Last time, in Part 4, we covered ways to save money on college through strategic allocation of your assets. But one of the surest ways to pay less for college is to spend less time there.

Finish

For some students, this means graduating instead of dropping out. Everyone says “I want my child to go to college”, but what they usually really mean is “I want my child to graduate college and get a job that will pay for their needs.” For these students, an investment in tutoring in high school, parental time investments in providing good role models, and choosing colleges within their academic reach, may be the best investments.

Don’t linger

The next tier up is for those who would spend 5-6 years in college, whether to dual major that only results in a 2% increase in pay, or to just be a 6th year senior. Don’t. This is triple-danger zone, in that you are racking up more expenses, not earning your post-college income from your field, and not starting to build wealth by getting that investment snowball rolling in your favor.

Instead, focus on your school work. Putting in an extra 10 hours a week of minimum wage work at a college job that’s not in your field isn’t cost effective if it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back for your grades, or if it causes you to need 5 or 6 years to finish what’s intended to be a 4 year degree. Don’t live away from home while taking classes part time; you’re paying full freight for your room and board whether you’re paying for a part time or full time credit load.

Plan ahead

Take all the credits you can handle. Many colleges have a threshold after which credits are effectively free, such as all credits above 15 per semester are at no additional charge. Some schools charge by the credit, even after reaching “full time” status (varies per university and program, for example that could be 9, 12, or 15). But even in this less advantageous situation, you’re still not having to pay college-town room and board expenses for any semesters you can trim off your college stay.

Understand the sequences and series you need, and take them in a timely manner. If a class required for graduation is only offered every other year in the spring, and for you that’s in spring of your junior year, then you better figure out how to fit it in your schedule. If you need to take all of a year of general chemistry before you tackle a year of organic chemistry, which you must complete before a year of physical chemistry, and something sets you back on general chemistry during your freshman year, then maybe you should take that missing general chemistry class in the summer semester to get yourself back on track for organic chemistry in the fall of your sophomore year.

Consider where your student wants to go career-wise, not just for their college track. Will their career field need an expensive masters or PhD degree, from which there isn’t an aligned pay increase? Colleagues with adult children who are college seniors, about to face paying out of pocket for a masters in social work and without earning as much pay as even their current schoolmates who will finish with a bachelors degree in a STEM field, have been telling me repeatedly about how the facts of life and money are only now sinking in for these ~22 year olds, and how they are bitter and feeling trapped.

If it’s possible to herd your student’s thinking processes, hopefully you can get them to think ahead about the return on investment (ROI) of their college experience: whether their job path will require an advanced degree, whether that advanced degree will be accompanied by a tuition waiver + funding (Teaching Assistant or Research Assistant position), and what their post-college income trajectory could look like. Will their degree come with a limited shelf life, in the form of physiological inability to continue such as many physical therapists discover, or in the form of burnout?

Even more basic than this, don’t forget what we learned in prior parts of this article series; college choice matters greatly on how much college will cost.

Parallel process or move faster

I took my first “college” class at our local technical college in the summer before 8th grade, and while I audited it due to the intimidation factor, if I’d taken it for credit my grade would have been an A. There are many students who can do more, sooner, faster. If you are a parent of a gifted child, you know that your child, whether interested in doing so or not, is capable of learning faster than their peers. Knowing this before your child enters high school allows for maximum impact of these strategies, but even a graduating high school senior or motivated early years college student has room to utilize some of them.

A major strategy here is to earn college credits before you’re paying college tuition.

Many families are familiar with the Advanced Placement (AP) classes that are often available through your local high school, and the spring exams that come with them. If you are a homeschooler, this just recently became more challenging, because you now have to register in the fall for a May AP test, which defeats the purpose for gifted students who are tearing through materials and don’t need that long to prepare.  And, you have to find a school that’s willing to work with you, many don’t want to.

Post Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) are ways for high schoolers to take college credits, for free. This option at our local RCTC specifically also mentions it is open to homeschoolers. More on PSEO specific to Minnesota, here and here. And from our own ISD 535 website, the Rochester Public School District has some information on PSEO as well.

College Level Examination Program (CLEP) is basically challenge by test, there is no class included.

The Earned Admissions program has online videos that it’s up to you whether or not you want to watch, and then a test. Recently renamed the Arizona State University Universal Learner program, it’s $25 per course, and that includes the books. You can wait until you know what the student’s final grade would be for the course before deciding whether to pay the additional $400 per course to get the course added to your transcript.

If you know what college you want to go to, look specifically for articulated college credits – this is like reciprocity is for funding, this is the best scenario for credit transfer acceptance! Here in Rochester, there are relatively new programs: CTECH and Project Lead the Way (1, 2, 3).

You can also take classes at your local community college, often for far cheaper than through higher profile institutions.

Many of these methods are harder to pursue if you have transportation limitations of being on a high school campus from 8 am-3 pm, 9 months of the year, but they don’t have to be impossible. Another option for helping get to the point where such acceleration is the natural progression, and without the constraints, is homeschooling your gifted child.

Unfortunately while there are so many possible ways to get access to advanced materials that may be eligible for college credits, how these potential credits are treated by your college of choice can be a mine field. Each college and college system considers these different options differently.  Some may accept them as direct credits class-for-class.  Some as for-major, but not specific classes.  Some as gen-eds.  Some as transfer credits.  Some impact new vs transfer student status, where new status is much better for scholarships; although with the current treatment of scholarship funds as being part of the school’s contribution, this may no longer be such an issue.  Some impact scholarship eligibility more directly. Some aren’t accepted at all.  This is all very confusing and problematic, especially when because of dealing with a gifted student, we are often interested in pursing college credits so far ahead of going away to college that there’s too much time in which for things to change – either for the kids (eg which schools to be looking at) or for schools to change their minds about their rules.

Another strategy here without the above hurdles is to take more credits per semester.

And by this I don’t just mean taking the 18 credits that might be your school’s maximum without a waiver; I specifically mean pursuing a credit load high enough that a waiver is needed. This needs to be approached carefully, as many kids higher on the gifted spectrum have never truly experienced intellectual challenge before college, and won’t know how to handle this high a class load. However, if your student has already taken college classes, and can handle the pace and depth of output as well as of input, getting through 21 credits every semester when classmates are typically taking 12-15, will knock a lot of time and therefore money off the college bill.

Take J-term, winter session, summer classes, and/or summer internships

Often schools have non-traditional timing of some additional classes, or non-traditional opportunities for which credits are offered. One has to beware that they aren’t just filler or experiential classes, if the goal is specifically to shave time and therefore money off the college clock, but these can be a valid way to earn more credits too. While technically available to all students, I mention them specifically for gifted students because there’s also a goal of not burning out students. If a class is a low burden for your gifted student, then they could potentially be stacked with other simultaneous undertakings in non-traditional time windows, to accelerate the total college timeline.

Conclusions

There are many ways to pay less for college, by simply being there less time.

Take a full credit load.

Take the highest credit load that you can handle.

Don’t be distracted by minimum wage work outside your future field, or by too much fun.

Don’t take on a double major unless it’s required.

Don’t plan on a career field that requires graduate school, unless graduate school is within your budget and/or graduate school funding (a tuition waiver + graduate research assistant-ships (RA) or graduate teaching assistant-ships (TA) positions) are included in that field.

Get more college credits early or faster, through alternative methods.

Thanks for sticking with me for this (officially 5 part, but realistically 7 article) college funding series. Now go figure out how to apply these tips to your own student’s college situation. Better yet, have them read these college funding articles too, because buy-in is how you get action.