by Shannon Vasconcelos, former financial aid officer at Tufts University

College is expensive. I’m confident that this is news to exactly zero parents reading this article. But what we sometimes fail to appreciate as parents is the control that we, along with our children—the college consumers—have over college costs, even after a college choice has been made. While it’s true that students and parents don’t get to vote on tuition prices (boy, would that be nice!), we do have significant power over the large and small choices that can end up increasing or decreasing our child’s educational costs significantly. Here are a handful of ways you can save money as your child prepares to head off to school, and throughout their college enrollment.

Congrats to all graduating seniors who successfully applied to college and are preparing to start this fall. Laura Amigone, a college success coach from Rudder Coaching, joins the podcast this week to offer advice to these students to help them make a smooth transition from high school to college. We’ll also discuss why saving is important for everyone in another of our Personal Finance 101 series.

by Michelle Richardson, former Assistant Vice President at Chase Student Loans

Even though your grandmother probably told you there is no such thing as a free lunch, everyone loves getting something for nothing. We are offered free things—typically of little to no value—all of the time, usually with a catch. For many families, college is far from free. But, what if you were offered a freebie that would help pay for your child to go to college?

by Jan Combs, former financial aid officer at Harvard Graduate School of Education

With 2021 just hours away, many will be contemplating their New Year’s resolutions. Eating healthier, carving out more “me time,” reading more, or restarting that favorite hobby… Those are all worthy resolutions for the new year, but can I add one more for your consideration? How about focusing on financial literacy in 2021? This is one of my favorite resolutions, and there is no better time to regroup and freshen up that financial plan than at the beginning of a new year!

Southern New Hampshire University President Dr. Paul LeBlanc joined the show this week to offer his thoughts on how SNHU is responding to COVID-19, tips for online learning, and what he sees as the overall disruption to higher ed and the potential positive outcomes to that disruption. For those with college savings plans, we’ll discuss how to maximize those plans to pay the college tuition bill when it arrives.

by Jan Combs, former financial aid officer at Harvard Graduate School of Education

Spending extra time at home with the kids? Use the current crisis to teach kids valuable money lessons!

During this unique time, many have children home from school for the foreseeable future. Whether they are preschoolers, middle schoolers, or in high school or college, now is a great time to speak with your children about money and impart valuable financial lessons. Times of economic uncertainty can provide teachable moments to children and adults alike, and what better time to learn than now? No matter their age, your children can grasp age-appropriate money milestones that will serve them well moving forward.

This episode is all for the underclassmen, from mapping out a plan for your high school coursework to understanding the what and why of participating in extracurricular activities throughout your secondary school years. Finally, we have some financial advice for parents of ninth and tenth graders to follow as they prepare to pay for college in a few years.

Families with college savings in the stock market are likely concerned after watching the recent dramatic fall in stock prices. Worry is understandable. Like a number of things in the college admissions process, the stock market is out of our immediate control. No matter how badly we want to push that line in an upward trajectory, the market does what the market does, and we need to accept and remember that this is the ebb and flow of investing. That reality does not mean, however, that we need to be passive observers of—or blind reactors to—what happens to our college savings. Tough economic times remind us more than ever that we need to take control of what we can in our finances, pay attention to our goals, and implement strategies most likely to make our goals a reality. As the stock market rises and falls, college savers should keep these points in mind:

Paying for college can be a monumental task, and often requires a team effort to pull it off, including significant contributions from the both the student and their parents. Lucky families may also receive help from outside their immediate household, most commonly from grandparents. But did you know that ill-timed tuition payments from grandma or grandpa could cost you substantial amounts of financial aid? Tune in to the latest installment of our video series, We Can Explain, to learn how grandparents can best help pay for college without costing the student financial aid. Click here to watch “College Finance Tips & How Grandparents Can Help.”

On December 20, 2019, President Trump signed into law a government spending bill which included many provisions of the SECURE Act (short for Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act—quite a mouthful). As its extended name would imply, most of the provisions of the SECURE Act affect retirement accounts like IRAs and 401ks. One particular aspect of the new law that we thought may be of particular interest to Insider blog readers (all diligent college savers, I’m sure!) affects the use of 529 Plans.