My grandfather advised my dad to skip buying coffee and to set that money aside for retirement.My dad taught me the same lesson.
Given the cost of everything today — and the relatively paltry cost of coffee compared to healthcare and housing — it can be hard to take that advice seriously.This is especially true for elder Millennials and Gen X parents who are sending their kids off to four-year schools that cost over $100,000, plus interest.The good news is that these parents do have a simple solution — one that can not only secure their own financial future but also set their kids up for retirement a half-century from now.
They should seriously consider the value that community college and blue-collar certification programs will bring to the entire family's financial legacy.Let's start with the sticker shock.The annual cost of an undergraduate degree is over $38,000.
Annual attendance at a community college costs, on average, about $3,890 — roughly 10% of the price of a four-year school.Students earning a two-year associate's degree could save almost $70,000 for virtually the same first two years of education their peers receive at "prestigious" institutions.But the raw tuition savings don't tell the whole story.
Over half of student loans are federally backed, and last school year's lowest interest rate on those loans was 6.39%.Paying back the difference — $68,220 — these loans at $500 a month would cost an additional $53,851 in interest — a total of over $122,000 repaid to get back to zero.BESSENT CREDITS TRUMP IMMIGRATION POLICIES WITH HELPING RETURN JOBS TO AMERICANS AS WAGE GAINS RESUMEAn electrician works on a switchboard with an electrical connecting cable, connects the equipment with tools.
(iStock)Compare that to paying under $8,000 cash for two years of community college.That's a $114,000 swing over the roughly 20 years it takes to pay off the first two years of a borrowed four-year degree.Instead of making banks richer, parents and the...