Welcome! First post

Well hello there! Thank you for taking the time to visit my humble blog today.

I have created this blog in dedication to all of the parents out there who will soon be sending their children off to college (or already have). Well, to the parents who cringe when they think of the price that accompanies a college education these days. I won’t hesitate to say that I am one of them.

When my oldest child was a junior in high school, I believed at the time that my kids would go off to a junior college just like I had in my younger days. It was cheap, served me well, and got me a decent career…wouldn’t it be good enough for them? Apparently not for overachievers. My oldest child, my daughter Kelly, ended up doing very well in school, and quickly began talking about prestigious schools such as Stanford, UCLA, MIT, and UC Berkeley. My eyes bulged when I first looked at the costs, but after seeing how important it was to her, I decided that it would be worth the sacrifice for the education she would receive and the experiences that she would have. Kelly decided that UCSD was her dream school, and actually just graduated last year. Although UCSD certainly wasn’t cheap (about $20,000 per year), between my decent income and some loans and grants that my wife and I acquired (I will discuss these in future blog posts), we were able to send her to school there without worry.

The future will present some greater challenges for us though. My oldest son ended up doing pretty well in high school as well and left for USC this fall (he chose USC for its excellent engineering program), which will cost us about $37,000 per year after the financial aid we were offered. Being that he received several scholarships, my wife and I will be able to afford the costs this year, but I am quite worried about after that. Although we make a considerable income, we can definitely not afford $40,000 per year on top of our house and car payments, and other living expenses. Additionally, my other son will start college in another two years and will probably want to go somewhere other than community college as well.

I can definitely say that I am anxious for the challenges ahead. But I know that it is doable, if I take the time to research the forms of financial aid available that can help us through this without too many worries…which is why I have created this blog. Through this blog, I plan to share with you ways in which my family manages to afford a college education for our three children, and how the experience is going for us. Over the next several years, I will post where my wife and I are at on affording our children’s college education, and good programs and ideas that we have come across as far as financial aid. I have already done quite a bit of research on some, and will begin explaining them in my next postings. I hope they can be of assistance to you, as they (hopefully) will be to me.

Anyways, good luck! I hope you find this blog useful, and please don’t hesitate to message me at any time if you have a question!