Planning For College While Your Kid Is In Diapers

I don’t care what career my child has when he grows up. He can be any kind of lawyer he wants to be.

I’m kidding. Really. I truly don’t care what career my child chooses when he grows up, as long as it brings him joy and fulfillment…and doesn’t harm anyone in the process. What I do care about is that he gets an education. Going to college will be something that I expect my child to do when he grows up, no matter what career he is interested in pursuing. It does not matter if he is Bill Gates, Jr. or some sort of celebrity child-star (not if I can help it), I will be disappointed if my kid does not graduate from a 4-year university.

In anticipation of my future college graduate, I’m planning now because I know first-hand how difficult it can be when there isn’t a college nest egg waiting for you. My parents struggled to put three kids through college and it certainly didn’t help that, at one point, all three of us were in college at the same time. Knowing that I would be responsible for some of my college and living expenses, I worked from my sophomore year of high school and all through college. I graduated high school nearly a year early, which allowed me to work almost full-time while taking classes at my local junior college. Once I transferred to a 4-year college, I continued to work just as hard.  By my senior year, I was working 30 hours a week while trying to maintain my GPA and some semblance of a normal college social life. It was a huge challenge, to say the least.

That’s not the end of my story. (continues…)