June 2, 2025 • 22 mins
If you are a parent, this episode is for you. Let's begin to discuss college planning. If you haven't given college planning any thought, this is for you. If you have given it thought and are unsure where to begin, this is for you. We will start with the end in mind.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Paul, Welcome to Catholic moneytalk, where we talk about all
things money and finance, and wetry to do it through a lens of
being Catholic, where ourultimate goal is to one day be
in Heaven with the Lord. I amyour host. Paul Scarfone, thank
you for being here today.
Welcome back to Catholic moneytalk. Today I want to talk about
(00:24):
college costs and collegeplanning. If you are a parent of
a junior in high school that'sfinishing out the year and going
to be looking at colleges thissummer, or maybe you're a high
schooler listening to thepodcast today, we're going to
talk about the cost of collegeand how to begin to create a
plan to tackle that. But beforewe start, let's say a prayer in
(00:47):
the name of the Father and ofthe Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen, Heavenly Father. We thankyou for this day. We thank you
for all the ways you love andbless us, Lord. We know that you
have an awesome plan for us, aplan full of hope, full of joy,
Lord, allow us to surrender allof our plans to yours. Allow us
to invite the Holy Spirit ingive us great peace knowing that
(01:11):
you have a great plan for us. Weask this all in Jesus name amen,
in the name of the Father and ofthe Son of the Holy Spirit,
Amen. So this seems like a verytimely topic, especially as
we're the beginning of June, theend of a school year, and for
(01:32):
juniors in high school, andpossibly even sophomores and
maybe even younger than that,this summer is going to be
spent. A lot of the summer mightbe spent looking at colleges,
looking at universities,visiting some schools, and
trying to create a plan forafter college. But let's
remember one thing that welearned in Stephen Covey's book,
(01:56):
The Seven Habits of HighlySuccessful People start with the
end in mind, what is the plan?
Just recently, I was teachingthe juniors at my children's
school and helping them try tostart thinking about this topic.
And one of the things we did, ifwe looked at the scenario of a
young couple who was going to bethey just finished school. They
(02:21):
were planning on gettingmarried, but they each had
$80,000 worth of student loandebt, and when they got married,
they now had 160,000 total,right, 80 each. It's combined
once you're married, and theirmonthly payment was $1,800 for
10 years. So they not only endup paying the $160,000 back, but
(02:42):
an additional 56% or 56% 56,000in interest, right? So they end
up paying $216,000back for the 160 they borrowed
$1,800 a month, and so at theend of 10 years, right? So let's
say they graduate college. 2223they get married. 10 years
(03:05):
later, they've just paid allthat money back. Well, what if
they had created a plan to go toschool without using student
loans, and when they graduated,they had zero student loan
payments. But let's say theystill had that 1800 available,
and instead of paying it towardsstudent loans, they were able to
(03:25):
start saving it and investing itfor their future. Well, if they
invested the $1,800 a month for10 years at a decent interest
rate of a well diversifiedportfolio in investments, they
would end with over $300,000 atthe end of 10 years. So those
(03:46):
are two scenarios, the first onewith student loans, 10 years
post college, having paid back$216,000 or 10 years post
college, with an investmentaccount worth over 300,000 when
those are those are twodifferent options, and they're
just two points on the spectrum.
(04:10):
There's worse scenarios, there'sbetter scenarios, and there's a
ton in between. My point is, aswe start to plan for school,
let's start with the end inmind, what is the the goal? What
is the future state that we'reworking towards? Because without
that, we're just going to getlost in the the waves and the
(04:31):
turbulence of decisions andmoney, and you're going to
wander into student loan debt,and there's no way to wander out
of it. It is a hard, hard trudgeout of student loan debt. So as
you start to think of a plan,that's the starting point right.
Begin with the end. In mind,what are you working towards?
(04:55):
When I talk to parents and Italk to students about, hey,
what's your plan to go tocollege? Dollars. When I asked
them, Do you know how muchschool costs, most of them
don't, I would say 90. 95% ofthem don't. They don't have any
idea. They haven't actuallylooked it up. They start
telling, well, I think my cousinsaid it was like 20,000 a year,
or is it like 60 grand for thewhole you know? And they just
(05:20):
don't know. So a very helpfulresource is from College Board,
college board.org they gatherand compile tons of average and
national data points on schools,and so I pulled their report
just last week, it is the theCollege Board trends in college
(05:45):
pricing and student aid from2024 so this is, this is our
year. You know, this isregarding this year that we're
completing now, right? So just,just the beginning of the school
year. This is very, very hot offthe press. So to give you an
idea, in 2425 right? The schoolyear, we're just ending the
(06:06):
private nonprofit four year costis $43,350
right? So private nonprofit fouryear,
the public four year averagetuition 11,610 right? So those
(06:29):
are just tuition numbers. Whenwe look at housing and food, the
private four year was 58,600, ayear, and the public four year
was 24,920per year. So about 50, almost
59,000for everything, in private
school and in public colleges,four year, it was just about
(06:50):
25,000 total, right? If youdon't live there, it's it's a
little bit cheaper. So here'sthe thing to remember, these are
national averages. So if youlive in a place in the country
like I do in New Jersey, wherethings are more expensive, don't
go off of these numbers.
Actually look up real numbers,and I've done that today, and
(07:12):
I'll give you an example of it.
But in this College Boardreport, it also starts to talk
about averages as it relates tofinancial aid versus household
income and things of thatnature, right? This is not
scholarship. This is justfinancial aid. And when your
household income is over$120,000 that student aid, that
(07:34):
financial aid just seems to diveoff very, very quickly. So just
something, as you're planning,you think, Oh, we have a lot of
maybe we have a lot of kids, ora big Catholic family, maybe we
have a lot of kids. Maybe wedon't feel like we make that
(07:55):
much money. Again, nationalaverages, the average income is,
so the average household incomein the United States in 2023 was
80,000 Okay, so if you'remaking, you know, 130,000 you
might look at your peers and goon, other people are making more
than me, Yeah, but you're still,like, 50% over 50% more than the
average. So this is justsomething important to to know,
(08:20):
don't bake bank on getting justa bunch of financial aid. You
might be quickly disappointedwith how much is actually
available to you. So start withthe end in mind and get an idea
of how much school costs. Soagain, these are national
(08:40):
averages. I'm just going to pickthe the example I gave the kids
last week, the students atschool. And these are New Jersey
schools. So this is just thecost from their website. So this
doesn't have any scholarships orfinancial aid or anything to it.
So Rutgers, Rutgers, universityto state school, New Jersey,
(09:01):
four year school, tuition andfees, I'll add them both
together, was just under $18,000so we will say $18,000 so that
means living at home,right? So $18,000 times four
(09:23):
is 72,000 so $72,000 is what itwould cost to go to Rutgers for
four years, right? Not livingthere, living at home. Union
County College, which is wheremy son goes, in state residence.
There's 2700 a semester. Sothat's 5400 a year, right? So if
(09:45):
you do 5400 a year for the firsttwo years, and then go to a
state school like Rutgers for18,000 year, instead of being
72,000 for four years, it'sabout 47,000 Person for for four
years. Okay, so big savingsSeton Hall, which is a private
(10:08):
Catholic University in NewJersey, South Lawrence, New
Jersey, so for there a full timestudent, is 26,000 per semester.
So that's 52,000 actually, thatdoesn't include the fees. It's
27,600 so per semester, so for ayear, it's basically 55,000 a
(10:33):
year. So that's 220,000 for fouryears, not living at school. Oh,
my goodness, if you live atRutgers, that number I had said,
was it 72,000 you're gonnabasically add, you're gonna add
about 15,000 a year to that.
Okay, so that adds up quickly.
(11:00):
Seton Hall, living on campus,you're going to add about 16,000
a year to those numbers, right?
So that's probably 15, 16,000 ayear. It's probably what you're
looking at room and board foodin, you know, a dorm room at
four year schools, if you'reliving there. So those are some
real numbers, right? So you goto county college a little bit,
(11:24):
you're looking at 47,000 to thengo to a state school, putting a
private university over $200,000over almost $300,000 if you're
gonna live there, right? Theseare big, big numbers, even if
you get half off right of aprivate school, 300,000 that's
that's still 150,000 you do thatover four years, you're looking
(11:46):
at almost $40,000 a year. Sothese are big, big numbers. So
I'm not saying this to scare youor to talk you out of going to
college. Here's the deal. Ithink everyone should, you know,
create a plan of what you wantto do, and if you can afford to
go to school to get a degree gobut the this the problem I have
(12:07):
with a lot of people, and thisis just whether it's academics,
teachers, guidance counselors,parents, friends, relatives,
whoever's trying to influencethe Child, right, the student,
here's a challenge that I haveno no time in life. Do we just
kind of throw common sense outthe window the way we do with
(12:29):
looking at universities? What doI mean by that? If you if your
car broke down, you need togetting a different car right, a
new to you car. Normally, peoplewould sit down and say, how much
can I afford? And they mightlook at how much cash do I have
to buy a vehicle. Some peoplethat might, I don't know,
embrace loans. Might say, Oh,what's a monthly payment I can
(12:51):
afford? Right? And then, thenfrom there, whether it's cash or
a loan you're getting, how muchof a car can I afford? Then you
go look at cars in that pricerange, right? Homes are similar
to that, right? We have to go tothe bank and say, Hey, how much
can I afford? And they give us anumber. Then you go shopping
student loan, you know, collegeeducations. Oh, what's the best
school? They just go to the bestgoal. This is so nice here. It's
(13:16):
got all these great awards andreputation. And I just want to
go here and go the financial aidoffice, and they find a way to
make it happen, right? And thenyou're burdened by potentially
hundreds and hundreds of 1000sof dollars worth of student
loans. Don't do that, sit downfirst and figure out what can we
afford, and then make a planfrom there. And part of
(13:41):
affording to go to school meanswe got to work on grades right
now so that we can get someacademic scholarships, right,
some reward for having goodgrades in school we can take
tests, right? S, A, T, A, C, T,whatever all those standardized
tests are that have thepotential to earn us additional
scholarships. And then there's awhole host of different
(14:02):
scholarships out there thatpeople can apply for. There's
essays you have to write,committees that you might have
to present to, but that's achance to earn some more dollars
for school. And I hear storiesfairly often of kids and
families that were hustling,that were able to get full rides
to some very nice, eliteschools, but because they worked
(14:24):
hard at it, they just didn'tplay video games and hang out
with their friends or sleep inand hoping that some magical
free ride to school was going toshow up, right? No, there's work
and effort, but you have tocreate a plan, and a plan might
look something like we're gonnawork. You know, as a high
(14:47):
schooler this junior year, gonnawork 30 hours a week, save up as
much money as you possibly can.
Save up $1,000 a month. We'realso going to apply for. Are two
scholarships a week. And thiscollegeboard.org, if you go
there, that has some links tosome different scholarships. But
(15:08):
you know, two scholarships aweek if you if you spend an hour
applying for a scholarship, andyou do 10 scholarships, and you
get one for 25 for $250 it'salmost like you earned $25 an
hour, like it was well worth thetime. It's better than any high
school job you're gonna get, orif you get a $500 scholarship,
it's like you made $50 an hour.
That's incredible. So create aplan, put in the time, right?
(15:32):
Creating the plan. It's likewhat I say about personal
finance, 20% of it is actuallyjust putting the plan together.
The other 80% is actually doingit and executing it. It's the
hardest part. So that's myencouragement. Start with the
end in mind, create the goal.
What is the goal? Do we want tograduate? Do we want to go to
college? Right? That's the firstquestion. And if we do, do we
(15:54):
want to graduate debt free? Orare we happy having some amount
of loans? Right? I am totallydebt averse. I'm so happy that
we have no debt. We don't oweanybody a dime, right? And I
don't want my kids get studentloans. So our goal is no student
loan debt. But if I want tograduate no student loan debt,
what's my plan? How much moneycan I save? How much can how
(16:17):
much can I work to save to paytowards school, and then figure
out those dollars, how manydollars am I going to be able to
accumulate every year to paytowards school? And then that's
my budget for going to college.
That's my budget for paying forschool if I want to graduate
with no student loans. So am Imaking sense here? Hopefully I
am.
(16:41):
Start with, the end in mind,if I as a student, as a parent
of a student, if we've got agoal, the chose, the child wants
to graduate with a degree in prelaw, pre med, business history,
a teaching certificate, whateverit might be, right? What's the
(17:02):
plan? And then do we want tograduate debt free? If we do How
much have you know, the theequation goes like this, how
much have do we save forcollege? Do the parents have any
money saved to help this kid payfor college. Does a child have
any money saved to go towardscollege? How much can they work
(17:24):
now during the summers, duringschool, to accumulate money to
pay for college? Are the parentsgoing to be able to contribute
anything throughout the collegeyears towards paying for
college? Can we apply for somescholarships? Are we going to
get some financial aid. And thenone of my favorite is tuition
reimbursement. I leveraged thatwhen I was a kid, a kid, when I
(17:46):
was an adult, I was 2526 workingon my MBA, and the bank that I
was working for reimbursed me upto $5,000 a year towards my
masters. And over three years,they gave me 15,000 towards it,
right? The degree cost me like25,000 so I had to pay 10
myself. But 15 was towards it.
(18:09):
So other jobs that kids can get,there's some great places
students can get jobs that offertuition reimbursement, which is
a huge piece of it. If you canget 2500 a year, 5000 year.
That's 10 to $20,000towards the total cost of
college. That's amazing.
(18:30):
But begin with the end in mind,draw a line in the sand. What is
our goal? What are we workingtowards? And then begin to
formulate a plan to achievethat. So I hope this has been
helpful. If you're a parent of ahigh school student, a middle
school student, and you'rehearing this, you're going, oh
my goodness, I had no idea,start to come up with a plan.
(18:52):
Now, one of the things we didwith our kids is when we knew we
wanted to live debt free, and westarted that journey over 10
years ago. One of the things westarted talking to our middle
schoolers about Josh, our oldestwas probably even pre middle
school at the time, we juststarted telling them we're not
going to be borrowing money topay for college. If you want to
(19:13):
go to school, we're going tohave to save and you're going to
have to work, and we're going tohave to pay for it as we go. And
there was no surprise likejunior year or senior year, when
we were like, Hey, we're notjust gonna let you go wherever
you want to go and and flip thebill, right? They knew that we
were working towards a plan,that we were saving towards a
plan. And Josh knows right nowevery month he's got to throw
(19:34):
$700 into savings to be able topay for school. So during the
summer, he's able to do morethan that. During the school
year, he wasn't able to work asmuch, and so it was less than
that, but on average, right?
He's he's looking to put $8,400a year into savings to pay for
school, right? And we've made adeal with him that work. Over in
(19:59):
the other piece of that. Sowe've had some some college
savings, not a lot, but hey,with our mortgage paid off now
we're also able to throw a fewdollars towards that, and that
was always kind of been the planpay off the house so that when
the kids are in startingcollege, we have some extra
funds that we can help them out.
Because we don't want them tohave student loans, right? We
(20:21):
know student loans aren't ablessing when political
candidates can run on a promiseto try to get student loans
forgiven. I mean, come on, butwe're still writing them.
Schools. The government is stillwriting student loans, and we've
all acknowledged that they'rehorrible, and yet new parents of
new college students are morethan happy to just sign up for
them because they can't see anyother way to go to school. Why?
(20:43):
Because they haven't actuallysat down and tried to create a
plan. They haven't sat down andtry to figure out, how do we do
this without borrowing money?
Oh, yes, it's gonna take work,but I promise you three, four
years of work to work your buttoff and save up money so you can
pay for for school. That's somuch better than 10 plus years
of the work it takes to pay offthese stupid student loans. I
(21:07):
promise you, I promise you, Ihad student loans and I had to
pay them off. Man, I wish I hadbusted my butt more when I was
in college and those summers tosave up so I didn't have to do
that, because when I was marriedwith kids and trying to, you
know, we're having babies andpaying those medical bills and
I'm still paying my studentloans, give me a break that got
(21:28):
old so quickly. So do your kidsa favor. Parents. Help them come
up with a plan. Try to avoidstudent loans. Just draw a line
in the sand. We are notborrowing. Take them off the
table. You'll still find a wayto go to college, if that's
where you feel the Lord'scalling you, I promise you, I
promise you. All right, I'mgonna hop off my soapbox here.
(21:51):
Hopefully this was helpful.
Thank you for joining me today.
God bless you.
Thank you for listening toCatholic money talk. I hope you
join us again next time, pleaseclick Subscribe in your podcast
(22:12):
app to get notified of newepisodes. God bless you and have
a great day. You.
Paul, Welcome to Catholic moneytalk, where we talk about all
things money and finance, and wetry to do it through a lens of
being Catholic, where ourultimate goal is to one day be
in Heaven with the Lord. I amyour host. Paul Scarfone, thank
you for being here today.
Welcome back to Catholic moneytalk. Today I want to talk about
(00:24):
college costs and collegeplanning. If you are a parent of
a junior in high school that'sfinishing out the year and going
to be looking at colleges thissummer, or maybe you're a high
schooler listening to thepodcast today, we're going to
talk about the cost of collegeand how to begin to create a
plan to tackle that. But beforewe start, let's say a prayer in
(00:47):
the name of the Father and ofthe Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen, Heavenly Father. We thankyou for this day. We thank you
for all the ways you love andbless us, Lord. We know that you
have an awesome plan for us, aplan full of hope, full of joy,
Lord, allow us to surrender allof our plans to yours. Allow us
to invite the Holy Spirit ingive us great peace knowing that
(01:11):
you have a great plan for us. Weask this all in Jesus name amen,
in the name of the Father and ofthe Son of the Holy Spirit,
Amen. So this seems like a verytimely topic, especially as
we're the beginning of June, theend of a school year, and for
(01:32):
juniors in high school, andpossibly even sophomores and
maybe even younger than that,this summer is going to be
spent. A lot of the summer mightbe spent looking at colleges,
looking at universities,visiting some schools, and
trying to create a plan forafter college. But let's
remember one thing that welearned in Stephen Covey's book,
(01:56):
The Seven Habits of HighlySuccessful People start with the
end in mind, what is the plan?
Just recently, I was teachingthe juniors at my children's
school and helping them try tostart thinking about this topic.
And one of the things we did, ifwe looked at the scenario of a
young couple who was going to bethey just finished school. They
(02:21):
were planning on gettingmarried, but they each had
$80,000 worth of student loandebt, and when they got married,
they now had 160,000 total,right, 80 each. It's combined
once you're married, and theirmonthly payment was $1,800 for
10 years. So they not only endup paying the $160,000 back, but
(02:42):
an additional 56% or 56% 56,000in interest, right? So they end
up paying $216,000back for the 160 they borrowed
$1,800 a month, and so at theend of 10 years, right? So let's
say they graduate college. 2223they get married. 10 years
(03:05):
later, they've just paid allthat money back. Well, what if
they had created a plan to go toschool without using student
loans, and when they graduated,they had zero student loan
payments. But let's say theystill had that 1800 available,
and instead of paying it towardsstudent loans, they were able to
(03:25):
start saving it and investing itfor their future. Well, if they
invested the $1,800 a month for10 years at a decent interest
rate of a well diversifiedportfolio in investments, they
would end with over $300,000 atthe end of 10 years. So those
(03:46):
are two scenarios, the first onewith student loans, 10 years
post college, having paid back$216,000 or 10 years post
college, with an investmentaccount worth over 300,000 when
those are those are twodifferent options, and they're
just two points on the spectrum.
(04:10):
There's worse scenarios, there'sbetter scenarios, and there's a
ton in between. My point is, aswe start to plan for school,
let's start with the end inmind, what is the the goal? What
is the future state that we'reworking towards? Because without
that, we're just going to getlost in the the waves and the
(04:31):
turbulence of decisions andmoney, and you're going to
wander into student loan debt,and there's no way to wander out
of it. It is a hard, hard trudgeout of student loan debt. So as
you start to think of a plan,that's the starting point right.
Begin with the end. In mind,what are you working towards?
(04:55):
When I talk to parents and Italk to students about, hey,
what's your plan to go tocollege? Dollars. When I asked
them, Do you know how muchschool costs, most of them
don't, I would say 90. 95% ofthem don't. They don't have any
idea. They haven't actuallylooked it up. They start
telling, well, I think my cousinsaid it was like 20,000 a year,
or is it like 60 grand for thewhole you know? And they just
(05:20):
don't know. So a very helpfulresource is from College Board,
college board.org they gatherand compile tons of average and
national data points on schools,and so I pulled their report
just last week, it is the theCollege Board trends in college
(05:45):
pricing and student aid from2024 so this is, this is our
year. You know, this isregarding this year that we're
completing now, right? So just,just the beginning of the school
year. This is very, very hot offthe press. So to give you an
idea, in 2425 right? The schoolyear, we're just ending the
(06:06):
private nonprofit four year costis $43,350
right? So private nonprofit fouryear,
the public four year averagetuition 11,610 right? So those
(06:29):
are just tuition numbers. Whenwe look at housing and food, the
private four year was 58,600, ayear, and the public four year
was 24,920per year. So about 50, almost
59,000for everything, in private
school and in public colleges,four year, it was just about
(06:50):
25,000 total, right? If youdon't live there, it's it's a
little bit cheaper. So here'sthe thing to remember, these are
national averages. So if youlive in a place in the country
like I do in New Jersey, wherethings are more expensive, don't
go off of these numbers.
Actually look up real numbers,and I've done that today, and
(07:12):
I'll give you an example of it.
But in this College Boardreport, it also starts to talk
about averages as it relates tofinancial aid versus household
income and things of thatnature, right? This is not
scholarship. This is justfinancial aid. And when your
household income is over$120,000 that student aid, that
(07:34):
financial aid just seems to diveoff very, very quickly. So just
something, as you're planning,you think, Oh, we have a lot of
maybe we have a lot of kids, ora big Catholic family, maybe we
have a lot of kids. Maybe wedon't feel like we make that
(07:55):
much money. Again, nationalaverages, the average income is,
so the average household incomein the United States in 2023 was
80,000 Okay, so if you'remaking, you know, 130,000 you
might look at your peers and goon, other people are making more
than me, Yeah, but you're still,like, 50% over 50% more than the
average. So this is justsomething important to to know,
(08:20):
don't bake bank on getting justa bunch of financial aid. You
might be quickly disappointedwith how much is actually
available to you. So start withthe end in mind and get an idea
of how much school costs. Soagain, these are national
(08:40):
averages. I'm just going to pickthe the example I gave the kids
last week, the students atschool. And these are New Jersey
schools. So this is just thecost from their website. So this
doesn't have any scholarships orfinancial aid or anything to it.
So Rutgers, Rutgers, universityto state school, New Jersey,
(09:01):
four year school, tuition andfees, I'll add them both
together, was just under $18,000so we will say $18,000 so that
means living at home,right? So $18,000 times four
(09:23):
is 72,000 so $72,000 is what itwould cost to go to Rutgers for
four years, right? Not livingthere, living at home. Union
County College, which is wheremy son goes, in state residence.
There's 2700 a semester. Sothat's 5400 a year, right? So if
(09:45):
you do 5400 a year for the firsttwo years, and then go to a
state school like Rutgers for18,000 year, instead of being
72,000 for four years, it'sabout 47,000 Person for for four
years. Okay, so big savingsSeton Hall, which is a private
(10:08):
Catholic University in NewJersey, South Lawrence, New
Jersey, so for there a full timestudent, is 26,000 per semester.
So that's 52,000 actually, thatdoesn't include the fees. It's
27,600 so per semester, so for ayear, it's basically 55,000 a
(10:33):
year. So that's 220,000 for fouryears, not living at school. Oh,
my goodness, if you live atRutgers, that number I had said,
was it 72,000 you're gonnabasically add, you're gonna add
about 15,000 a year to that.
Okay, so that adds up quickly.
(11:00):
Seton Hall, living on campus,you're going to add about 16,000
a year to those numbers, right?
So that's probably 15, 16,000 ayear. It's probably what you're
looking at room and board foodin, you know, a dorm room at
four year schools, if you'reliving there. So those are some
real numbers, right? So you goto county college a little bit,
(11:24):
you're looking at 47,000 to thengo to a state school, putting a
private university over $200,000over almost $300,000 if you're
gonna live there, right? Theseare big, big numbers, even if
you get half off right of aprivate school, 300,000 that's
that's still 150,000 you do thatover four years, you're looking
(11:46):
at almost $40,000 a year. Sothese are big, big numbers. So
I'm not saying this to scare youor to talk you out of going to
college. Here's the deal. Ithink everyone should, you know,
create a plan of what you wantto do, and if you can afford to
go to school to get a degree gobut the this the problem I have
(12:07):
with a lot of people, and thisis just whether it's academics,
teachers, guidance counselors,parents, friends, relatives,
whoever's trying to influencethe Child, right, the student,
here's a challenge that I haveno no time in life. Do we just
kind of throw common sense outthe window the way we do with
(12:29):
looking at universities? What doI mean by that? If you if your
car broke down, you need togetting a different car right, a
new to you car. Normally, peoplewould sit down and say, how much
can I afford? And they mightlook at how much cash do I have
to buy a vehicle. Some peoplethat might, I don't know,
embrace loans. Might say, Oh,what's a monthly payment I can
(12:51):
afford? Right? And then, thenfrom there, whether it's cash or
a loan you're getting, how muchof a car can I afford? Then you
go look at cars in that pricerange, right? Homes are similar
to that, right? We have to go tothe bank and say, Hey, how much
can I afford? And they give us anumber. Then you go shopping
student loan, you know, collegeeducations. Oh, what's the best
school? They just go to the bestgoal. This is so nice here. It's
(13:16):
got all these great awards andreputation. And I just want to
go here and go the financial aidoffice, and they find a way to
make it happen, right? And thenyou're burdened by potentially
hundreds and hundreds of 1000sof dollars worth of student
loans. Don't do that, sit downfirst and figure out what can we
afford, and then make a planfrom there. And part of
(13:41):
affording to go to school meanswe got to work on grades right
now so that we can get someacademic scholarships, right,
some reward for having goodgrades in school we can take
tests, right? S, A, T, A, C, T,whatever all those standardized
tests are that have thepotential to earn us additional
scholarships. And then there's awhole host of different
(14:02):
scholarships out there thatpeople can apply for. There's
essays you have to write,committees that you might have
to present to, but that's achance to earn some more dollars
for school. And I hear storiesfairly often of kids and
families that were hustling,that were able to get full rides
to some very nice, eliteschools, but because they worked
(14:24):
hard at it, they just didn'tplay video games and hang out
with their friends or sleep inand hoping that some magical
free ride to school was going toshow up, right? No, there's work
and effort, but you have tocreate a plan, and a plan might
look something like we're gonnawork. You know, as a high
(14:47):
schooler this junior year, gonnawork 30 hours a week, save up as
much money as you possibly can.
Save up $1,000 a month. We'realso going to apply for. Are two
scholarships a week. And thiscollegeboard.org, if you go
there, that has some links tosome different scholarships. But
(15:08):
you know, two scholarships aweek if you if you spend an hour
applying for a scholarship, andyou do 10 scholarships, and you
get one for 25 for $250 it'salmost like you earned $25 an
hour, like it was well worth thetime. It's better than any high
school job you're gonna get, orif you get a $500 scholarship,
it's like you made $50 an hour.
That's incredible. So create aplan, put in the time, right?
(15:32):
Creating the plan. It's likewhat I say about personal
finance, 20% of it is actuallyjust putting the plan together.
The other 80% is actually doingit and executing it. It's the
hardest part. So that's myencouragement. Start with the
end in mind, create the goal.
What is the goal? Do we want tograduate? Do we want to go to
college? Right? That's the firstquestion. And if we do, do we
(15:54):
want to graduate debt free? Orare we happy having some amount
of loans? Right? I am totallydebt averse. I'm so happy that
we have no debt. We don't oweanybody a dime, right? And I
don't want my kids get studentloans. So our goal is no student
loan debt. But if I want tograduate no student loan debt,
what's my plan? How much moneycan I save? How much can how
(16:17):
much can I work to save to paytowards school, and then figure
out those dollars, how manydollars am I going to be able to
accumulate every year to paytowards school? And then that's
my budget for going to college.
That's my budget for paying forschool if I want to graduate
with no student loans. So am Imaking sense here? Hopefully I
am.
(16:41):
Start with, the end in mind,if I as a student, as a parent
of a student, if we've got agoal, the chose, the child wants
to graduate with a degree in prelaw, pre med, business history,
a teaching certificate, whateverit might be, right? What's the
(17:02):
plan? And then do we want tograduate debt free? If we do How
much have you know, the theequation goes like this, how
much have do we save forcollege? Do the parents have any
money saved to help this kid payfor college. Does a child have
any money saved to go towardscollege? How much can they work
(17:24):
now during the summers, duringschool, to accumulate money to
pay for college? Are the parentsgoing to be able to contribute
anything throughout the collegeyears towards paying for
college? Can we apply for somescholarships? Are we going to
get some financial aid. And thenone of my favorite is tuition
reimbursement. I leveraged thatwhen I was a kid, a kid, when I
(17:46):
was an adult, I was 2526 workingon my MBA, and the bank that I
was working for reimbursed me upto $5,000 a year towards my
masters. And over three years,they gave me 15,000 towards it,
right? The degree cost me like25,000 so I had to pay 10
myself. But 15 was towards it.
(18:09):
So other jobs that kids can get,there's some great places
students can get jobs that offertuition reimbursement, which is
a huge piece of it. If you canget 2500 a year, 5000 year.
That's 10 to $20,000towards the total cost of
college. That's amazing.
(18:30):
But begin with the end in mind,draw a line in the sand. What is
our goal? What are we workingtowards? And then begin to
formulate a plan to achievethat. So I hope this has been
helpful. If you're a parent of ahigh school student, a middle
school student, and you'rehearing this, you're going, oh
my goodness, I had no idea,start to come up with a plan.
(18:52):
Now, one of the things we didwith our kids is when we knew we
wanted to live debt free, and westarted that journey over 10
years ago. One of the things westarted talking to our middle
schoolers about Josh, our oldestwas probably even pre middle
school at the time, we juststarted telling them we're not
going to be borrowing money topay for college. If you want to
(19:13):
go to school, we're going tohave to save and you're going to
have to work, and we're going tohave to pay for it as we go. And
there was no surprise likejunior year or senior year, when
we were like, Hey, we're notjust gonna let you go wherever
you want to go and and flip thebill, right? They knew that we
were working towards a plan,that we were saving towards a
plan. And Josh knows right nowevery month he's got to throw
(19:34):
$700 into savings to be able topay for school. So during the
summer, he's able to do morethan that. During the school
year, he wasn't able to work asmuch, and so it was less than
that, but on average, right?
He's he's looking to put $8,400a year into savings to pay for
school, right? And we've made adeal with him that work. Over in
(19:59):
the other piece of that. Sowe've had some some college
savings, not a lot, but hey,with our mortgage paid off now
we're also able to throw a fewdollars towards that, and that
was always kind of been the planpay off the house so that when
the kids are in startingcollege, we have some extra
funds that we can help them out.
Because we don't want them tohave student loans, right? We
(20:21):
know student loans aren't ablessing when political
candidates can run on a promiseto try to get student loans
forgiven. I mean, come on, butwe're still writing them.
Schools. The government is stillwriting student loans, and we've
all acknowledged that they'rehorrible, and yet new parents of
new college students are morethan happy to just sign up for
them because they can't see anyother way to go to school. Why?
(20:43):
Because they haven't actuallysat down and tried to create a
plan. They haven't sat down andtry to figure out, how do we do
this without borrowing money?
Oh, yes, it's gonna take work,but I promise you three, four
years of work to work your buttoff and save up money so you can
pay for for school. That's somuch better than 10 plus years
of the work it takes to pay offthese stupid student loans. I
(21:07):
promise you, I promise you, Ihad student loans and I had to
pay them off. Man, I wish I hadbusted my butt more when I was
in college and those summers tosave up so I didn't have to do
that, because when I was marriedwith kids and trying to, you
know, we're having babies andpaying those medical bills and
I'm still paying my studentloans, give me a break that got
(21:28):
old so quickly. So do your kidsa favor. Parents. Help them come
up with a plan. Try to avoidstudent loans. Just draw a line
in the sand. We are notborrowing. Take them off the
table. You'll still find a wayto go to college, if that's
where you feel the Lord'scalling you, I promise you, I
promise you. All right, I'mgonna hop off my soapbox here.
(21:51):
Hopefully this was helpful.
Thank you for joining me today.
God bless you.
Thank you for listening toCatholic money talk. I hope you
join us again next time, pleaseclick Subscribe in your podcast
(22:12):
app to get notified of newepisodes. God bless you and have
a great day. You.
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