Table of Contents
PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN DEBT-FREE U
Zac Bissonnette is a writer and editor with AOL Money & Finance. He writes daily for DailyFinance.com, AOLs financial news and analysis destination, and has appeared on CNN, written for the Boston Globe and the Daily Beast, and been quoted in media outlets such as WSJ.com, the Salt Lake Tribune, Bloomberg, and Reuters .com. He is an art history major at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
In memory of Margaret
FOREWORD BY ANDREW TOBIAS
A hundred years ago I bought a brand new Acapulco blue Ford Mustang with money I had earned in college. It had sport stripes, yellow turn blinkers embedded in the hood so I could see them flashing, and a horn that went toodela-toodela-toodela. It cost $2,511as you can see, it really was one hundred years ago (well, 1967)and I had earned every penny selling class rings and helping to publish a student travel guide. I loved that car. I loved earning the money even more.
Technically, I majored in Slavic languages and literatureswhich for me meant reading War and Peace in English. In the crib notes edition. (Do they still have those? Now it would be Wikipedia.) What I really majored in was the student business enterprise, which was a great deal more fun, not to mention useful. Thats the reason I jumped at the chance to write this foreword.
Zac Bissonette is one of the sharpest financial writers around. The fact that he is only twentyDoogie Howser meets the boys from Facebookfreaks me out. (His first worldly wise e-mail to me, years ago, involved some kind of sophisticated stock market situation he had found suspect, and I assumed he was a middle-aged hedge fund manager. Turned out, he was in high school.) But listen, Mozart was five when he wrote his first stuff, so by that standard Zac is lagging far behind.
The point is, you should listen to this guyand you will have fun doing it. You may still decide to bury your family in debt to enroll your offspring in an expensive private school; but you will have had the benefit of full and thoughtful consideration of the choice.
And your kids should listen to him, too, because college is the start of a lifetime of being out on their own. (Or at least youd better hope soI know it tears at your heartstrings to think of their leaving the nest, but you do not want them back at thirty.) Getting a handle on money, and on the real world, now, at the outset, can help them steer a course toward prosperity, security, and happiness.
Its all too easy, through lack of attention to these things (Im a kid! Ill worry about that later!), to fall into an Im terrible with money mentality. That may seem to brush the issue asideoh, Im terrible with moneyor may even seem cool in some way. (Im into more important things!) But it is a terrible early misstep that becomes a significant life handicap. If your kid is bright enough to go to college, she or he is bright enough to be sensible, not terrible, with money. (Which, by the way, couldnt hurt you in your dotage either. Look how nicely Oprah provides for her mother.)
Whatever school your son or daughter decides on, Zacs advice will help get him or her through in the best financial shape possible. And when it comes to building a life, theres nothing like getting off to a good start.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It takes a lot of people to help someone as stubborn as I am put together a book thats anything close to publishable. For everything that is good about this book, the credit goes to:
Andrew Tobias, the bestselling financial writer turned savior of the planet who helped me formulate the idea for this book and introduced me to...
David Kuhn, the best literary agent on the planetwho went so far beyond the norm of literary agents to make this book happen. Also: his lovely assistants Jessi Cimafonte and Billy Kingsland.
My aunt Jodi Tussing, who, in addition to being the most ethical person in the history of the real estate business, is one of the best people in the world.
All the big shot financial journalists and personalities who have been so generous with their time and expertise, especially Gary Weiss, Farnoosh Torabi, Herb Greenberg, Suze Orman, David Bach, Stuart Elliott, Jean Chatzky, and Ali Rogers.
Everyone at Penguin/Portfolio: Adrian Zackheim, Adrienne Schultz, Brooke Carey, Maureen Cole, and Will Weisser.
My publicist, Barb Burg, who took me on as a client even after I totally slept through our first breakfast meeting and left her alone at a diner waiting for me. It was an alarm clock malfunction, I swear!
The entire team at AOL Money & Finance, WalletPop, Daily-Finance , BloggingStocks, and whatever other brands weve launched by the time you read this. Especially the following people, who have been wonderful friends, colleagues, mentors, and tough editors: Amey Stone, Beth Pinsker, Sarah Gilbert, Julie Tilsner, Andrea Chalupa, Todd Pruzan, Tobias Buckell, Sheldon Liber, Michael Rainey, Melly Alazraki, Aaron Crowe, Jon Berr, Tom Barlow, David Schepp, Geoff Williams, Jason Cochran, and Josh Smith.
The lovely Tracy Coenen, who, in addition to being supersmart, can always make me laugh when she isnt making me cry. And of course Kevin Kelly, who encouraged me to get started in writing and made all this happen. He will be very famous in a few years.
My two ex-con sources, who helped me learn everything I needed to know about how people get financially screwed: Barry Minkow and Sam E. Antar, who is almost as awesome as he is crazy.
All my friends at UMass, who are living proof that smart people can get a fantastic education at public universities, but especially the original members of the Badd Boys Club: Ryan, Tommy, and Onri.
A good teacher is one of the most powerful things that can make someones life better. Ive been fortunate to have a bunch of good teachers (in chronological order): Becky Lash, Mrs. James, Mr. Brown, Mr. VanSant, Mr. Metzger, Mr. Pontes, and Mr. Hillebrand.
My family: Grandma, Dad, Nate, Ramsey, and my Jewish mother, Beth Wechsler. My lifes ambition is to one day be as successful as she already thinks I am.
INTRODUCTION
The Four People You Meet When You Apply to College, and the Lies They Tell
I wrote this book because Ive met, spoken with, and read e-mails from hundreds of families who are struggling with the burden of college costsworrying about how theyll pay for college without bankrupting their retirement accounts or burdening their kids with massive debt loads.
If your child is preparing to apply to college (or is in college right now), are you worried about the financial impact of higher education both in terms of your own ability to finance it today and the effect student loans will have on your childs future? A recent poll conducted by the New York Times and CBS News found that 70 percent of parents were very concerned about how they would pay for college. Only 6 percent said they werent worried. The 2003/2004 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study revealed that two thirds of Americans were graduating with an average of $19,202 in student loan debtan increase of 18 percent over a three-year period when job and wage growth remained largely stagnant.
