When should we start planning for college?

There are two answers to the question regarding financial planning for college. The first answer deals with academics, the second deals with finance. In a perfect world, in which none of us live, you should start thinking about college when your child is in sixth grade. This answer catches most people off-guard.  It is not meant to do so, and it is not the end of the world if you do not.  You will see from some of the slides in the 6^th to 8^th Grade Syllabus why you should start planning in 6^th and 7^th grade for college courses, but again, if you don’t, it is not the end of the world.  I get calls every single year from people who have children who are seniors in high school and need help, so we work with what we have to get the job done.  So, although there is an ideal time academically, you can start the college planning process at any time, and we could help anywhere along the way.  Financially, you should look at the baseline cost of your state school (COA) without any scholarship and use that number to determine what the minimum amount you should be targeting for cost.  You could reduce that by going two years in a junior college and then finishing out two years in the state university, which is totally acceptable, but again, you’re going to have to look at your own state’s cost structure to figure out what that is.  The number I give people off the top of my head every year is $25,000.  If you look across most states, the cost of the state school, an example would be Arizona State University, is approximately $25,000. If you target the next range up from there, say a midsize private school anywhere in the country, their tuition will be between $45K-$65K.  You will see that through their scholarship structures that the first scholarship swath they offer is an attempt to get their number down into the $25,000 (+/-) range in order to do the best job they can matching apples to apples.  It’s not perfect, but it’s what we’ve seen over the years.

Start planning early and use the universities posted COA numbers to understand the finances.