Choosing the Right College Planner

Contributed by Michelle J. Scott

It is the dream of every student to enroll into the best college after finishing their higher education. During such situations, most of the students feel great pressure since they have to prepare themselves to appear for SAT/ACT. Generally, it is necessary to take practice test to achieve good scores. Taking SAT/ACT test for more than once can benefit you. Also, seeking an expert and taking test from him can add benefit.

However, there are numerous consultancies or college planners available who assist the students and parents. It is always better to give good attention while choosing the right college planners. Usually the college planners assist in selecting the right college, preparing for SAT/ACT, and provide financial aid as well. Seeking the help from a good college can fetch u the following results:

1. Select the right career path: When the student chooses the right career path, he/she can graduate in 4 years where as most of them graduate in 5 years.

2. Selecting the right college: It is always ideal to choose the college depending on the student's academic, social and financial ability.

3. College application: Since there are many colleges in the nation, the students get an opportunity to apply in more than one college. The student has to utilize it and apply for at least 6 colleges according to the experts.

4. Minimizing the college cost for the families: Since the number of students who graduates in 4 years by seeking the help of college planners are high, the financial aid is assured for such students then the others.

5. College experience: A good and successful college experience creates confidence, self-esteem, and acquires family pride as well.

Many college planners or education consultancies offers many programs to ensure opportunities for success. Some of the programs that are necessary are:

1. Student career search to access on-line aptitude/attitude test

2. College Tracking List that provides all the information on anticipated completion of each step

3. Student positioning session, mainly telephonic session, that helps the student to choose the right college

4. Completing CSS forms and financial aid forms provided from college

5. Fill up the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. 90% of these forms are submitted with errors, it is very essential to give due attention to get financial aid

6. Counseling with the family regarding the loan and budget option

7. Providing complete customer service

It does not matter how much you spend for SAT prep course or ACT prep course. It is the marks you score as a result of taking these tests matters.

SuccessfulEducationSolutions.com is the official website of Successful Education Solutions. They are best and well known college planners in Danbury. They assist the students in preparing for SAT prep course or ACT prep course and college essay help. They also help parents by providing financial aid.

For more information visit: http://www.successfuleducationsolutions.com/

Teaching Your Children How To Manage Their College Debt May Be The Best Route To Take

Student loans are a serious undertaking, and many parents wonder if they should take out loans on behalf of their child or else allow the student to have primary responsibility for the loans. Many parents wish that they could pay for their children's education in full, but the rising costs of education often make this prohibitive. As a parent, should you foot the bill and the debt for your child's education? You may be surprised to hear that you may be doing more good for your child if you let him or her take responsibility for college funding.

As a parent encouraging your child to be responsible for his or her student loans, your role in your son or daughter's college funding is not without risk. After all, you will likely serve as a co-signer for any loans your child takes out. This means that while you will not be the primary loan-holder, you still assume partial responsibility for the loans and will be adversely affected if your child does not handle her or his loans in a responsible manner. You will want to be sure that your child is truly serious about college and is able to take on debt responsibly.

Making it clear that your child will be financially responsible for a college education will likely influence him or her to make a smarter college choice. After all, when mom or dad is footing the bill, a student may opt to attend a costly private college. If students are forced to take out loans in their own names, however, they are likely to select a more economical college that meets their needs, such as a state school.

Managing his or her finances independently will help your child to learn responsibility. After all, handling money is something every student should learn, and college is certainly the time to instill a sense of fiscal accountability in your child. By managing student loans and figuring out a college funding plan with only minimal assistance from you, your child is learning valuable money-managing skills that will benefit her or him in the future.

Paying back the student loans post-graduation is an important lesson in interest, repayment plans, and budgeting carefully in order to afford payments. Your child will learn a lot from having to navigate the terms of his or her student loan debt.

Furthermore, having loans will compel your son or daughter to have a goal in during college, as well as a deadline for finding employment upon graduating. After all, those student loans will come due before you know it. Without the worry of student loan debt hanging over their heads, many students lack focus during college. They are often in no hurry to graduate and grow up, unless given a very compelling reason to do so.

Students who are held financially responsible for their education also tend to do better in college because they are aware of the monetary value of their education. They get better grades and have fewer absences, since they are paying for every course on their own.

As a parent, it is hard to know when to step in and help your child or when to insist that he or she take responsibility in regards to debt and financial aid options. When it comes to student loan debt, taking the "tough love" stance is a good way of instilling ownership and responsibility in your children as they pursue college or online school.

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College Students and Loan Payback: Lending Agencies Make Profits Preying on Students and Parents

Student lending organizations and collection agencies make money various ways. One of the most profitable is to convince graduates, who have already borrowed to pay tuition and fees for four years, to take out further loans for advanced degrees.

The agencies defer interest payments on the original loans until the student graduates with his or her new degree. Then they add the amount of the interest deferred on the original loans with the interest deferred on the graduate school loans to the principle on both the first four years and the advanced degree to arrive at a massive amount of money owed by the graduate.

Jorge Was Such a Student

I sometimes write about a wonderful young man whose name was Jorge. He was the first of his family to attend college. To do so Jorge had to take out student loans. He could not get a job after his four years so a representative from a collection agency suggested he earn an advanced degree. Although the lending agency deferred his original loans, they accrued interest and, along with his new loans for graduate school, came to an extraordinary amount (over $150,000).

Jorge, as with most students, could not get a professional entry-level position after he earned his graduate degree. The pressure from collection agencies was so great that he felt he had no choice but to take his own life. (I continually counsel graduates in this situation that suicide is never an acceptable alternative.)

Student Loan Organizations Make Lots of Money Off These Unfortunate Students

Many students still cannot get jobs after graduate school, and neither the banks who loaned the students their money, nor the collection agencies are sympathetic to this situation. Quite frankly, this is a successful gambit of the student loan industry: Lend students lots of money, defer these loans for many years during which they earn lots of interest, and charge huge late fees and collection agency charges when the graduates cannot pay them back.

Parents Often Use Their Own Savings to Pay the Loans

If the student does not commit suicide (many lending agencies can collect insurance on the loan) the lending agency (including the Department of Education) passes the loan on to collection agencies who will put an excruciating amount of pressure on these hapless graduates. The unemployed graduates often have no choice but to appeal to their parents to help them out of their predicament. The parents, who are now preparing for their own retirement, are now forced to take out a mortgage or home equity loan. Then the student loan (in many cases in excess of $100,000) is now paid.

Think of what has just happened here. The lending companies and collection agencies have extended exorbitant amounts of debt to students who never had any chance of paying their loan back. When mom and dad pay back the debt with their own retirement savings and home equity loans, the agency makes huge profits on the current interest, deferred interest, collection fees, late fees and various other charges.

Politicians Also Make Money Off Student Loans

No wonder the lending agencies dole out so much PAC money to politicians. They need to keep bankruptcy, as an alternative, out of the picture. If the government passed a law that gave graduates the same right to declare bankruptcy as other citizens, a major form of revenue for the lending industry and politicians would be destroyed.

My point is that there is no excuse to refuse bankruptcy to any graduate who reaches such a point of destitution. When graduates take their own lives or parents lose their life assets and life savings to help their children out of this mountain of debt we must change the laws.

This article was created by J Roberts also known as Professor Roberts. He is a noted counselor to parents and students alike and is the author of the book "Colleges Behind Closed Doors: What You Need to Know (Long) Before You Go." He is an authority on the inner-workings of colleges, college preparation, selection, and finances. Visit him at http://www.ProfessorRoberts.com.

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Don't Let The Average College Tuition Cost Stop You

Is there a legitimate way to beat the average college tuition cost these days?

That was a question my wife and I had as our son was close to completing his senior year of high school.

We did some painful research and discovered that average college costs had increased "a little" from 30 years ago when we attended college.

When I say " a little", I mean a little too much to believe. State college tuitions for 1 year in 1978 was around $1000 in the South. Now, you are looking at $6000 - $8000 a year.

This is outrageous. And I am not even including room and board or miscellaneous expenses.

It gets even more unbelievable. If you look at the private universities, tuition shoots even higher to around $30,000 a year or more. Harvard University, here I come.

Our son wanted to get a bachelor's degree in business. We didn't know how we could possibly afford it.

We were not going to go the route of student loans either.

We found out that necessity truly brings forth inventive ideas. Maybe it was just stubbornness on our part.

Whatever it was, we were determined to find a way to make this work, and did we get the surprise of our lives.

There is actually a very simple way to slash the average college tuition cost.

You can do this by using 2 testing credit services: CLEP and DANTES.

Both of these testing service programs provide a college student with the opportunity to obtain college credits in a variety of courses.

CLEP offers 33 college level courses in literature, the foreign languages, history and social sciences, science and mathematics, and business.

DANTES originally was developed for military personnel, but is now available to anyone. They offer testing credits in 38 different college level courses. Their courses also cover a variety of subject areas such as math, social sciences, humanities, business, physical science, and technology.

How much can you save with this strategy?

You can easily save more than 50% from the cost of college tuition.

These tests are taken at testing centers across the country. All you need to do is find a center close to you and register to take a test of your choice. These tests are almost all multiple choice, but you definitely need to be well prepared.

We have done it and so can you if you take the right steps to get prepared!

The great news is that today's average college tuition cost is no longer an obstacle to your college degree.

Get more details on how to slash today's AVERAGE COLLEGE COST by more than 50%.

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