Michelle Singletary writes in her Washington Post/Bloomberg column that students and parents are joining forces to pay for college in a variety of ways.
Fidelity Investments just released its fifth annual College Savings Indicator study. The financial company looks at the percentage of projected college costs the typical American family is on track to cover, based on its current and expected savings. The study also examines strategies that families are using to cut college costs.
For example, 66 percent of the parents surveyed said they would require that their child maintain a certain grade point average in order for them to fund their education. The average GPA that parents said they would require is a 3.1 out of 4.0.
“We call this shared accountability between the child and parent,” said Joe Ciccariello, Fidelity’s vice president of college planning.
Many scholarships require students to maintain a certain grade point average, so why shouldn’t you? You can be flexible if your child is taking a tough course.
Fidelity also found that the percentage of parents asking their children to work toward graduating in fewer semesters almost doubled in the past five years, to 28 percent.
Read Michelle Singletary's entire blog entry at the Washington Post/Bloomberg.