Robert and Anne Todd are the parents of three children, ages 18, 16, and 10. They both want their children to have a college education, but they have never worked out any systematic plan to prepare for it. Their oldest child, Kerry, is now a high school senior, so Robert and Anne belatedly decided it was time to start looking at college costs.
To their shocked surprise they found that a year at most Christian colleges can easily cost between $7,500 and $10,000 a year. Secular institutions such as Stanford and MIT, they learned, now charge as much as $10,000 for tuition alone!
College has become an expensive commodity. If Robert and Anne expect to put their two older children through a Christian school, they can expect each of the typical four-year programs to cost them at least $35,000—provided costs do not escalate in the next few years, a most improbable situation. According to one respected source, average costs for 1984–85 for a four-year private college are $9,163; by 1986–87 they are projected to be $11,090. Since the likelihood is that the two older children will both be in college at the same time for two years (during the time Kerry is a junior and senior, Louise will be a freshman and sophomore), Robert and Anne will need to come up with an average of about $18,000 a year for each of those two years. Since Robert’s current annual income is a modest $25,000, he and his wife have a major problem. Even if Anne goes back to work and is able to increase that figure by about $15,000, college is going to stretch the family budget like a rubber band.
If the Todds live in certain sections of the country, their college costs may be higher or lower. According to the College Board College Cost Book, the national average of college expenses for tuition, books and supplies, room and board, personal expenses, and transportation in 1982–83 was $7,475. If you lived in New England, however, that cost jumped to $9,047. Other regional costs were: Middle States, $8,030; South, $6,500; Midwest, $7,021; and Southwest, $6,534.
To make things even worse, college expenses have been rising at record rates in the last two years. Although inflation dropped to about 6 percent last year, college costs jumped an average of 11 percent. For the current school year, the average student who lives on the campus of a public four-year college is paying $4,721 in tuition; his counterpart at a private college is paying no less than $8,440. Fortunately for the Christian parent, costs at a private Christian school are not yet that high.
To help others avoid the financial crunch Robert and Anne now face, CHRISTIANITY TODAY contacted people involved in the administration of several Christian colleges and universities who would be qualified to guide Christian parents and prospective Christian college students in their preparation for the college years. To provide information on ways to pay for college, we contacted vice-presidents for finance and business, directors of financial aid, and others in the area of college business affairs. And because we felt that preparation for college involves a lot more than money, we also contacted directors of admissions at several Christian schools.
To provide national coverage, we interviewed Christian college personnel in the north, east, south, and west. We included Christian colleges and universities, and Bible schools. We also contacted both denominational and interdenominational institutions. The results should therefore provide a fairly typical overview of what experienced Christian leaders feel parents ought to do to prepare their children for college in the most responsible way.
Remember, the cost of a Christian college, like the cost of a college education of any kind, is expensive. But it’s worth it. In no other way can you provide your children with the stimulation of their minds and the integration of faith and learning that is the unique contribution of that entity called the Christian institution of higher learning.
How To Get The Money Saved
College costs are no problem for the very rich and the very poor (if the latter are also very bright). Robert and Anne Todd, however, were like most of us, somewhere on the middle rungs of the economic ladder. Because they had not planned ahead, they had to scramble for all the help they could get.
One of the first questions every parent has to answer is, “How much of my child’s college education do I feel comfortable about paying?”
Most Christian colleges today work from what are called Financial Aid Forms, or FAFS as they are popularly known. These forms anticipate financial contributions from both the parents and the child. The average child should be able to save $900 each summer between his college years and earn an additional $600 while he is in school. If the combined total of Robert and Anne Todd’s income is under $75,000, which it was, colleges may use a table worked out by the U.S. Department of Education to determine how much they should provide toward the cost of educating their college-age child.
Another portion of the cost of tuition, room and board, and other college costs can often be made up from federal, state, and college grants.
If what parents and students can pay and grants provide still do not cover the cost of Kerry’s college education, Kerry can apply for a student loan. According to James T. Hakes, director of finance at Wheaton College (Ill.), the average student today graduates from college with an $8,000 debt, $2,000 a year for each of his four years in college. Some parents feel this is a terrible burden to put on the back of the new graduate, however.
Fortunately, if the student has a loan of $5,000 or more, the Student Loan Marketing Association in Washington will work out a loan consolidation program that will extend the repayment plan for up to 20 years without increasing the interest and cut the monthly cost to more manageable payments.
The two most common loan funds are the National Direct Student Loan and the Guaranteed Student Loan. Funds for the former, a need-based loan that charges only 5 percent interest, have been cut sharply in the last few years, so applications need to be made early. The latter, available through many local banks, is a much larger program. For a period of time anyone could apply for such a loan at 9 percent interest, but in 1981 an income ceiling was once again imposed. That ceiling is high enough, however, that families with quite high incomes who have more than one child in college can qualify.
In a helpful chapter, “Financing an Education,” in The Lifetime Book of Money Management (New American Library, 1983), Grace W. Weinstein suggests several ways of keeping the costs of college down that do not involve grants or loans. They include accelerated programs of study, cooperative education programs that alternate work and study, attending a school in the student’s home state, starting college years in a two-year community college, finding an employer-paid tuition payment benefit plan, enlisting in the armed forces to help pay college costs, taking accredited correspondence courses, and finding colleges that offer reduced costs for siblings or high grades.
Hakes makes the following seven recommendations to parents who have children who plan on going to college:
1. Consider opening a custodial account or Clifford Trust. Some grandparents give college fund gifts to their grandchildren at birth—or more precisely, to their children as custodians for their grandchildren. Anne Todd’s parents, for example, gave her $1,000 when each of her three children were born. Anne placed the money in a bank savings certificate, then transferred it to a money market fund. Interest rates are now about 11 percent. Her account lists her as custodian for each account under the Uniform Gift to Minors Act.
Each parent is also allowed to make a gift of up to $10,000 to each child. Robert decided to get a second job and deposit all his earnings into a money market fund for Kerry’s college costs. Since the account is a custodial account, Robert will not have to pay taxes on the interest—and Kerry’s income is too small to be taxable.
Trusts are a bit more complicated, but, Hakes says, lots of parents set them up for their children’s college funds. Under a trust, the child gets the interest and parents get their money back, usually after a period of 10 or more years. A trust is beneficial if children are younger and you get an inheritance from grandparents or other relatives. A local bank can provide information on setting up a Clifford Trust.
Option C, a more complex trust arrangement, involves the following steps: (1) parents borrow money from the bank on their equity in their home, (2) parents give money to a short-term trust at high interest rate with a banker or attorney as trustee, (3) parents borrow back from the trust fund to repay their bank loan, (4) parents pay the interest on the loan to the trust and deduct it from their income tax, (5) when needed, the trustee distributes the interest income to the child for education expenses. At the end of ten years the trust dissolves, parents have enjoyed a tax savings, and the child’s education has been financed. Hakes questioned the legality of this at first, but Wheaton College attorneys assured him it was perfectly legal.
2. Do not think of financial aid as welfare. Hakes said he once thought financial aid was a siphoning off of resources. Many of the people he meets are embarrassed to seek such aid. But colleges view such aid idealistically. A good college seeks diversity in its student body, and financial aid provides that diversity and thereby improves its educational product. If, however, parents have a lot of equity in their house and a good income, they are less likely to get much financial aid.
3. Parents should let political representatives know how they feel about financial aid to college students. Some politicians support financial aid to students; others do not. Parents should let them know how they feel about the subject. Letters can influence their stand.
4. Find out what a college’s net price is. College catalogs will list the gross price of a year at college, but one cannot tell anything about financial aid from it. Parents should call the college’s financial aid department or speak to the financial aid directors. Some schools offer a lot of such aid, even in some cases a “free ride”—total payment of all college costs.
5. If a child has good grades, find out about academic scholarships. For the last 10 years, Hakes observed, such scholarships have been out of vogue, with some people claiming that prestigious schools were “buying minds.” But many schools give $1,000 scholarships over and above need-based aid for the high school senior with outstanding grades. “It tends to be for the person who has an 800 score on his SAT in math, however,” Hakes added.
6. Don’t overlook unusual sources of scholarship aid. The college library will often have a list of scholarships with odd restrictions—for example, Methodists from New Jersey, or people who play the piccolo. Though such a search is not always helpful, it should not be overlooked.
7. Watch out for gimmickry in financial aid. “Some colleges overprice, then give everyone a dean’s scholarship,” Hakes said. “That makes parents think they’re getting something special and enables parents to say their son or daughter got a scholarship to the college. That makes them feel good.” But Hakes feels such gimmickry is ethically questionable.
Johnny Williams, newly appointed controller and assistant treasurer of LeTourneau College in Longview, Texas, noted that the college’s students are a bit different from those of many Christian colleges. “Most of our freshmen have enough money to pay for their first year of college, but then there are lots of ways to work, so they earn the money to pay for their last three years. For example, we have a contract with the city to operate their ambulance service that provides our students with a $500,000 payroll. All but three employees are students. Many of our students study in the ambulance’s mobile home units—and earn $1,200 in the process,” Williams stated.
How To Evaluate A College
William K. Stob, dean of student life at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, suggests that every parent should look at a number of additional factors when considering a college:
1. Look beyond the slick promotional materials and carefully evaluate colleges. “Some schools spend a lot of money on frills—extracurricular activities, athletic facilities, lavish building design,” Stob said. He advises parents instead to check out the quality of the faculty, the college’s accreditation, the size of the library, and the soundness of the buildings.
2. Find out how seriously the college attempts to integrate faith and learning. Make sure the college takes its Christian commitment seriously, not just as a frosting.
3. Visit the campus. You need to check out for yourself whether what is said on paper checks out. “I’d guess that about 80 percent of parents and prospective students do,” Stob remarked.
4. Talk to recent alumni and parents of present students. “You will probably know alumni and parents in your local church,” Stob said, “but if not, you can ask the college for the names of students in your area. The alumni office will be happy to do this for you.”
5. Start early. “Many parents start too late,” Stob said. “I’ve talked with parents who wait until March or April of their child’s senior year to start their investigation. That way they are late for all deadlines in financial aid. Our experience at Calvin is that a trickle of applications come in in the fall, and most arrive in January and February. If you apply in March or April, you’ll probably still get accepted if you qualify unless facilities are limited. But you’ll probably not get any aid.”
6. Go over the curriculum in the college catalog carefully. “A lot of parents don’t do this. As a result, their children go to schools that aren’t right for them. Those who want a premed, computer science, or business administration program sometimes go to schools that don’t even offer such majors, and others have weak programs in those areas.”
7. Don’t underrate a liberal arts college. “Our society is becoming overly concerned about careers—even when a child is 15, 16, or even 18,” Stob remarked. Yet employers everywhere are complaining that even M.B.A.’s can’t read and write adequately because their training has been too narrow. “You should get a good liberal arts education in your first two years,” the Calvin College dean observed. “You can specialize after that. The liberal arts train you for life; specialized training quickly becomes obsolete, and companies prefer to train you themselves.”
8. Find out the specific goals of the college. Parents should read the college’s statement of purpose. It should appear in the opening pages of the school’s catalog, at least if the college has a clear vision of those goals. One hopes that some day a son or daughter will catch some of the vision the clearly focused Christian college has.
9. Examine carefully the college’s extracurricular activities. “Not all learning takes place in the classroom,” Stob added. Parents should look in the college catalog to see what service opportunities the college offers. These opportunities offer leadership skills, occasions for public speaking, the possibility of impact on the local community and involvement with minorities, a chance to get involved in politics, church life, and missions. “Ask about the concern of the campus for world hunger, poverty, and community problems, too.”
10. Pray. “If you’re a Christian parent, you should pray with your prospective college student. Use good judgment, but let the Lord guide you and be open to his will,” Stob concluded.
What A Dean Of Admissions Looks For
Wynn Lembright, dean of admissions for Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, echoed some of Stob’s thoughts and added a number of his own. “Everywhere today there is a heightened sense of the importance of verbal and writing skills,” Lembright said. “Four out of six of our graduate students now working in Washington, D.C., recently told me writing skills were one of the most important things they learned at Taylor. The way you express yourself on your application form tells a lot about you. Some of those who apply have a hard time articulating their thoughts.”
Lembright added the following advice to the parents of prospective students:
1. A child should not overspecialize in high school. “Some high school students think they need to get all the physics they can get in high school,” Dean Lembright said, “and they neglect English. They forget that the material will be covered in college again anyway.” He has observed that increasingly the larger companies such as IBM and AT&T prefer liberal arts graduates they can send on for special training. They want generalists; specialization is becoming increasingly a postcollege program. This is a major change in the occupational community.
2. Don’t overemphasize athletics. Though he had been involved in physical education earlier in his career, Lembright feels athletics plays a larger part in our culture than in any other. “A number of students come to college thinking primarily of being involved in athletics, intoxicated by the aura of sports. If I were a parent I would do my best to diminish that emphasis. Students are not likely to be as involved as they think they will. We need to emphasize that college is basically for academics. Unfortunately, all the hype is on athletics on the college campus, but preparation for tests is ultimately far more important than practice on the field.”
3. Get children to a good Christian camp during the junior high years. Young people need a good role model, and Christian camps that use college students as camp counselors provide that role model. “Not everyone agrees with me on this point,” Lembright observed, “but a good Christian college student can teach your child what to look for in college, how to get along in the dorms with roommates, how to handle peer pressure, how to handle life when it isn’t perfect.”
4. Look for a college that offers something in career development. “Many colleges have little or no concern about what happens to their graduates. Students are so busy studying they don’t have time to look into career opportunities. “Taylor has an outstanding career development center that uses a lot of one-on-one counseling,” Lembright said. “We track all our students during all four years and help them with résumés and interviews. I think a college has an obligation to help place its students.”
5. Find a college your youngster wants to be “coached” by. “I see admissions as a mission,” the Taylor dean remarked. “God has a pilgrimage for each person who applies to Taylor. Our mission is to help them find what fits that person’s personality, financial abilities, personal needs, and goals. Choosing a school is like choosing a mate. We like to ask our prospective students, ‘Do you want to be coached by our kind of environment?’ For example, we emphasize residence prayer groups; if your son or daughter doesn’t want to participate, this is not the place to be.”
Through The Eyes Of An Academic Dean
Dean Ebner (Dean is his first name), associate dean for academic affairs at Bethel College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, focused more on the ideals of a Christian college education. His advice to parents included the following suggestions:
1. Students in high school should emphasize the solid academic courses. “The old distinction still applies,” Dean Ebner said. “You need four years of English and the humanities, a minimum of two years of math, and two years of science. Colleges are moving back to the basics, and too many students still avoid math, science, even history and the social sciences. That hurts them.”
2. Be aware that colleges are again emphasizing the basics. “At Bethel we have taken a fresh look at our goals. Instead of requiring so many hours of this and so many hours of that, we’ve adopted a program that makes sure such goals as writing, reading, speaking, listening, reasoning, and computational and study skills are emphasized in all courses.” Ebner said the way they hope to attain these goals is through a sequence of core courses in the Judeo-Christian tradition, Bible, creativity and the fine arts, science technology and society, physical wholeness, and contemporary Christian choice—a course for seniors that puts students from various majors together to discuss problems such as pollution.
3. Certain kinds of high school extracurricular activity help students get admitted. “Just being a member of a fun-and-games club won’t help you,” Ebner said. “But any kind of leadership in your church or school, especially in debate, language clubs, FFA, and business clubs will impress an admissions person.”
4. A high school student with basic Bible literacy has a real advantage. “My impression is that the churches are not doing as good a job of teaching the Bible as they used to. If most of our students have a good knowledge of the Bible, those who don’t know that Abraham comes before Daniel are handicapped.
5. A high school student who has been exposed to another culture has a real advantage. The person who has gotten out of his own little suburb and experienced other cultures—or at least is willing to study other cultures—is better prepared for college than the one who has not traveled, because he has a more global awareness.
6. Parents need to use the high school years to move children toward independence. “My kids are 18 and 20; we’ve had to learn a lot this past summer about taking our hands off,” Dean Ebner commented. “My 20-year-old daughter had to decide what summer job she was going to take. She chose one I wouldn’t have chosen, but it was her choice. Kids vary, of course. Some parents are too permissive, but others are too authoritarian. Some parents can’t leave mothering and fathering, even when their sons and daughters are in college. It’s sad to see parents forcing their college junior daughter to be a concert pianist when she doesn’t want to be one.
“Overly dependent kids can have problems in college. Some become so homesick they drop out and go back home. To prepare your son or daughter for independence, consider taking a vacation occasionally without the kids.”
Advice From A Bible School Vice-President And Treasurer
Donald P. Leach of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago notes that costs at a Bible school are lower than at a private secular college. If parents sense that a child is interested in the programs a Bible school offers, they can begin to plan their resources accordingly. “You will need to have the intuitive sensitivity to know whether your child is the kind that will work to help put himself through, or whether he prefers to be involved in extracurricular activities. What that child has done in high school is an indicator of possible future trends.”
Leach gave both the following financial and spiritual guidance:
1. Consider deeply discounted bonds as an investment for the college years. These bonds, an innovation of the last three or four years, can be purchased for as much as 50 to 60 percent off face value. “If you buy a $1,000 bond for $500 and it matures in five years, you’d be getting a 20 percent return. That’s a bit high,” Leach said, “but the point is that for a low capital investment you are forced to save your money and you can let the earnings accumulate.
2. The more serious investor can try land. “Land throughout history has appreciated at the rate of 10 percent a year,” Leach observed. “But a bad investment could hurt, so you have to be careful.”
3. If both parents work, save the second income for college. “The Bible gives instructions that family life not be upset by a wife who is away from her family. But when the kids are in college, the wife could go back to work.”
4. Make an intensive review of possible colleges a year or two in advance. In that way you can review the total packages offered. “You can’t do it three or four days before enrollment,” Leach smiled.
5. Teach young people the value of a dollar. “If they know how long it takes to earn money for college, they’ll be able to select a college more wisely,” Leach noted. “If your child wants to be a missionary, spending $16,000 for him to go to MIT will give him a good degree, but it will be almost worthless for his career objectives.”
6. Discuss education with a child in the most informal setting possible. “The supper table or the car while you are on vacation is a good place to discuss the pros and cons of college, whether a Bible college or a secular college is best, and whether Moody or Wheaton or Harvard would best meet the child’s needs. Don’t make your child go to college if he really would prefer to drive a truck.”
7. Don’t forget to include the geographicallocation of the college in your thinking. “If the college is a thousand miles from your home and you travel there in the fall, at winter break, and again at the end of the school year, don’t forget to add an extra $1,200 to $1,500 to the costs of a college education. And if you also visit the campus, as some parents do, at Thanksgiving and spring break, plan on increasing travel costs accordingly.”
8. Include college education in the dedication of your children to the Lord. “I believe the son or daughter from an evangelical, fundamental Christian home needs to be dedicated to the Lord in church during the first year of his or her life. And a college education should be part of that service.”
9. Start talking to your children about careers from the time they are five. “I recommend that parents start talking to their children periodically about what the Lord wants them to do. It can start as early as five years and continue through the junior and senior high years and beyond. You don’t want to force them to go to Bible school, but you should talk to them early about their options,” Leach concluded.
In Summary
Christian parents have a heavy responsibility in educating their children. The financial costs are staggering and promise to be increasingly so. Parents need to be sensitive to the individual needs of each of their children so they can advise them academically and spiritually with wisdom and insight. The number of possible careers is exploding and constantly expanding, so the alternatives have never been greater—or more perplexing—than they are today. Christian colleges and Bible schools have matured to the place that they offer a quality education unparalleled in their history. Now is the time for parents to begin planning for their children’s college years, whether they are 6 or 16. Christian stewardship suggests that only by starting now are they being responsible parents. Only if they start now can parents avoid being faced with the dilemma Robert and Anne Todd faced because they failed to think about college preparation until it was too late. Now is the proper time to lay your plans for your child’s future, spiritually, financially—and academically.
Tim Stafford is a free-lance writer living in Santa Rosa, California. He is a distinguished contributor to several magazines. His latest book is Do You Sometimes Feel Like a Nobody? (Zondervan, 1980).
