1) College-bound students should save part of their summer earnings every summer toward college expenses. Every dollar saved is a dollar that might not have to be borrowed and then repaid later.
2) A car is not a necessity for a college freshman
3) Most scholarships are for one year only.
4) Always eat in the college dining room when you make your college visits.
5) Parents are always expected to contribute to their students' educational costs. The average student cannot pay the cost of college on his/her own anymore.
6) In Wyoming, college dorms are always the least expensive living plan, no matter how many roommates think they can share expenses together to save money. Food goes bad, roommates' friends come over for dinner. Barbie drinks Susie's juice, and Muffy has to buy a big jar of cream of tartar to make one lemon meringue pie.
7) Credit card and gas companies start sending credit cards in the mail early in the fall semester to students' college addresses. Send your student to college educated about the risks of using credit.
8) Commercial computer scholarship searches are rarely productive. Pick up a copy of the free statewide scholarship book and search for the free computerized scholarship databases on the web.
9) Students must have some cash when they arrive on campus, even if they're getting bundles of financial aid.
10) Open your student's checking account during the summer before college. Practice reconciling the account with your student for several months so that activity isn't a total mystery when he/she get to school and looks at the bank statement. If you will make deposits to the student's account, send the receipts to your student promptly to reinforce good recording keeping practices.
11) Consider signing up with an on-line computer service or getting access to the Internet through a local service provider so you can communicate with your student on the Internet.
12) Work out a budget with the student before he/she leaves for school. Write down the major, one-time expenses like tuition and books, and then set goals for monthly expenditures. Use financial aid, assistance from family, and summer savings and gifts as resources toward the expenditures.
13) Don't fight your student's college battles for them. If something is going wrong in the residence hall, or if there is a snag in the receipt of financial aid encourage the student to work it out himself/herself. A lot of learning takes place outside the classroom and administrative hassles follow us through our lives. It's valuable to acquire techniques for handling them early in adulthood.
14) Paying a tax accountant or a financial consultant to complete the FAFSA is a little like paying H&R Block to complete a 1040EZ - costly and unnecessary. You can do it yourself and there are people in financial offices and counseling offices all over the state who will be glad to help for free, if you have a question.
15) Application for financial aid is an annual event. It gets easier each time you do it but the rules change fairly often, too, so read the directions each time. Plan to devote a day during the Christmas break each year completing the forms, so you can date and mail them early in January. Estimate your income and send a copy of tax returns to the college later in the spring if you feel your estimates were off by more than a couple hundred dollars.
16) Have your student contact local scholarship donors during the summer to ascertain where the scholarship check will be sent. This is also a good opportunity to supply the donor with the appropriate college names and addresses (and deadline dates for receipt of checks) if needed.
17) The Privacy Act (sometimes called the Buckley Amendment) prevents colleges from discussing some parts of the student's college life with the student's parents. Don't be surprised if correspondence (including bills) from the college is mailed to the student instead of you; and be prepared for college employees to tell you that they can't discuss your question with you unless your student authorizes it.
18) Freshman who borrow a Stafford loan must wait 30 days after the semester begins to receive the proceeds of the loan. If your plan was to have your student buy books with the Stafford loan, make a new plan.
19) The Award Notice is the way the financial aid office communicates vital award information to your student. Read every word of every award notice from every college. Return a copy of the award notice to the school when requested, showing whether or not the student intends to accept the offered award(s). The student can accept an offer at first, and then decline later; but it may not be possible to decline an offer and then later ask to have it restored.
20) It is possible for an eligible student to receive assistance from several different kinds of aid simultaneously. For example, a student could have a scholarship, a student loan, a part-time job on campus and a federal grant all at the same time. This is actually the ideal situation because it serves to even out the loan - the student can earn a little, borrow a little and receive some free assistance, too. A combination of several types of aid is called a "package" and colleges strive to develop packages which fit students' individual situations.
21) If the student has a choice between an on-campus job and an off-campus one, the on-campus opportunity should be a heavy favorite. Statistics consistently show that students who work part-time on campus carry a better grade point average than those who work off-campus and even than those who don't work at all! They also graduate with more frequency than those who don't work or those who work in an off-campus job. Don't be worried about a few hours per week of campus employment - it helps the student organize his day and we all get to know your student better.
22) Make a friend in each financial aid office that you plan to deal with. Visit, call, collect business cards; have a name handy so that, after a sleepless night, you can talk to someone who can tell you the straight story!