37 Ways to Save Money for College (Tips for Kids and Parents)

Table of Contents

Did you know that the average college student graduates with $28,400 dollars in student loans? Yep, almost $30k just to get a piece of paper according to studentloanhero.com’s Student Loan Debt Statistics post here.

I’m not surprised at that figure, though. Because when I graduated from college, I had almost $30,000 dollars exactly in student loans. It hurt…a lot.

But I rolled up my sleeves and I got to work. I found out that you don’t have to have student loans forever. I mean, do you want student loans when you’re 50+ plus years old?! I didn’t.

I spent the next 40 months sacrificing to get them all paid off. $30,000 bucks and A LOT of time. I was happy I got it done but it was tough. And I was angry, because I knew that I could’ve avoided all of that if I would’ve done two things:

Saved money FOR college and…
Saved money while I was IN college.

I didn’t do either and it set me back years. But I’ve learned and have changed my finances. Even with all of that debt, my wife and I have still found success with money and now have a $300,000+ net worth at 30 years old.

But thankfully, you’ve found this post. In it, we’re going to be talking about a few things:

Why it’s so incredibly important to save money for college.
How to pick an affordable college in just 5 easy steps.
A word for parents and…
37 simple ways (for kids and parents) to save money for college.

Follow these steps and college will be both fun and debt-free!

Why it’s important to save money for college

The expenses

College expenses are insane. Between the actual tuition costs, fees, books, supplies, housing, food, and miscellaneous other costs associated with going to college, it can almost be too much to pay for. That’s why many people take out student loans. But if you do a few things before you go to college, and then stay frugal while going to college, it’s not impossible to pay for everything with actual money.

The more you save, the less you’ll need

If you start early enough and save enough, anybody can go to college debt-free. Remember, the goal is always a debt-free education. College degrees are not a bad thing, but they can be detrimental to your finances if you overspend and borrow too much.

You want to avoid student loans

No matter what you do, no matter how you do it (as long as it’s legal), I want you avoid student loans at all costs. If someone is telling you to take out loans because it’s “good debt,” RUN AWAY from them. There’s no such thing as good debt. And loans are the worst. They’ll rob you of money for decades if you’re not careful.

So how do you stay out of student loan debt? One of the best ways is to pick a college that you can afford. Here’s how to do in just 5 easy steps.

How to pick an affordable college in just 5 steps

Step 1 – Determine how much you have saved

When your kid is closing in on college age, you need to determine how much money you currently have for their college education. Now we’ll talk about this later on but you need to have a realistic expectation of exactly what you’ll have put away. That amount will determine where they’ll be able to go to school.

Step 2 – Decide on which type of school

Once you have a realistic estimate of how much money you’ll have, next up is to decide which type of school your kid is going to go to.

Private schooling is out of the question unless your kid has a full-ride scholarship, enough scholarship money to pay for it completely, or you have the money to pay for this education in full. You’re not taking out loans for ridiculously expensive schools. That’s dumb. You can get the same education for half the price.

Most kids, however, will be going to a 4-year university, taking out loans, and never using their degree. Make sure you have the money and scholarships needed to help your kid go to a 4-year school for their bachelor’s degree. When picking a 4-year school, find an in-state, public university like East Carolina University in North Carolina or the University of Tennessee. Those are cheap, public, in-state schools that offer most of the same degrees as expensive, private schools.

If you don’t have the money, they may need to start out at the local community college. It’s incredibly inexpensive for two years of schooling and you can knock out all of the prerequisite classes needed for your degree. This also gives you extra time to figure out your major. I personally have a 2-year associates degree and I can attest to community college classes being pretty much the same as university classes…just a few less people in them.

But if you don’t want to go to any of those schools, trade school is another great option for those who are interested in a trade like heating and air (HVAC) or welding. These schools are incredibly cheap and can almost always be paid for without loans. They also offer an easier route into a trade where you can stand to make a very good income for the work you do. So if you like to work with your hands, consider a trade!

Step 3 – Your major

I know that this is one of the toughest things to decide for college kids. Why? Well, you’re basically deciding on a field of study and a career that you want to do for the rest of your life. It’s a BIG decision. So no wonder a lot of kids are undecided on this. But you have to reign in some ideas. Most colleges want you to decide your major by about sophomore year, but I’ve got a different mindset. I believe that college students should know what major they want to study before they go to college.

You need to know this so that you can take specific classes and knock out major prerequisites early. Knowing before you go to school also helps you focus on certain schools that have your major. Have your kids be thinking of majors by junior year of high school. They need to make a decision on their major by start of senior year.

Step 4 – Make a list of schools

You and your kids need to put together a list of schools in your state. Order them from most expensive to least expensive and also order them again from the school your kid wants to attend most at the top from school they least want to attend at the bottom. Try to have at least 4-5 schools on this list.

Step 5 – Find your fit

Once you’ve determined how much money you have for college, decided on which type of school your kid wants to go to, picked a major, and made a list of schools, visit those schools and for which ones are the right fit for your kid.

Have your kid apply and see which ones you get into.

Then they can make a sound college choice and be happy at whatever school they’ve picked.

A word for parents

Your kid needs to be part of this process! Im serious. This is not some passive process. You AND your kid need to be super aware of everything that’s going on. Your kid needs to know your mindset about college and how much money they’re going to have for school. They need to tell you their thoughts about where they want to go and why. If everybody’s on the same page, things will go very smoothly.

In the section below, I’ve highlighted 37 tips for parents and kids. The top section is up to you, the parents. The bottom sections are for your kid. Alright, let’s get to it.

37 simple ways to save money for college (tips for parents and kids)

Parents

1. Open up a 529 or ESA: one of the easiest things you can do is to open up an investment account for your child. This is what we’ve done and should be worth a fairly significant amount by the time my son reaches college age.

The 529 College Savings Plan: according to Blackrock.com’s article here, a 529 College Savings Plan is “a state-sponsored investment plan that enables you to save money for a beneficiary and pay for education expenses.”

The Coverdell Education Savings Account: according to Wikipedia’s article here, the Coverdell Education Savings Account “is a tax-advantaged investment account in the U.S. designed to encourage savings to cover future education expenses.”

There are minor differences between the two, but for the most part, this is how you should invest for your kid’s college.

If you’d like to learn more about the 529 and the ESA, check out this post here on Ramseysolutions.com.

2. Commit to a certain amount: whether you have a lot or only a little, I want you to commit to investing a certain amount of money every single month. If you don’t have much, start with just $50 dollars per month and do at least that every month until your kid gets to college. We’re personally doing $100 dollars per month and plan on increasing that as time goes on. Here are some quick compound interest numbers.

Example of $50 dollars per month: with just $50 bucks a month invested every month for 18 years at 10% percent interest, you’ll have $30,000 dollars. Not much but it’s a great start.

Example of $100 dollars per month: with just $100 bucks a month invested every month for 18 years at 10% percent interest, you’ll have $60,000 dollars. That’s a nice chunk of money for only $100 dollars per month.

Our goal is to have around $100,000 dollars for our son. What’s your goal?

3. Start as early as you can: next up, start investing as early as you can. You want to be able to take advantage of years of compound interest. With kids, you’re not going to get 30+ plus years out of your investment account, but you can get around 18 years out of that 529 or ESA and that’s pretty good.

4. Better to have it and not need it: the biggest argument that I hear is, “why should I invest for college? My son/daughter may not even go to college!” It’s a very logical argument and I completely understand. Why pay all this money when your kid might not even go to school?

Here’s why – “because it’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”

In our modern society, a degree can be important. And education is a good thing. I’m personally going to be pushing my kid toward college. If he goes, great. If he wants to do something else, that’s fine, too. But our kids are probably going to go to college.

So I’d rather have a chunk of money ready to help pay for college than to have nothing ready. If you have nothing, your kid has to take out student loans and that’s no good.

For my son: in a worst case scenario, where you have money that won’t be used for college, just transfer it to a family member or pull it out and pay the taxes. If my son doesn’t go to college, I’m going to pull the money out, pay the taxes, and give him all of the money left to put as a home down payment or whatever else he wants to use it for.

Imagine being able to do that for your kids.

5. Be a college hero: I want you to be a college hero for your kids – the kind of parent that helps their kid do whatever it takes to go to college without loans. Be the parent that has money ready and a college plan waiting for your kid.

But don’t force them to go to your alma mater. Let them choose the school, within reason, and go from there.

6. Work more: depending on what age your kid is, you may need to start working more to help out with college savings. You can either do this by working overtime at your full-time job or finding another job part-time (we’ll talk about the side hustle later in this post).

If your kid is young, just a little bit of extra money can go a long way if you invest it right. If your kid is older, you might need to work more to help get college tuition paid for. Don’t worry, your kid can work, too.

Remember, the more money you make, the more you can save.

7. Cut expenses to the bone: another way to help free up more money to save for college is to cut down on expenses. I mean, let’s be real here. We all have expenses and things we’re paying for that we could cut back on. The next couple of posts can show you how to save money on certain things so that you can free up that money in your budget. Check out the following posts:

“101 Ways of Creatively Cutting Expenses to Save a Ton of Money”

“27 Awesome Ways to Save Money at the Gas Pump”

“47 Tips and Tricks for Saving Money at the Grocery Store”

“The Complete Guide to Saving Money on Your Utility Bills: 57 Easy Tips”

“27 Insanely Simple Ways to Save Money on Coffee”

8. Get on a budget: one of the best ways of making sure that you’re not wasting any money is to start living on a budget. I know a lot of people hate the idea of budgeting, but I want you to start giving it a try. Because a budget isn’t some terribly restrictive concept. No, a budget is a way to help YOU control YOUR money instead of letting it control you. A budget is you giving yourself permission to spend.

So create a zero-based budget and start tracking all of your expenses. The zero-based budget is the budget to use because it allows you to give every dollar a job. It assigns every single dollar you have so that you don’t waste any money. It can also help you reach your financial goals faster (if used correctly). So check out this post here on why you need a zero-based budget in your finances.

It can seriously help your finances and it’s perfect for the parent(s) who are looking to save more for their kid’s college.

9. Get out of debt: now this one is going to be a little tougher, but it can be great for your overall finances. Even if you didn’t have a kid going to college, I’d still recommend that you get out of debt. Because debt sucks. It robs you of your hard-earned income and keeps you from building wealth. All your money comes in and all your debt payments go out. It’s usually a vicious cycle of living paycheck to paycheck. But you can break that cycle (see this post here).

But if you can manage to crawl out of debt, you’ll have a ton of extra money to use toward whatever you want, including saving for kids college. However, if you have debt, I recommend that you get out of debt completely before you start saving for kids college. Take care of your finances first so that you can help out your kids with college.

For more, check out this post – “47 Creative Ways to Pay Off Debt This Year.”

10. Sell your stuff: the next way to save more money? Sell your stuff. It’s time to go through your home and purge everything you don’t want or need. Most people today will have at least $1,000 to $2,000 dollars worth of stuff just sitting around waiting to be sold. That’s exactly what we found out. We live a fairly frugal lifestyle, but still had over $1,000 dollars worth of stuff to be sold!

So go through everything and determine what can be sold.

Now I want you to set up accounts on the following platforms – EBay, Mercari, and Facebook (you may already have this one).

Mercari: my wife loves this platform. It’s similar to EBay and people LOVE to buy stuff on here. My wife has made well over $1,000 dollars selling stuff on Mercari.

EBay: I’m a HUGE fan of EBay. I’ve sold thousands of dollars over the years and it still remains a great selling platform to this day.

Facebook Marketplace: anything that’s too big to be shipped can be sold on Facebook Marketplace. This is local and people can do porch pickup with no interaction. Money can be dropped under your doormat or sent via Venmo or Zelle.

Find stuff and get it sold. The more you more you make, the more can be saved for kids college.

11. Yard sale flipping: my wife and I also regularly go to yard sales to find products to “flip.” Find items that you can buy for very cheap and sell them online for a decent price. For example, branded mugs at a yard sale will usually sell for around $.25-.50 cents. Buy one and list it on EBay for $12-15 dollars. Someone will buy it and you’ll most likely profit about $5-6 dollars after fees and shipping.

Also try and find other products that are selling for cheap that you know you can flip like old video games, old hot wheel cars, and name brand stuffed animals.

12. Find a side hustle: another great way to make extra money for your kid’s college fund is to find a side hustle to start making some extra cash. Side hustles can be tougher to start up than just a regular part-time job, but can be much more lucrative. With side hustles, you can make $30-40 dollars or more if you know what you’re doing.

Common side hustle ideas:

Lawn care
House cleaning
Dog walking
Power/pressure washing
Handyman work
Whatever skill you’re good at that can make you money

For more ways to make money, check out this post here on my site.

13. Savings account: if you’re just trying to save a few dollars for education and are particularly lazy, you can always open up a regular savings account and put some aside in there. But I wouldn’t recommend this.

Warning: this is a mistake for two reasons – 1) you‘ll be losing out on years of compound interest and 2) it’s too easy to pull this money out if an “emergency” happens.

You can do this, but I’d rather see it invested in a 529 or an ESA.

14. Just try to do something: if you just don’t have the income, you need to try to at least do something for your kid for college. Just $50 bucks per month shouldn’t be that difficult. But if you don’t have it, try to do other things to help your kid like:

Teaching them about the dangers of debt and student loans.
Helping them pick an affordable school.
Having them fill out as many scholarships as they can find (100+ plus at least).
Teaching them a good work ethic and explaining that they’ll have to work while in school.
Having them complete free college courses while in high school.

All of those ideas can cut down on college cost to help your kid afford college.

15. If you start late: it’s okay if you haven’t started saving for your kid’s college yet. But you are behind so you do need to do something about it. So if you’ve got the money, but are just a little late on saving, I want you to do a couple of quick things…

Assess your situation: figure out exactly where you’re at in the process of funding college. How old is your kid? If they’re 3 years old, you’re fine. If they’re 13 years old, you’re still okay, but it’s time to get going. If they’re 17 and going into senior year, you better start saving as soon as possible and go crazy this year.

Make a plan: figure out how much you need to save and for how long. Then think about the total amount of money needed for college and how you can either reach that number or get close. Example – my son has 15 more years until college. I want to have $60,000-80,000 saved for his college of choice and I’ll need to have it in the next 15 years. I’ll reach that number by consistently investing $100 dollars every month and increasing that number to $200 dollars per month or more soon in the future.

Plan to cash flow some costs: if you were a little late, it’s all good. Just remember that you don’t need ALL the money when they turn 18. You can cash flow – or pay for with the money you make – some expenses over the course of your kid’s couple of years in college. If you keep contributing to the investment account, and cash flow certain things, you CAN afford to send your kid to college debt-free.

But you need to start right now!

16. Track your savings: along the way, you need to track your kid’s college savings and always know how much you have going toward college. You need to check on the account at least once per year. I personally check on my son’s 529 plan just about every month. Track it so you know you’re on track to help send your kid to college without any debt.

Kids

17. Make a total cost estimate: once your kid gets to be almost college age, I want them to start adding up expenses so that they know what college is actually going to cost. Because most high school students have NO IDEA what school is actually going to cost so you’re going to have them draw up a “total cost estimate” for their college expenses.

Total cost estimate: the total cost estimate is simple – it’s an approximate total amount of money that you’re going to pay through all of your years of college. Basically, “how much is college going to cost you?” Your kid needs to know roughly how much you’re going to help and how much money you’ll put into the mix. Then they can do some research and find this total. It’s as simple as adding up all tuition, room and board, books, and all miscellaneous expenses.

Add up total college expenses for all 4 years (or however many years is planned) now.

18. Get on a budget: just like mom and dad, your kid needs to learn how to budget as well. Managing your personal finances is one of the most important things you will ever learn in your life. And if your kid can learn this early on, and implement a budget through college, they will be so far ahead of everyone else financially when they graduate college. If you have no debt after graduating college, you can make different life decisions and pick exactly what you wish to do when working.

Get on a budget before you go to college and start saving everything you can to go toward school.

19. Learn how to live frugally: next up, learning how to live frugally. One of the best things you can do for yourself is to learn personal finance and learn how to live below your means or to live on less than you make. Being frugal might be tough if you’re always used to spending everything you make. But if you can learn how to cut back just a little bit and then more and more over time, you’ll eventually learn how to live frugally and make smart decisions with your money. That’s a great tip for saving money before you go to college and while you’re in college.

20. Work as many jobs as possible: while you’re saving up for college, work as much as possible to earn money toward your schooling. Whatever you make will help you to get through college without any student debt.

21. Side hustle: working and side hustles aren’t just for parents. Teenagers these days love a good side hustle. And why not? These are awesome jobs that you can do on your time and make $30-40 dollars an hour. If you worked just 10 hours a week and made $30 bucks an hour, that’s $1200 dollars per month. That’s easy. Everybody has 10 hours per week, no matter how busy you are.

22. Pay yourself first: as the great billionaire investor Warren Buffet has said, “don’t save what is left after spending, spend what is left after saving.” Translation – don’t spend everything and then try to save some money because you won’t. Instead, pay yourself first by immediately saving some money. Then use whatever’s left to spend.

With whatever money you make, try to put most of it away for college savings. It might suck to have to save it instead of having fun and spending it. But down the road, you’ll be glad you did.

23. Apply for AT LEAST a scholarship a day: this could be one of the most lucrative tips you could ever get on saving for college. Why? Because there are hundreds upon hundreds of scholarship grants out there ripe for the taking. But it’s up to you to win them.

When my son gets to be around college age, I’m going to have him start applying for scholarships every single day. He may only get 1 per day, but if he did that every day for a year, that would be over 365 scholarships applied for. Even if he doesn’t win the majority, if he won 20-30 of them, it could net him an extra $10,000-20,000 dollars in FREE scholarship money.

If you’re looking for a FANTASTIC book on how to win college scholarships, check out “Confessions of a Scholarship Winner,” by Kristina Ellis here on Amazon.

24. Ride the bus to school: another easy way to save money for college is to ride the bus to school during the school year. With gas prices being absolutely crazy these days, it’s easy to say that you could save a tank of gas per week if you did that. And with an average tank costing around $50 dollars or more, that’s $200 bucks per month or $2000 dollars for the school year that could be going toward college expenses!

25. DON’T drive as often as possible: just like the last tip, I highly encourage you to try and save money by conserving gas. This can be a big expense while in high school and can mean wasted money. If you want to go out, bum rides or walk.

26. Find free ways to have fun: high school is where the fun is at. I remember those days as being the most stress free days of my life. But I also remember how broke me and all my friends were. We had very little money, so we did everything we could think of that was free – from hiking to just hanging out and playing video games to playing sports. There are hundreds of free things to do as a high school student. You just have to find them.

Here is a cool post on 30 fun, free things to do as a teen over on liveabout.com.

27. If you do spend money: if you do end up spending money to have fun, try to keep the costs minimal. Because, again, anything that you can save now can help you get through college debt-free.

Now look, I’m not against spending money or having fun. I spent a lot of money and had a lot of fun in high school. But I want you to try and save every chance you get. If it’s not free, try to make whatever activity you’re doing as cheap as possible. I promise, you can still have a lot of fun and save money, too.

28. Sell your stuff: if you’ve got stuff to sell, get rid of it. Small stuff can be sold on EBay, Mercari, and Facebook. Anything big that was bought by parents probably needs to be discussed with them first before being sold (i.e. a 4-wheeler or video game system). But if parents are on board, get rid of that stuff and put some serious cash in your pocket.

Then use that extra cash to fuel your college education!

29. Take college courses in high school: this can be one of the absolute best ways to cut down on college costs, but it’s probably one of the toughest also. That is to take as many college courses as you can while in high school.

These days, almost all high schools offer classes where you can get some college credit. Some schools offer an entire college curriculum to where you can get course credit up to a 2-year associate’s degree. Imagine being able to knock out 2 years of college costs!

30. Set a BHAG: before you go off to college, I want you to set a BHAG – a Big Hairy Audacious Goal – for going to college, getting your degree, and graduating with ZERO student loan debt. Set yourself at least those BHAGs for your college career and aim to shatter those goals when you graduate. Set more if you’d like. But you need to aim at smashing those BHAGs and graduating college completely debt free.

So good luck when you get there!

Once kids get to college

31. Work full-time: when you get to college, unless you have your college completely paid for, you’re going to be working. I recommend almost full-time or full-time work while in school. 30-40 hours per week is really not that difficult while going to school. I did it, as well as thousands and thousands of other former college students in the past.

Even if you have college paid for, I still recommend that you work. Why? Well, you need to have spending money so that you don’t go into debt and also so that you can get ahead with your finances while in college. If you do that, you’ll be so far ahead of the game when you graduate.

32. Cook your own food: instead of the overpriced college meal plan, you need to buy groceries and learn how to cook your own food. Most students want convenience and that usually means paying for a meal plan that costs double what groceries cost. While you’re in school, cook your own food and save a ton of money!

33. Cash only: while at school, I want you to use cash only (or your debit card). There are numerous studies that show that using cash helps you spend less than using credit cards. If you work and make extra money, just keep some cash, use your debit card, and budget accordingly. That’s how you keep up with your finances while in college.

34. Don’t use credit cards: DO NOT open up any credit cards while in college. I say don’t get any period, but that’s because I’ve learned that the credit card is the cigarette of the financial industry. They’re horrible financial products and they can ruin your life if you’re not careful.

College is a time when credit card companies try their hardest to hook you as a customer. They offer free dinners, free rewards, and free t-shirts to those who sign up. It’s worth it to them because they make millions off of college students who normally don’t have much money. So they charge expenses on their credit cards. Bad decision. Stay away from credit cards and keep that stress out of your life.

For more on why credit cards and credit card reward points are bad, check out these two posts:

“37 Reasons Why Credit Cards are Bad (and Ruining Your Life!)”

“7 Mind-Blowing Reasons Why Credit Card Reward Points are Bad”

If you’ve already got credit card debt, check out this post to learn how you pay it off – “17 Great Ways to Pay Off Your Credit Card Debt Right Now.”

35. Don’t invest (until you graduate): if you’re working and making money while in college, plus you’ve learned a little bit about investments, it can seem tempting to want to start investing right away. But please don’t. Unless your college is completely paid for in full, you’re going to want to use all money to make sure college is taken care of.

The best investment you can make is in yourself.

So whatever money you make, try to allocate it toward taking care of college expenses. Skip financial investments until you transition into a full-time job after college. Until then, you’ll be fine. You’re young and still have a ton of time to invest AND take advantage of compound interest.

Here’s a good example just to let you know you’re fine: if you graduate and start investing at around 22, you have about 40 years of working before you retire. So let’s do two hypotheticals. The first, you invest only $100 dollars per month from age 22 to 62. If you earn 10% percent interest on your money average over those years, you’ll have $584,000 dollars at retirement. That’s not a whole lot, but you didn’t invest much and still ended up with half a million bucks.

For the second, let’s look at the numbers if you invested $200, $300, $400, and $500 dollars per month:

$200 per month for 40 years = $1.1 million
$300 per month for 40 years = $1.75 million
$400 per month for 40 years = $2.3 million
$500 per month for 40 years = $2.9 million

So you’ll be fine. Pay for school and invest when you start working after graduation.

36. Take debt off the table: so here’s my plea – PLEASE don’t borrow money for your college education. This is a huge mistake and will take you years to fix. My $30,000 dollars that I borrowed took me years to pay off and wasted valuable time that could’ve been spent building wealth.

So do anything and everything that you can to get through college with no debt – cut expenses, work as much as possible, apply for scholarships, and finish as quickly as you can. Lastly, I want you to take debt off the table. Tell yourself, “I’m not borrowing money for school. Now how can I pay for this?” Then use every tip on this list to do that. Find every possible way to pay for your expenses so that you can go to college completely debt-free.

37. Use this tips list: for more ways to save money as a college student, check out this awesome post here on my site – “101 Ways to Save Money as a College Student.”

That post is epic. It has the 101 best ways to save while you’re actually in college. Because it’s tough to save while you’re in high school. There too little money and too much fun. But college turns it up a notch. So take that post and learn how you can save. That’s how you win with money and graduate college completely debt-free.

Finally

If you wanted tips to help you save money for college, this list is it. I encourage you to bookmark this page and come back to it when needed. Because if your family uses all of the tips on this list, anyone who wants to go to college will be able to get their degree completely debt-free. That’s the goal. No more student loans. EVER.