Planning, hard work can cut college costs in half

Solving the first is easy: Just put the kids in lederhosen -- economical and stylish.

But in these recession-wracked times, solving the college cost conundrum seems harder than ever. Just projecting the sticker price for today's high school junior to spend four years at one of Michigan's public universities tops $106,000.

While few, if any, students end up paying the full price, that startling number launched me on a mission to find out just how much a committed family could carve out of its college bill. I knew just the expert to call: my brother, Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D., the author of "College is Yours in 600 Words or Less" and director of College Counseling at Roeper School in Birmingham. He's also a past president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling and, if he wants to get invited for Thanksgiving, had to help me out.

The good news, according to Dr. Pat, is that there are options that can cut that MSU tab by half, still give a kid a quality bachelor's degree and keep student loan payments manageable. But the parents and the student will have to plan and work -- starting right now in high school.

The plan

What it takes is planning where the student wants to finish school, O'Connor says, as well as taking advantage of inexpensive tests that count for college credit and tapping the bargain tuitions of two-year community colleges. The way to save is to cut the time at a costly four-year school while still earning a full bachelor's degree.

The key is to focus on gaining inexpensive credits now, which the four-year school will accept and apply directly toward a bachelor's degree. That means no waffling around about a major, starting with art history, going to pre-med for a month, and then switching to accounting. Students need to pick a direction and stick with it. Along with parents, they need to communicate with high school counselors and college admissions and course advisers.

"This requires a bit of vision and planning and teamwork," O'Connor says.

Start college early

As early as 10th grade, students can start taking community college courses for both college and high school credit. In cases where students take a community college course not offered by their high schools, the local district will even pay for the course, under a plan called dual-enrollment. Some schools accept up to 80 transfer credits from a community college -- almost three years of credits, notes Patrick Buck, a financial aid officer at Oakland Community College in Auburn Hills.

"There's a big trend that four-year programs are accepting a lot more transfer credits," Buck says. The key is to be sure community college courses a high-schooler takes will transfer.

"You could take a lot of classes that end up lost in the shuffle," Buck says. "We had a student who had to take 15 additional credits because their other credits didn't transfer."

Starting in the junior year of high school and taking just one, four-credit community college class for the fall, spring and summer semesters would shave almost a full year off a four-year tuition tab.

Tests are cheap, too

Another way to trim tuition is with cheap college-level tests that are accepted for college credit. That includes the daunting, but well-known Advance Placement Tests, but also the College-Level Examination Program administered by the College Board.

For AP tests, students generally take a special course at their school, and then take a once-a-year test in May. CLEP tests are offered on a wider range of 34 topics, are designed around self-study and can be taken several times a year.

"Between AP and CLEP tests, I've known kids who've gotten up to a year's worth of college credit," O'Connor says.

But don't just sign up for a test, warns Ariel Foster, executive director of CLEP. Each college awards credits differently for the tests, and some don't accept every test. The tests are designed around core college first- and second-year courses, take 90 minutes and cost $72, plus a fee for the college test.

The College Board Web site carries study guides and links to free course programs and lectures from schools including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; there are third-party study guides published as well. Students study independently or form study groups, Foster adds.

"Students do say CLEP helped them finance their degree," she says.

Save and take tax credits

With college a year or more off for high-schoolers, there's still time for kids and parents to save. A junior earning $50 a week babysitting or mowing lawns can amass $5,000 by the time he or she is off to school. Parents saving $60 a week out of grocery money, by carpooling or with other cost-cutting can add $6,000, and more if both sides keep it up while the student is at college.

Another element to add in is the annual tax credit for college that can be claimed for any student studying at least part time. Once a child is enrolled, parents can check their eligibility and use the current $2,500 Hope or $2,000 Lifetime Learning Credit, then use the added tax refund to offset college expenses.

The bottom line

Using only these techniques, a best-case scenario in the accompanying chart shows an 11th-grader and his or her family, starting today, could whack nearly $51,000 off a four-year degree for a member of the class of 2015, while socking away savings of $22,000. The student would actually finish in 2013, but would still start college with classmates and live at school -- he or she would just have nearly a two-year head start, allowing the student to graduate early and get a jump on the job market.

With no grants, scholarships or other aid, that would still leave about $34,000 to borrow. At today's rates of 8.5 percent interest for direct unsubsidized federal student loans, that would leave the graduate with a student loan payment of $439 a month for 10 years.

"It's possible to have the college experience you want and not take yourself to the poorhouse," O'Connor says. "You have to plan, you have to ask; it will require teamwork and communication, but that's the essence of any successful school experience."

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