How To Pay For College

how to pay for college

Recently, a good friend of mine told me that after his wife delivered their baby he went down to the hospital cafeteria and the “panic” of paying for college was all he could think about while eating his soggy salad. While I challenged his priorities and encouraged him to definitely practice his swaddling technique, he was likely just responding to the frenzy of conversations among older peers in his neighborhood, workplace, and community who are currently in the throes of this conundrum.

With the price of higher education rising much faster than inflation, many students and families find themselves struggling to pay for college, or looking for ways to reduce or offset the costs. To that end, we’ve developed a series entitled “How To Pay For College” designed to help, with expert advice and creative ways for meeting this challenge.

Check out our first installments with author, columnist, and visiting scholar Jeff Selingo and Rich DeMillo, director of Georgia Tech’s Center for 21st Century Universities (C21U).

And for parents much closer to writing checks and packing bags for college, here are five tips.  

Author: Rick Clark

Rick Clark is the Executive Director of Strategic Student Access at Georgia Tech. He has served on a number of national advisory and governing boards at the state, regional, and national level. Rick travels annually to U.S. embassies through the Department of State to discuss the admission process and landscape of higher education. He is the co-author of the book The Truth about College Admission: A Family Guide to Getting In and Staying Together, and a companion workbook published under the same title. A native of Atlanta, he earned a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a M.Ed. from Georgia State University. Prior to coming to Tech, Rick was on the admissions staff at Georgia State, The McCallie School and Wake Forest University. @clark2college