Given all the media coverage of skyrocketing college costs, you would think that parents would have a good grasp of the cost of an undergraduate education for their children and how they are going to pay for it. I don’t think they do. For many families, financing the cost of college remains a mystery.

The details of loans, grants, savings plans and other funding vehicles are complicated. I’ve been a financial planner for 35 plus years, consider myself competent in this arena, but I’m hesitant to offer specific advice as the landscape has changed drastically in recent years.

In 1997, the Florida Legislature created the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship Program to reward students for their academic achievements during high school by providing funding to attend postsecondary education in Florida. Due to budgetary pressures, this opportunity is likely to diminish in significance in coming years.

Couple that with the 15% annual hike in fees associated with attendance at the various state universities, and what seemed like a natural for bright and motivated high school students becomes an iffy proposition at best.

Unlike grants or work study aid, loans remain a part of a person’s life long after college. And because the debt burden will be shouldered by the student and her parents, it becomes incumbent on all family members to made a decision about how much debt they can handle. It’s imperative they map out a loan repayment plan that works for everyone, if loans are going to play a big part in paying for college.

A critical consideration if loans are used as the primary funding source, is to stay current, since defaulting on a student loan could have worse consequences than most people realize. You must consider carefully how those loans will be paid back.

An alternative, one that requires some advance thought, is to sign up for one of the several programs that have surfaced among financial professionals in recent years. They offer a way to get in front of the curve by encouraging the student to become engaged in the process, perhaps as early as the ninth grade.

While this seems absurd to many parents, given the fact we are talking about 14 and 15 year olds, if there is already a motivation to go to college, then access to endowment money is a real possibility. Typically, students are juniors, even seniors in high school before they realize they must become engaged in building a profile, what we adults think of as a resume, that will help them access money that does not have to be paid back.

Go to the CollegeMoneyNow.info tab at the top of this page to learn more about this idea.