Don't shield students from college funding issues

In any family with college-age children, conversations about college admissions and financing are commonplace.

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There appears to be, however, a hole in the conversation bucket: In a recent survey, 58 percent of parents said their family has discussed who will be paying for what, yet 64 percent of students claim they have no idea how much their college education will cost. Plus, two-thirds of the youngsters reported they are somewhat concerned or very concerned about not having enough money to pay for college.

"Kids feel the pressure," says Julie Ravech, director of Fidelity Investments Institutional Services, which commissioned the 2004 survey of 477 college-bound teens and 376 parents of college-bound teens.

"Some parents really want their children just to focus on doing well in school," Ravech adds. Half said they want to pay for all or most of their children's college education.

"It seems a lot of parents don't want to burden their children but they are already burdened," she adds.

Perhaps the pressures are getting worse. In the first five years of an annual Junior Achievement poll on teens and summer jobs, "extra spending money" was the number one reason teens said they worked during the summer. In 2005, the primary motivation for summer employment sported a more down-to-business goal: "save for college."

"As the ability of parents to fully fund their children's college education decreases over time, much of the responsibility for financing college will shift to the students themselves," says Darrell Anthony Luzzo, senior vice president for education at Junior Achievement.

It's one big reason experts say college-cost discussions should be a family affair. The student self-help portion of financial aid packages, such as loans and work-study, often is significant. "How much debt am I willing to take on?" is a question teens must ask themselves, but without an open family discussion about college financing, they won't understand the options and their implications, says Mark Rothbaum, president of the scholarship search site Lunch-Money.com. "This is a time in their life when they're starting to take on more responsibility for their own finances, their own future."

Family discussions about college financing can help young people feel empowered about having a plan and assured that college is within reach, as opposed to having "dashed expectations and dashed hopes" that affording college is an impossibility, says Joe Paul Case, director of financial aid at Amherst College.

It's rarely too early to talk
While age-appropriateness is certainly a factor, discussions about financing college can begin earlier than one might think. "It is never too early for parents to talk with their children about the family's financial realities and the need for children to contribute to their college education," says Luzzo. "Even kids as young as 4 or 5 have the capacity to understand the concept of savings." In fact, children can really become excited about personally contributing to a special college education savings account.