me about LAUNCH, here.
Read just one chapter of LAUNCHevery 1–3 months while your child’s in middle school and high school, and you’ll know every viable strategy for debt-free college at exactly the right time to implement it.
And if your child’s already well past middle school? That’s OK; you can run to catch up. But the process of getting your kids through college debt-free goes more smoothly the earlier you start it—especially if you’re not planning to save up any money to pay for college.
Take a step on this right now. Get regular, inspiring help from me—every Monday morning.
Subscribe to my free weekly email newsletter here.
Do you have specific questions for me about debt-free college and career for your kids?
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Do you have friends who are parenting kids ages 12–22?
SHARE this post on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn right now.
What about you? What jumped out at you when you watched this trailer for Broke, Busted, and Disgusted?
What are your favorite strategies for helping kids avoid student loan debt? Comment below or LIKE Jeannie Burlowski Author on Facebook, find this post on that page, and let’s talk about it there.
Who is Jeannie Burlowski?
Jeannie is a full-time academic strategist, podcast host, and sought-after speaker for students ages 12–26, their parents, and the professionals who serve them. Her writing, speaking, and podcasting help parents set their kids up to graduate college debt-free and move directly into careers they excel at and love. Her work has been featured in publications such as The Huffington Post, USA Today, Parents Magazine, and US News and World Report, and on CBS News.
Jeannie also helps students apply to law, medical, business, and grad school at her website GetIntoMedSchool.com. You can follow her on Twitter @JBurlowski.
This article is part 3 of a 3-part series on what students can do if they’ve left college with student loan debt. You can find the first two (very important) articles in this serieshereandhere.
Every year, frightening numbers of students finish college with massive amounts of student loan debt—and then find themselves completely unable to find employment that pays enough to cover their student loan payments.
Many of these 20-somethings work as nannies, restaurant servers, and cashiers, jobs that barely pay enough to cover rent and groceries.
What can be done about this? Simply not paying on student loan debt is not an option. (You can read about the scary consequences of student loan debt default here.)
If you’re a former college student and you find yourself in this position, here are 6 strategies that will help.
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