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College Savings: What You Need to Know
and How to Get Started Today

by Jordan E.Goodman

For your children to have a bright economic future, they will need a college education. As the world continues to grow more competitive and technologically sophisticated, most of the high-paying jobs will require skills learned in college and graduate school.

Numerous studies have shown that the gap between earnings of college and high school graduates widens every year. Years ago, most employers expected workers to have at least a high school diploma; today, a college degree is considered a minimum requirement for most well-paying jobs.

While it has never been more worthwhile to attend college, neither has the cost of college been greater. Four years of tuition, room, and board at a public university in your home state can easily run between $20,000 and $50,000, and the cost of four years at an Ivy League school ranges from $100,000 to $150,000.

With college costs expected to increase between 4 and 7 percent a year, today's prices could look like bargains 20 years from now.

For example, unless the pace of college cost inflation dramatically (and unexpectedly) slows, parents of a baby born in 1998 should expect to pay a whopping $100,000 to $150,000 for their child's public education and a mind-boggling $300,000 to $400,000 for four years at a top-ranked private university.

Before you become discouraged and convinced that you could never amass such a sum, realize that you can take many steps today to make college education a reality for your children tomorrow.

Estimating College Costs - Info and Worksheet
In my book, Everyone's Money Book, I have included
a 6-step worksheet to calculate how much
you need to squirrel away each month. Click here to find out more.

Despite the obstacles, millions of people finance their children's college education, and you can be one of them. It will take long-term saving and investing in the years before college, combined with borrowing from several sources once your children enroll.

If you develop a realistic plan and commit seriously to it, you can meet most or all of the massive expenses. If you ignore or put off the problem, the challenge of college funding becomes only more daunting, and you may end up unable to send your children to school.

Rather than dwelling on how much it could cost, you might put your mind at ease a bit by getting started saving today.

While there are many investing methods and opportunities available to you, one of the easiest ones I have come across is BabyMint's college education savings program. This FREE program is designed to help you save for college without increasing your spending or savings. Check it out.

Save for College for Free!

Jordan E. Goodman is America's Money Answers Man. He is a regular contributor to Public Radio International's The Marketplace Morning Report and appears frequently on NBC's The Today Show, PBS, MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, and Nightline. For 18 years, Mr. Goodman was on the editorial staff of Money magazine, where he served as Wall Street correspondent, in addition to his role as weekly financial analyst on NBC News at Sunrise for 9 years.

He is the author of Everyone's Money Book (over 200,000 copies sold) with 6 special focus editions on College, Credit, Financial Planning, Real Estate, Retirement Planning and Stocks, Bonds and Mutual Funds and the co-author of Barron's Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms.

His website MoneyAnswers.com is full of resources, tips and strategies you can use to build a solid financial future.