Good Financial Reads: College Bound

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Catch up on some of the latest posts with this week's roundup:

Two Ways to Save on the Cost of College

by Brad Bobb, Bobb Financial

Today’s rising college costs are leaving families wondering how they are going to pay for four years of college. Most families I work with want to help their kids pay for college, maybe not all of it, but they do want to help. These families are also terrified of the thought of paying for college. As you can imagine, with an average four year expense of over $100,000, there is quite a bit you should know and understand.

Paying for college can be really complex, and should be planned for ahead of time. While there are many involved methods of paying for college, the average person will have four main sources of funds to draw from:

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The Pell Grant "Trick" to Get A Bigger Tax Refund

by Justin Chidester, Wealth Mode Financial Planning

If you're an undergraduate college student - or have been one in any of the last three calendar years - and have received a pell grant, you may not have gotten as big of a tax refund as you could have. 

I'm going to explain how you can categorize your federal pell grants in such a way to leverage the heck out of the American Opportunity Tax Credit. In fact, I used this strategy to file my tax return and amend two previous years' tax returns to get over $1,000 extra dollars back from the IRS than what I got originally. 

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Avoid Parent Plus Loans

by Brad Bobb, Bobb Financial

Most families I work with want to help their kids pay for college, and with annual price tags that can reach over $70,000; most students have to take out loans. The latest numbers say 71% of college graduates will have some kind of student loan.

For most families, the question is what kind of loan should you get. Here are a number of ways that families may choose to pay for a college shortfall.

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When Colleges Compete You Win

Flexibility is HUGE for families that want to save money on the cost of college. Casting a broad net in your college search can pay off by the thousands. Broadening your focus to even three or four schools can encourage them to compete against one another and potentially save you thousands of dollars a year.

What some of us don’t realize when searching for colleges is that they are businesses. Most businesses have an ideal client, and when they find that ideal client, they will compete for the client’s business. Colleges are no different...but how do we get them to compete?

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