Dollars and Good Sense

Let's push aside paying for tuition, books and a meal plan for the moment.

Instead, let's talk about coffee, snacks, t-shirts, student discounts at theaters, concerts, museums, sports events and retailers. Oh, and those to-die-for jeans.

Cash in a weekly envelope for expenses is so stone age. There are a range of credit-card and app options for the first-time credit user. But pulling out the credit card or phone Google Wallet or Apple Pay is way too easy at the front end for teen-agers when mom or dad get the bill 30 days later.

So don't let Victoria even start loading up the van before you have had the family chat about expenses--as in "other."

Make this at least a two-day process:

On Day One, parents and child independently pull together a list of monthly probable expenses...Laundry, personal care, public/campus transportation and/or gas (for the rare freshman who really needs a car), school supplies, cell phone/tablet wi-fi, entertainment, game/movie rentals, haircuts, etc.

On Day Two, swap lists. Hopefully, the numbers are comparable. If not, negotiate and convince offspring this will be a work in progress and adjusted as school term flies by. 

Next, figure out how everybody is comfortable with a plan for paying for all of the expenses. Do the math...assess the burdens.

On-campus/off-campus jobs should be discussed at this point. Even if your son is making $50 a week doing this or that on weekends to defray costs, it is a great life lesson.

The $25 (or $50) rule: Make it clear there are always going to be opportunity or unexpected expenses. Decide now if your child has to communicate a bigger purchase before it is made.

Do the research. Check out Nerdwallet.com and compare credit cards, debit cards or consider a prepaid Visa/MasterCard. Traditional and online banks offer student checking accounts with a debit card and ATM access. Check out Bluebird by American Express as an alternative to a checking account. And also consider a PayPal debit card. I find PayPal indispensible and the debit card gives parents full access, offers spending limits and automated alerts. And valuable in an emergency: Parents can initiate a transfer in seconds if a student needs money immediately.

So ask around on campus what upperclassmen use for that late-night latte, check the banks and ATMs on or near campus.

Lastly, be careful of some campus-sponsored bank cards. Some charge 50 cents for every transaction and levy an overdraft charge of $38 and $3 for each out-of-network ATM transaction. Watch the Consumers Union video on college cards.

Revisit the budget every 30 days until it shakes out for all. No surprises are a good thing. A responsible money manager allows everyone to sleep a little better.

-Mike Ryan

The Paperwork That Might Save Your Life

What's the worst that could happen as your child goes off to college? Some bad grades? Homesick? Hard to make friends? Nothing to eat besides breakfast bars?

Not even close.

What if a texting car driver isn't paying attention and runs down your daughter walking though a crosswalk?

What if, in this new communal lifestyle, your son picks up some super-serious flu bug or a virulent and fast-acting form of meningitis?

Pretty awful.

But consider: What happens if your son or daughter is incapacitated by those issues or any of dozens of possible medical emergencies that happen on campus every year. 

The days of making medical decisions for your 12 year old at the pediatrician's office are over. Your 18-year-old child is considered an adult in almost every state. Do not send your pride-and-joy off to college without having prepared a Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare (also called a Healthcare Proxy in some jurisdictions). If your daughter instead says, "Aw, mom, don't worry. I will be fine," it is your job to convince your child this is no joke, that she is now considered an adult who can vote, marry and serve in the military--and, as an adult, she has to do the intelligent thing and cover the rare contingency that this paperwork might save her life. A phone call home is not a substitute when time is critical.

In addition to a Healthcare POA, there is a bit more paperwork to be done. A Living Will sets down your child's wishes about life support and other medical interventions and a HIPAA Release waives strict rights of privacy, allowing the designated party to make critical decisions. Without this instrument, the parents of an incapacitated child cannot even find out what treatments and medications are being given.

Healthcare directives for your child can be prepared by the attorney who created your estate, Power of Attorney for Healthcare and Power of Attorney for Property. Do not put this off; a minimal investment and a few minutes of time now is vastly better than a crisis in which you can only observe, not act in your child's best interests.

-Mike Ryan

Dirty Dozen: 12 Things Not To Do On Your Campus Visit

Procrastinate. You will place an unfair burden on your family by waiting until your rising senior summer. Experience touring campuses in Grades 9-10 makes you a savvy consumer by learning what is important to test and what is smoke-and-mirrors designed to impress rookie tourists.

Pick the wrong time. Summer and weekends may seem convenient, but you want to see the living, breathing campus in action. An April Monday provides a completely different feel than a July Sunday. And such opportunities such as waiting in the Starbucks line gives you a chance to talk up a current student on what school is like.

Settle for the "show" dorm. A college will make the dorm everybody sees as appealing as possible. Ask to see they boys/girls dorms that freshies actually stay. Be persistent if you get a response about the actual dorm rooms being out of bounds. Explain you've come from far away and need to see the real deal to consider the college.

Spend more time in the nearby town or peeking into the local restaurants than sampling campus food and picking up a campus vibe.

Neglect the surroundings a few hours in any direction. That may sound like the opposite of the last tip. But there is more work to do. Once you have done your intensive campus visit, learn about the Big City a bus ride away. Scan the parks for running, biking or climbing, rivers for kayaking, museums for areas of interest, sports venues for games of choice, shopping options, restaurants, movie theaters. A number of small towns developed around small colleges. If you get bored after seeing things one or two weekends in a town of 2,000, imagine what Year Four will be like for your cosmopolitan soul.

Watch the tour guide walk backwards. Kids, do not try this; s/he has done it so many times it is second nature. Sometimes I suspect there is a for-credit class on heel-then-toe walking. Practice in your bedroom for your bemused cat, not on the sidewalk with an unseen crack. Listen and take in the guide’s spiel as important nuggets of hands-on perspective often give great insight to campus life.

Passively participate. The campus visit is a great time to gather as much first hand information as possible. You are the only one who knows specifically what you consider most crucial to your decision. Take time to do your research and prepare questions before the visit, and most importantly, ask questions of tour guides and admission officers. It is not up to mom or dad to lead the charge; pretend they have a pointy stick for the slow spots and give 100%.

Waste your time checking out the collegians of your preferred sex. They aren't interested in high school seniors. Eye candy is one thing, but focus on connecting with a potential department mentor, not imagine your role in episodes of The Bachelor. This goes double when mom and dad are within sight. Enough said.

Fail to take notes. You need to bring a checklist. After three campus visits your brain will jumble up which one had what. By five, it is ridiculous. Guaranteed. Evernote, Google Keep, Apple Notes, an old-fashioned notebook, whatever. Take pictures, too. Organization is an absolute must for every trip. Your opinions will change as you add school visits. And this will give you ideas for future questions.

Ignore the weather. You already know if you are a warm weather person or somebody who loves four distinct seasons. You have to consider the number of steps between classes and activities during rainy season at the University of Washington, winter at UW-Green Bay and anyplace south of the Mason-Dixon Line without air conditioned dorms and classrooms. Learn about the bus service and check out the campus maps at Stanford and Duke, both of which top 8,000 acres.

Skip schools two time zones away. Virtual tours and university visits in your home area are common. If something clicks, though, it cannot hurt to ask parents if they would be willing to fly 1,000 miles or so to sate your curiosity. Suggest it as part of a vacation if necessary.

Leave after the glowing hourlong report from your tour guide. Definitely hit the library, the food venues, the favored major department building, ask students clever questions. A few extra hours should help you answer the BIG question: Will I be happy here?

- Mike Ryan

Sophomores and Juniors Need To Get a Jump On Testing, Campus Tours

Our 2.20.2016 post got sophomores thinking about the Big Picture. Here is Part Two for sophomores and juniors.

Start your serious campus visit effort easily. Stay local. Walk around. Find three places on campus you read about online. Sample the food; you get bonus points by walking up to a student and explaining you are eager to learn what they think of their college choice. Then actually visit schools fitting into the small-medium-large genre to see if something catches your attention. We know teens who attend really big high schools who want to downside their college experience…and many from a tiny school who transition successfully to big State U. See the dorms; visit a classroom; learn how to compare school types, locations and distances from home, and especially, majors. By all means, try the food on campus. Remember, you are going to spend four years eating that food regularly. It may give you new insight into how mom/dad fed you your favorite meal three times a week all those formative years.

Many high schools put on a College Night. There is a mind-boggling amount of information at these events, but remember all the printed stuff is written by marketing people who want to promote their best face. It is worth your time to come with a list of five questions specific to your situation and ask the person on the other side of the table these Q’s. You will gain more insight in those five minutes than an hour spent reading marketing material. You could streamline your personal college short-list selection effort by weeks. This is now a great time to take your new list and re-read your Fiske or Princeton Review guide for greater clarity.

Standardized testing involves the three "P's"- planning, preparing for and practicing.  A standardized test tutor is extremely valuable for even the best students and is worth a few hundred dollars of investment. You are allowed to take the ACT and SAT as many times as you want...but three attempts seems optimal. Take the PLAN in October. The PSAT is what gets you into the National Merit Scholarship program. Take it your sophomore year and you will be much better prepared for the Grade 11 PSAT, which is the one that will count for entering the NMS program. Preparing for every standardized test you take helps develop crucial skills such as the ability to dig down to “the four levels of meaning within text” —word/sentence/passage/story. The sooner you become an expert at this learning tool, the better your testing skills improve. While taking the PSAT, consider the prize: becoming one of the 14,000 National Merit Scholarship Finalists. There are both NMS and corporate sponsor scholarship funds available. But bumping up the percentage of NMS Finalists is a huge boon to universities, especially in the way national school rankings are scored. Here is one example for 2016: There is Arizona State University, which has around 83,000 students and a reputation as something of a party school. But much less known is its esteemed Barrett Honors College, which touts itself as the "best honors college" in the U.S. For the 2016 NMS Finalist who picks Barrett as first choice for NMS Corp., ASU is offering:

A one-on-one personalized tour.

Eight semesters of non-resident tuition (worth more than $100,000).

$1,500 in research support and $1,000 in travel.

Imagine telling mom and dad you've got tuition covered. Smiles all around.

We'll have more tips down the road on the positioning of the high-achieving student.
- Mike Ryan