When my children leave to go out into the world, I want there to be no really big surprises – at least no bad ones!  I want them to look around and say to themselves – “Yep, this is exactly what I was expecting!” There are definite life lessons and the earlier in life you learn these, the less they cost. 

 I believe that part of our job as parents is to allow our children to experience as many life lessons with us as possible.  Let me explain what I mean. 

 Take for example the story of my friend whose son had acquired a great deal of money from birthdays and a summer job.  He wanted to spend that money in November on a popular computer game system which, had he waited, would probably have been updated and possibly under his tree at Christmas.  Mom’s idea was to tell him that under no such circumstances could he spend that money so foolishly.

 I countered with: “So how would you respond if your boss handed you your pay check and said, ‘And don’t be buying any shoes this weekend. That is not what this money is for.’”

 She answered, “But I am an adult.”

“And when are you going to let him learn how to be one?” I asked.

She did relent after a very long discussion to spread out her safety net and let him learn this life lesson with her.  As I predicted, by February he came to her and shared his disappointment in his decision. The game was not what he had expected, and now he wished he had that money for something else.

Not only was she not the bad guy, he learned a valuable lesson.  Allowing him to stub his toe on this decision probably prevented a broken leg in the future.  His ‘broken leg’ might have looked like a house he could not afford that she would now be expected to make the mortgage payments on, or a car he could not insure. 

As the parent of a college bound student you need to assess what life lessons your child has learned to date and which ones he or she is going to need before they head off to the dorm. Over protection only leads to handicapping your child, the last thing you want to do as a parent. We want our teens to have a base knowledge, understand the risks, and be decisive enough to make good choices when we are not there to help them. If you continue to make all the decisions for your teen, you get better at making decisions and they never learn the process. Decisions making is a process and one that needs to be taught and practiced. Don’t let the first decisions your teen makes on their own be a big ones – start small, start now!

 You can manage the minor mistakes to help them make better decisions.  However, all too often parents do not let their children make minor mistakes, so children have to wait to make big, bad, and sometimes deadly mistakes because they never had the chance to learn from their own minor mistakes.

Need-Based College Aid is a simple mathematical formula: The amount it costs to go to a particular college MINUS your Estimated Family Contribution or EFC. Simple enough, but somewhat more complex when you get into the details.  Let’s start with EFC.

 To determine your EFC, you have to file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA.  The window to file this starts January 1 prior to the Fall semester you expect to get funding based on that particular application.  This means that if you plan to start college in the fall of 2010, the FAFSA submission window starts January 1, 2010 and goes, theoretically, to the 30^th of June, 2011 — to accommodate the entire school year.  It is theoretically possible to apply for aid based on the FAFSA into the second semester of the initial year.  I don’t suggest you push the theoretical bounds.

 Based on the FAFSA data — which most of which is extracted from your previous year’s tax return — you get a dollar figure for the EFC.  This figure is what the FAFSA people compute to be what the family should be able to “contribute” towards the cost of education based on some secret government formula.  Now, I don’t anybody who ever agreed with the EFC they received, but that’s irrelevant to this discussion. 

 Now, each college has a “cost” figure computed for it.  This figure includes tuition, fees, books, room & board and other living expenses.  A separate figure is used for those on campus and those not, based on what you submitted on the FAFSA. 

 You take this cost figure and subtract the EFC and you get the “Need,” the amount of money you “need” to attend that particular college.  This “need” figure will vary from college to college based on the established cost for that college. 

 Examples:  If your EFC is $6,000 and the cost of the college is $12,000, your “need” is $6,000.  If the cost of the college is $25,000, your “need” is $19,000.

At this point the Finical Aid office at the college assembles a “need” package of financial aid consisting of a possible mixture of grants (you don’t have to pay back), loans (you have to pay back, maybe), and/or Student Work/Study where you work and get paid while going to college.  The actual composition of the package is based on a whole different set of criteria, where there is some wiggle room you can work with the folks at the college financial aid office.

 Regardless of you financial situation, you need to file a FAFSA and see what you might be able to get.  Far too many people feel that they won’t qualify, so the simply bypass the FAFSA and probably pay a lot more than they should have.  FAFSA information is available at www.fafsa.ed.gov.