College Tuition Time of Year again

Well, it is that time of year again......no, I'm not rushing it, I'm talking about August...the time college starts again after summer break.

But right now is when the thoughts of paying the bills come to mind. I received the $17,500 (or so) bill from Pratt and it is due by August 24th. I have not yet received the bill from the University of Tennessee (UTK), but I'm sure it is "in the mail".

In the long term, Cheryl and I had prepared to pay these by saving money, and I have that fact placed solidly in my head.....but still, when that bill shows up with all those zeros......it is a bit of a sticker shock.

I just don't have a checking or savings account with that kind of bread in it......so it's always an investment transfer, which sort of puts it all into perspective. I normally slap it down on my AMEX for a month so that I can use that time to transfer the money from a mutual fund. (and get the total costs figured so that I only do the transfer once)

This year has the added complication of Kristen transfering to UTK and Kimberly moving off-campus to an apartment. All of those costs are "new" and as of this moment, not fully understood. We had the loans and monthly payment plans figured out for Hofstra, and that is all up in the air for UTK as of now.

The other problem is that it looks as thought the loans taken while at Hofstra basically "come due" 6 months after she leaves the school because the loans appear to be connected to the school and not the student. (I guess this keeps people from going on and on as "professional students" and never paying off their loans) I have no clue as to how much those loans might be...I think they were small though....like $3500 per semester.

So writing this is probably less interesting for you the reader, but it helps me get my mind around the money that I will have to be paying out in the next month or two. At least it will
cause me to go and look at my investment accounts and get a mental sense of where I will have to "dip in" to get this money.

Education is a good investment......I know that, so I'm not in the least upset. Also, Cheryl and I had planned this pretty well, so other than a few small expenses we never thought of, everything has been OK to plan so far.

My foray into FAFSA

I thought this was actually my first connection with FAFSA, but apparently I had filled out a PIN application before this. Having done that, when I approached FAFSA again for a PIN, I was stopped at the moat!

Of course, I forgot my PIN from 3 or so years ago, so the FAFSA people had to check me out by asking all sorts of personal questions and then asking me to answer my "secret" question. (which for some reason I was able to remember)

But why does it take FAFSA 4 hours to email out the PIN? Are there really computers processing this request, or people looking in huge rolodex?

If you have kids and you they are going to school beyond High School, you need to know about doing a FAFSA.

Here is how the website describes their function:

Federal Student Aid, an office of the U.S. Department of Education, plays a central and essential role in America's postsecondary education community.

Federal Student Aid's core mission is to ensure that all eligible Americans benefit from federal financial assistance—grants, loans and work-study programs—for education beyond high school. The programs we administer comprise the nation's largest source of student aid: during the 2004-05 school year alone, we provided approximately $74 billion in new aid to nearly 10 million postsecondary students and their families. Our staff of 1,100 is based in 10 cities in addition to our Washington headquarters.

Among our most visible and essential services are the development, distribution, and processing of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the fundamental qualifying form used for all federal and government-guaranteed commercial lenders' programs—as well as for many state, regional and private student aid programs. By filling out the online or paper FAFSA, applicants start the process of qualifying for aid. Each year our staff processes approximately 14 million FAFSAs.

Because we oversee $391 billion of outstanding student loans, it's our job to ensure that all of our partners in the student aid community—schools, lenders, servicers and guaranty agencies—operate fairly, honestly and efficiently. Another key role we perform is to make students and their families aware that financial aid is available and is a necessary first step to further education. As America's premier source of federal student aid information, we distribute numerous publications, host multiple Web sites and run several customer call centers.

Before you attempt to fill out a FAFSA, you really need to get your hands on the Checklist of Documents Needed form and collect up those documents. The main papers needed are your prior year's tax returns.

You will of course need Social Security numbers, bank statements, and other investment, income and Federal Tax records.

FAFSA is the main clearing house for all loan and grant money information. It isn't all that hard,. but requires patience to finish.

Tomorrow I tackle the world of College Finances and FAFSA

This is another area where Cheryl and I discussed matters, but Cheryl pushed the keyboard and made it happen!

FAFSA....this is going to be a brave new world for me, and one I really need to master if my daughter is going to transfer to another school. Tomorrow I set off on a learning experience.

I need to create my own FAFSA log-in and get synced up with the rest of the family.

Technically speaking, I should have had my own already given that I am also going to school nights for an MBA....but since I wasn't going to be getting any federal money, I didn't think it made any difference. (well, it might have calculated into the entire family education "load".....my bad)

So at least this is a more "standard" process that I can learn about. There are plenty of online help pages, and even books written on the subject.....so I become a FAFSA student come tomorrow!

Wish me luck.....