How to Save for College While Your Kid is in High School

If you’re wondering whether there is still adequate time to invest in a college savings fund for your kid(s), you should go ahead and make the leap anyway. You don’t want to rely just on student loans to fund your education or even the best private student loans. You can invest with a robo-advisor or go through a traditional college savings plan broker, depending on your family’s college savings goals. How to Save for College While Your Kid is in High School Start Investing in a 529 College Savings Plan One of the most important things a parent can do while saving up for their kids’ college education is starting a 529 college savings plan. This type of investment account does … Read more

The Quick ROI Calculation for College Education

Should You Take Out Private Student Loans for College?

The following is a guest post from Douglas Boneparth and Heather Boneparth, the authors of The Millennial Money Fix. If you’d like to guest post on Money Q&A, be sure to check out our guest post guidelines.

Ultimately, understanding the return on your college investment isn’t as easy as plugging numbers into an equation. After all, the college experience is much more than just what you learn in the classroom and what job you land after school. Yet, some basic math can actually teach us if choosing a certain school is a good or bad financial decision. Yet, for all the AP math classes out there, no one seems to be doing the simple addition and subtraction needed to figure out if pursuing a college degree is really worth it.

Calculating Return on Investment for a College Education

Calculating Return on Investment for a College EducationAs our book, The Millennial Money Fix (Career Press, 2017) points out, we know that those with a college education earn more than those who don’t have one – something like $17,000 more a year on average over a 30-year career. While this statistic is compelling, this is only one-half of the equation.

What we fail to show young people is how the cost of obtaining that education affects their ability to go into the world on solid footing. The average college graduate leaving school with close to $37,000 in student loan debt, making it obvious that one of the main sources of paying for college for many people is through loans. And in some extreme cases, students are borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars to enjoy the college experience but no know exactly what it is they want to do. Yikes!

In order to help those thinking about going to college or those already in school (it’s not too late for you older Millennials), I am going to share with you the simple real-world math that anyone can use to quickly determine if they are making a smart financial decision regarding higher education and borrowing loans to make it happen.

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Student Loan Hero Review – How to Pay Off Your Student Loans Fast

Student Loan Hero ReviewHow far would you go to pay off your student loans? While 40% of borrowers from a recent survey would reportedly be willing to take a year off of their life expectancy in exchange for debt-free living, such drastic measures aren’t necessary thanks to helpful websites such as Student Loan Hero.

Student Loan Hero was founded by a man who struggled, yet successfully paid off over $100,000 in student loans. Given the shocking statistics surrounding student loans, he wanted to help others pay off their loans as efficiently as possible, which led him to create the free Student Loan Hero platform.

What Is Student Loan Hero?

Student Loan Hero is a fantastic resource to start if you’re looking for ways to pay off student loan debt faster.

Here are some key features you won’t want to miss about Student Loan Hero:

Student Loan Hero’s Features

Student Loan Hero’s dashboard was clearly designed for ease-of-use, with a simple navigation toolbar at the top and useful visuals to help you chart your loan repayment progress. Student Loan Hero’s purpose is pretty straightforward: to help other people repay their student loans faster by offering a vast database of information (on nearly every student loan-related topic imaginable). And, the site also links to useful websites to help folks lower their debt loads or learn whether their loans are eligible for one of the many available loan forgiveness programs.

Student Loan Hero even covers topics like student loan default to help anyone bogged down with educational debt get back on their feet without serious detriment to their personal financial situation. No matter where you’re at in your student loan repayment process – just took out loans, trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of debt, or on the verge of finally paying off your balances and need some more help – Student Loan Hero is a great resource for helping people with their student loans, free-of-charge.

Personalized Repayment Options

If you want to reduce your student loan interest payments, then consolidating multiple loans into one loan with a lower interest rate could be an ideal choice. Student Loan Hero lists several low-interest refinancing options from private lenders, with rates ranging from 2.10% to 9.85%, depending on your financial history and credit background.

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How Zeqr Works and the Benefits of Becoming a Zeqr Expert

Zeqr logo

Zeqr logoWhat is Zeqr and how does it work? What are the benefits of using it and how do you become an expert? Zeqr is a new global knowledge hub. Zeqr is going to change how knowledge is exchanged on a global level, leading to a better informed and more knowledgeable world. 

Zeqr is unique because there are no other platforms offering peer-to-peer, real-time sessions, and courses along with service offerings. Zeqr can also help experts develop a new source of income as they give classes and webinars to paying customers looking to gain knowledge in a wide range of subjects on the site.

What Is Zeqr?

 Zeqr is a marketplace that is a new global knowledge hub and sharing platform designed to connect experts to those looking for advice or to become better informed. The site allows people to learn from one of the experts on Zeqr or to share their experiences as an expert. Zeqr allows people to share ideas and their knowledge with others through one on one mentorship, classes, webinars, and videos.

How Does Zeqr Work?

How Does Zeqr Work?

Whether you want to become an expert or if you want to learn something, the first step is to signup for an account. If you join Zeqr as an expert, then you can offer your knowledge for a price through classes or one on one tutoring.

But, if you joined Zeqr to learn things, then you can simply pay an expert to teach you via video or classroom-style webinar teaching. 

Zeqr handles the payments. So, there’s no need to worry about how to pay an expert for his or her time or how to get paid if you become an expert in a field. There are many categories available on Zeqr and the categories cover a wide range such as beauty, finance, academics, communications, internet marketing, and so much more.

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Top 4 Critical FAFSA Mistakes College Students Make Every Year

Why College Donations Are Important

Why College Donations Are ImportantFAFSA for the 2017-2018 school year has been available since October 2016, and the filing deadlines are right around the corner. Getting help paying for college is a major concern for millions of students in the U.S., but filling out FAFSA is a little more complex than say, filling out a job application. You need to have your financial documents and records ready so the government can assess how much aid to grant you, but in spite of the couple-hour process of filling out FAFSA, the benefits of receiving financial aid tend to outweigh the downsides.

4 FAFSA Mistakes to Avoid This Year

There are several myths surrounding student loans and financial aid in general, so here are a few things to avoid while filling out and submitting your FAFSA this year.

Filling Out Wrong FAFSA (or Not at All)

FAFSA stands for “Free Application for Federal Student Aid,” which means you should never be asked to input your credit card or banking information while applying for grants and loans. If you’re not on the FAFSA.gov website, then you might be on a scam site that wants to get your personal information and steal money from you. Don’t fall into this trap!

It’s one thing to fill out the wrong FAFSA, but some people don’t fill out FAFSA at all. These folks oftentimes assume that the application process is too long, cumbersome, or confusing and avoid it altogether. Other people who come from middle to upper class families assume they won’t qualify for aid. But, this isn’t the case. FAFSA is available to students at all accredited high education institutions (even community college students), so don’t mistakenly assume you won’t be eligible for anything from the federal government.

Here's how to avoid making four of the biggest FAFSA mistakes.Click To Tweet

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Five Reasons You Should Be Donating Money To Your College

Why College Donations Are Important

You should be donating money to your college. I love donating like to my alma mater. I give money to them every month, and I’m even considering including them in my will. There are so many reasons that you should consider donating money to your college. A couple of weeks ago there is a spirited debate on the blog, Tie The Money Knot, about whether or not you should be donating money to your college and giving back. I quickly found myself in the minority, and I wanted to elaborate more on why I think that you should be donating money to your college. Five Reasons College Donations Are Important  Donating Money To Your College Protects Your Investment I look … Read more