How to Help Your College Student Deal With Financial Stress
One of the hardest times financially for young adults are the college years. Between paying for books, supplies and meals, aside from tuition, money is almost always tight. College students can only work a limited amount of time, making it difficult to keep up with expenses. For young adults who've never had to handle finances before, this can cause a major distraction from classwork. This could have a domino effect, resulting in low grades, thus causing even more stress and anxiety. Parents can help ease financial stresses for their college student children by offering their financial and emotional support.
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Instructions
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Offer financial assistance if you can. Some parents are in a position to help their children out, whether it is to pay for a portion of their tuition or to pay for their books for the semester. Anything you can do financial will be helpful, including taking out parent loans on your child's behalf. Only choose this option if you know you can afford to pay back the loans and it will not harm your future retirement plans.
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Help create a budget for your college student. Putting together a budget will help bring stress levels down because it will help manage money. Create a budget based on any income he is bringing in, any financial assistance, including from you, and what her expenses are. Including small savings in the budget for future planning. As long as he can stick to the budget, he will be able to pay his bills, and possibly have a little spending money left over. Open a student checking account that is linked to your account so that you can send him money, especially in an emergency and to avoid overdraft fees.
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Help with applying for loans and scholarships. Almost all college students will need to take out some loans for college if they are attending full-time. Guide your college student to government loans only. Private loans have fluctuating interest rates that can change at any time. Federal loans have a fixed interest rate. Plus, the government will be willing to work with you in times of financial difficulty if you need to temporarily suspend or reduce your payments. Help your child research scholarships based on her career path. Many scholarships are available by semester and college students can apply any time during their time in college. If she is a minority, she might be able to qualify for minority-based scholarships as well.
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Encourage your college student to work during the summer. Summer break is the perfect opportunity for your child to get a leg up on his finances by working full-time while school is out and saving as much money as possible for the summer. That money can be used to help pay for tuition, books, school supplies, groceries and other essentials throughout the year. This will also ease the amount of time the student has to work when school is in session. Depending on the job, he might be able to work a little bit when he comes home for winter and spring breaks.
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Tips & Warnings
Encourage your child to make time to spend with her friends, experiencing college life instead of stressing about finances all the time. She might also find comfort knowing many of her friends are likely in the same boat.
Warn your child against the many credit card offers he will be bombarded with in college, which will increase his debt and cause more stress. Make the decision together to get a credit card with a very low limit and low interest rate for emergency or specific purposes only.
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