Affecting School Size

I was recently at a luncheon with a large university and I heard a really good line: you can make a big school smaller, but you can’t make a small school bigger. For many students, the size of a college is a critical part in their decision about which school to attend. The size of a college is an important factor and what this quote says about school size rings true.

As with anything there are pros and cons to each. Chief among the advantages of a big
school are resources. They typically command a larger budget which translates
to more programs, more equipment and facilities for those programs, and more
money with which to attract professors to instruct those programs. There are
some parts of student life that many would see as more robust as well. They
might have more athletics, better housing options, and better student programs.
What the small schools bring to the table are smaller faculty/student ratios,
tighter-knit communities, and a familiar student body. Small colleges are where
every student might be on a first name basis with a school’s president, the
networking might be more personal, and students seldom feel lost in a sea of
thousands of students they’ll never know.

Each type of school brings something to the table, but the point of the quote above is
that it’s far easier to create the advantages of a small school within a large
school setting, than vice versa. Indeed, I’d encourage any student who chooses
to attend a big school to get involved. In doing so, a student creates their own family. If you’re in a club or a group at a big school and make a social effort therein, you’re inevitably going to synthesize the family atmosphere that is present at many school settings. It might be impossible to get to know every individual on campus, but you can create an atmosphere where you know some people and have a group that looks after you, while you look after them.

What it is extremely difficult for an individual student to do is to improve the resources of a small school. You can’t purchase equipment that cost thousands or millions of dollars, you can’t hire experts and noteworthy professors, and you can’t attract renowned speakers and celebrities in for speaking engagements. A small school student just can’t make resources materialize out of thin air. However, it might be possible to simulate some things a big school offers by attending a small school in a larger city. Larger cities might have some opportunities and resources available to its residents. While these won’t be available exclusively to students of a given school, cities could work to increase what a small school student is able to experience.

I’m not trying to make the argument that big schools are better than small, but I do
believe that small schools have a weakness that is more difficult to overcome
than what most perceive as the weakness of larger schools. Either way, any
student would do well to make strides to limit the effects of these weaknesses
which will only enhance their college experience.

Demonstrating Interest to Colleges

Let’s say there’s a girl I like. I might smile at her, flirt with her, ask for her number, or out on a date. These could all be considered components of what we’ll call a demonstrated interest. They are the overtures I might make to the girl to show that I am drawn to her. If I never made eye contact with her, never spoke to her, never showed any desire to communicate with her, would she have any indication that I was seriously interested in her? So it is with colleges and their applicants.

If you have a true desire and are passionate about going to a particular college, you need to demonstrate that. I think many families believe that colleges aren’t aware of their applicants as individuals. The families think that college admissions offices are just big clearinghouses where transcripts are fed into algorithms that spit out computed generated admission decisions. Well, they are not. They are offices staffed by human beings who make decisions about the fate of other humans. Just like the girl I like, if I can appeal to her and show that I’m genuinely interested, I might be able to improve my chances.

Colleges have the resources and do take the time to track demonstrated interest. If you sign up for emails from their admissions blog, but never open the emails or click on the links inside, they can see that. They know if and when you’ve taken an official tour of the school. They can even Facebook-stalk you.

So let’s say in your college essay you write about how the only thing you want out of life is to be a “wildcat” (or whatever their mascot is). That’s your goal and that’s the only school for you. However, you never introduced yourself to an admission rep at a college fair. You don’t subscribe to the Youtube channel for the admissions office or any of their other social media. You didn’t apply by the priority deadline, and the only time you’ve ever been on campus was for athletic events (remember, even if you are an athlete, that is never the primary reason you are going to college). If this is case, what are you truly saying to this college? How do they know your essay isn’t just the same pick up line you give to every college?

You need to flirt--or, interact--with the colleges you are interested in. And, you need to do more of that with the colleges you are most interested in. Colleges are, first and foremost, academic institutions. They need to know you are interested in being a student (and not just a fan) and taking classes on their campus. Their sports teams are their good looks and it’s okay for that to be a part of why you want to go there. However, if you are going to have a meaningful relationship with this school, you need to show them it’s about more than watching their games. That takes some effort, and the humans in the admissions office are watching for it. How are you demonstrating your interest?

Don't Trick Colleges

Each fall, as I sit down families to discuss college admissions and financial aid, I find a handful who have a developed a secret plan that will guarantee their college admissions or produce incredible savings in the cost of attendance. Despite the millions of applicants to American colleges, these families I’m meeting must be the first to think of this strategy and the whole idea must be fool-proof. Right? I’ve got news. Whatever it is, the colleges have seen it before and there are measures in place to prevent the process from being “gamed”.

On the admissions side, your academic record is what it is. Trying to elaborately shield blemishes on your transcript or cover up lower test scores aren’t going to do much for you in the long run. If you got a D in World History but a B in European History, those are two different courses and you got a D in one. If your freshman year was lousy, it’s still your freshman year even if it was at another high school, online, or in a homeschool setting. Don’t try to cover up these things and don’t ask a school official to cover them up for you. In all likelihood, the colleges are going to sniff these things out. I think students would do much to be open about their shortcomings and use them as an opportunity to expand on how they’ve learned from their mistakes.

From a testing standpoint, I always recommend sending all of scores to the colleges you’re interested in at the time of registration. I’ve never had a college tell me they are going to blacklist students that turn in poor scores before it’s time to submit an application. In other words, if you have the opportunity to send scores to a college when you register for your first test at the beginning of your junior year, go ahead. You don’t know what that score will be but colleges are probably going to see it eventually anyway. That’s kind of like using a fake picture if you’re online dating. Your date is going to see what you look like if and when you meet in person so what are you hiding from? You are who you are and representing someone different only leads to disappointment.

A key point that colleges reiterate to counselors is that they don’t like surprises. Colleges do not like to find out that a student is not who they represented themselves to be when they applied. With more and more self-reporting entering the college admissions process, it is increasingly based on the honor system. Colleges, do however research their students they admit and there are tools in place for them to find out who you really are. If you purposefully try to manipulate your past into something that doesn’t accurately represent your academic history, you’ll be found out. From there, what impression have you given the colleges? What incentive do they have to carry forward your admission rather than rescind it? Be honest with the colleges you’re applying to and no tricks for them this fall.

What is a Self-Reported Student Academic Record

A newer movement in the world of college admissions is the concept of the self-reported student academic record. This is a clever initiative on the part of colleges who choose to use it and seems to be gaining momentum with larger schools.
The self-reported student academic record, often called SSAR, is essentially the student’s version of their transcript. In other words, the student inputs their course history into a college’s database themselves rather than that coming from the high school. Therefore, students who are applying to a school that uses a SSAR do not need to have their transcripts sent to the college from the high school like so many students and families are used to. Instead, students should request an unofficial transcript and use that to transcribe the information themselves. When I explain this, sometimes I get pushback from families who insist I send a transcript to the university. I promise this isn’t how this works. If the colleges who utilize a SSAR get a transcript in the mail for one of their applicants, they are going to throw it away.
When you think about it, using a SSAR is really a genius move on the part of the universities. Decoding transcripts is an extraordinarily labor-intensive task. High school’s use a wide array of databases to store their student information. Everyone is using a different system so the process is not as simple as just downloading a transcript and instantly having the information you want, how you want it. With the SSAR applicants are doing the hard work here for the colleges. They are decoding their own transcripts into the systems of the university.
So, isn’t easy for a student to, you know, lie? Well, yes, but the concept of SSAR has a safety net for this too. Students who are admitted will then be required to send in an official transcript from the high school. Those transcripts will be processed by the university and checked against what the student input. Getting caught in a lie would not have a good outcome for the student. Their admissions offer would most likely be rescinded. This is still a time-saving measure for the college. If they get 40,000 applications and they admit 10,000, they really only have to process 10,000 applications themselves. The applicants have done the legwork on all the others.
I suppose there is one downside to the SSAR. I find many families, who don’t deal with transcripts every day like counselors and college admissions offices, are paranoid they’ll answer a question on the SSAR incorrectly and their offer will be rescinded. “I said I took AP Microeconomics on the SSAR and I just realized I took AP Macroeconomics!”, “I was using a transcript I got over the summer for the SSAR and it said my rank was 14 of 228, I just got a new transcript and with all these new students my rank is 15/240! I lied on my SSAR!”  Don’t sweat the small stuff. The colleges understand they have people who are not experts completing the SSAR. If a question is a little confusing to you, it’s certain someone else is having a hard time too. If you made a D in a course don’t tell the school you made a B, but minor inconsistencies shouldn’t make or break you.

Don't Write Off Your English Teacher

Each year in school, students spend considerable time studying language arts. We pay a great deal of attention to this in early grade levels, but by high school, enrollment in yet another English class becomes rather rote to a student. To the adolescent, doesn’t that just mean they have to read more books written by some dead people? They can already speak, listen, read, and write. What else is there to do? Well….

This is where I see a lot of school high school students failing to see the value of what a class can give to them. They are right in that hopefully by high school they can communicate with others with just fine. However, this is the opportunity for them to hone their ability to communicate and become so much better at it.

This is particularly true in the area of writing, or composition, I should say. Composition is the basis of all our communication regardless of how we deliver it. Whether we are texting with friends or presenting at a formal work meeting, we spend tremendous amounts of mental energy in the art of crafting the messages we want to convey and high school is a time when we can really grow in our ability to do this.

I’m not so sure teenagers have a strong grasp on the quantity of important composition adults do on a daily basis. When I was in high school, I certainly didn’t consider the fact I would end up as a high school counselor sending countless emails a day, meeting with parents to discuss the struggles their students are having, texting families answers to college admissions questions, drafting recommendation letters to colleges and scholarship committees, and then writing about it all for you to read here!  Here I am though in a state of constant composition, and I consider myself fortunate to have been blessed with some high school teachers who valued teaching me how to communicate the right way.

It is difficult to quickly see development in language arts. It’s not like math or science where one day you don’t know what osmosis is and the next day you do. Learning language arts is a gradual process and it takes perspective to see improvements. As a high school student progresses, they learn more vocabulary, they have a better understanding of grammar, they read good writing and know what it looks, they become enlightened by the things they read, and learn how to find and research the things they don’t know. Language arts students develop a more mastered control of their language and therefore are better at communicating with the rest of the world.

So, my point here is don’t blow off your high school English class. Instead, embrace it as an opportunity to enhance the skill you’ll use more than any other for the rest of your life. Soak up the lessons from your English teachers and work with a mindsight that even if you “speak English just fine,” you can always get better. Who knows what you’ll need to say one day?   

What High School Students Should Be Doing Over the Summer

The summer break can be a useful time for high school students. It is a time students can pad their resumes, enrich their academics, and get some serious college planning done. Here is a year by year guide for what students could be doing over the summer.

        As soon as students walk out the door on the last day of 8th grade, high school has begun. Depending on your state, child labor laws can restrict the amount of time these students are able to work. This is a great time to begin amassing community service hours which might be required for scholarships down the road. Even if they are not required, they’ll look good on scholarship applications and college admission applications. If students plan to play sports in high school, they might want to inquire about any summer training programs students already at the high school are participating in. Of course, they should attend their high school freshman orientation as well, if one is offered.

After freshman year, the things above hold true. Students might also consider taking
additional classes online. In this regard, it might be a good idea to have a rough
draft of all the courses a student plans to take for the rest of high school.
There might be some courses a student wants to take but that don’t fit nicely
into the traditional school year. Thus, squeezing something into the summer to
make room for such a course is often the way to go. The summer following
freshman year can be a great time for this as work restrictions might still
exist, there aren’t some of the other demands below, and students have experience
in high school level work. This is also an ideal time to take driver’s ed.

After the 10th grade, many students will hold jobs, they should still work to acquire
community service hours, and perhaps take coursework online. This is an
important time to start touring colleges. These students are just over a year
out from completing college applications so it is crucial that they begin to
put the list of colleges together they plan to apply to. Parents can take a
hand in this by scheduling college tours to coincide with summer vacations. All
colleges offer formal tours and you’ll probably gain more insight with these
than just walking around campus on your own. Lastly, rising junior students would
do well to spend some time studying for college admissions tests like the SAT
and ACT

Such tours can continue into the summer after the 11th grade. This is a good time to
reflect back and verify there were no failed classes that need to be retaken in
order to graduate. Students can also spend time reflecting and putting together
a list of accomplishments and points they want to be sure to include on their
college and scholarship application which will come as soon as school starts
back in the fall.

Just because school is out for summer doesn’t mean high school students don’t have anything they need to do. There are plenty of small tasks that can add up to big
accomplishments on the road to graduation and beyond.

Applying to International Universities

  The United States is full of great colleges and universities. However, America high school students aren’t limited to those. Indeed, the world’s professionals are being trained somewhere and that’s often at the quality colleges and universities in other countries. American students might find an international university is the right fit for them and here are some things to consider when seeking admission at one of these schools.

To begin, attending an international college should not be a haphazard decision. This needs to be a well thought out and targeted objective. After the all, the most important thing I can tell you about applying to an international school is to research, research, research. Everything you know about American college admissions may or may not hold water on the international stage. The importance of standardized test scores, academic performance, strength of courses taken, and extracurriculars can be vastly different than what you find in the American system and the value of these things can vary from one country to the next. You have to know what a specific college values in their selection process and you should never assume an international university considers the same thing in the same way as an American school does.

In order to do this effectively, you need to have a clear idea of what you are trying to do. It is not enough to say, “I want to go to college abroad. Maybe in China, Europe, or Australia.” You need something much more concrete than that. You need to be able to say, “I want to attend college in England and study international business.” That sort of direct approach will give you the ability to narrow your search and focus on a small number of similar schools. I should mention here too that no international university should ever be considered a safety school. If an American high school student intends to go to college but is overwhelmingly convinced they’ll attend an international school, they would be a fool to not apply to at least one stateside university. That’s just good practice and will provide an option down the road if something unexpected comes along.

The last point I want to make here is that if a student is choosing to attend an international school, they really need to tour it. Too few students take the time to tour American universities and there is much more involved in selecting an international school.  Just because you went to Dublin, Ireland in middle school or your aunt sent you a pretty postcard from there once doesn’t mean you are going to like the college in the city of Cork if you decide to leave everything behind and move there. It’s probably going to be an expensive trip, but you need to go feel these places with your own senses and with a college-bound mindset before you make this sort of monumental decision.

Of course, there is much more that could go into this topic but those factors can be too varied to explore here. With that being said, I’ll go back to my main point which is to narrow your search and do a ton of research. Only by doing that will you be prepared to seek admission to a four-year school and know that you are making an informed decision about a huge step in life.  

The College Board's Search Engine

As a student approaches college, it is crucial that they begin to prepare by researching institutions that are an appropriate fit for them. In the early goings, this can be done online and there are a multitude of resources on the internet that discuss the differences in individual colleges. There is one such resource in particular that I have found to be user friendly, comprehensive, and powerful.

        The College Board’s college search engine can be found bigfuture.collegeboard.com. This website is the landing page for the College Board’s post-secondary planning tool which includes excellent information on careers and steps on how to reach those careers. Perhaps, I’ll discuss those in-depth in the future. When, at this site, I find that I spend most of my time on the college search engine.

        This is a terrific tool. You’ll find it associated with the words “Find Colleges”. Once you access the search engine, you’ll find a series of filters on the left side. These are what make this site so great. The search engine starts with over 3700 institutions of higher learning in the United States. The filters allow you to boil that number down to a list of schools that might meet a variety of very specific needs.

        For many, this starts with geography and, indeed, that’s one of the filters. If you are certain you want to go to college in North Carolina you can search for only schools in North Carolina. Or, you could expand that to schools in the South. If you’re certain you want an urban setting, you can adjust your filters to that. Next, suppose you’re convinced you want to study geology--filter for that. If you’re hoping for a chance to walk on to a women’s lacrosse team, you’ll need to make sure your school has a program in that so you can adjust your filter accordingly. Lastly, what if you’re SAT scores are quite where you’d like them to be? You can plug those numbers into the search engine too and find schools that fit your academic capabilities.

I used SAT scores of 500 Math and 500 Reading and Writing as well as the other above criteria which is all pretty specific. That gave me a list of eight schools. There are some more filters I didn’t even use but maybe you’re not familiar with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. That was one of my results. It’s a school I think I’ve heard of but don’t know much about. After all, no one can know everything about all 3700 colleges in the United States.

However, if I’m a future lacrosse playing, geology major with a 1000 score at an urban campus in the South, UNC at Greensboro is a school I need to know about. Now, I do and I can link directly to more information and the school’s website from the search engine. Maybe, I wouldn’t end up at a school like UNC at Greensboro but at least it’s on my radar now and that’s really the point of this exercise. Using this tool can expose the student to schools that are actually a really good fit for them but that they might not know about. I’d encourage any student to play with this early on in high school in order to find a crop of schools to consider as they move closer to graduation.

The Economics of Skills

As graduation approaches, I let some of my seniors in on a little secret. As a high school educator, I didn’t adequately prepare my students for the workforce. I don’t feel too bad about myself for that though. I don’t think I was supposed to.

I don’t believe the American educational system is designed in a way that charges high schools with providing most students with the skills they need to be competitive in the workforce. The keyword there is competitive and there are economics tied to this. In my view, the role of a high school education is to provide the foundation upon which employable skills are built. Those skills are what separate us, gives us specificity, and puts us in a position where we can command more pay for what we do because not everyone can do what we do as well as we do it. That’s a little wordy. What I mean is, we pay brain surgeons a lot because when you need a brain surgeon, you really need a brain surgeon, and there are few people who have the education and skills to pull off brain surgery. The person who scoops mashed potatoes onto plates in the cafeteria at that same hospital? Well, there is not much skill involved in mashed potato scooping so there are a lot of people who can do it. Their pay is low. Supply and demand.

High schools don’t teach a lot of skills that are in demand. Yes, a lot of schools have some vocational programs or courses that can lead to some industry certifications. However, if high schools are teaching it, there are a lot of people learning how to do it so that affects your supply. I think high school vocational programs are better than nothing and can provide high school graduates some skills right off the bat, but I think high school vocation can best be utilized when it is used by a student as a slingshot to accelerate the acquisition of skills in a given vocation at the post-secondary level.

Again what is most valuable from high school is that it builds the foundation. High schools teach students how to read, how to do math, and provides the general knowledge basis that students will need to learn their employability skills. For example, I’m not an economist, but I took economics in high school. Without that course, I couldn’t compose this writing, as a guidance counselor, about the economics of skills. I learned what I know about being a guidance counselor from college and my work experience. However, my high school education is really important to me because it provides all the general knowledge I use for all the little pieces I pull into my role as a counselor. Nevertheless, despite their incredible value to me, I don’t think anyone would pay me very much to put all those little pieces of knowledge to work by themselves. It is the skillset I built on top of those that I am really paid for.

So, my point here is that high school graduates should feel accomplished and they should value their high school education. But, they shouldn’t rest on those laurels or think they are done with their education. They really need to get out there and go acquire some special skills that not everyone else has. That’s how they are going to make themselves competitive in the workforce and produce a livable wage.     

Taking Unfamiliar High School Courses

Okay, so not too long ago the National Institute of Health issued new guidelines that suggest introducing babies to peanuts early on can prevent them from having peanut allergies later in life. In other words, early exposure to something potentially harmful can actually have positive long-term effects. Well, I think this same principle can apply to course selection in high school.

When I discuss course selection with families, I often hear something along the lines of “Well that class sounds hard and I don’t want to hurt my GPA. Besides, I don’t know anything about it.” I understand that argument and can see some merit in it, but I think it undercuts the big picture of what a child’s education is supposed to do and doesn’t benefit a student long term. High school is exactly the time when a student should be challenging themselves and trying out new courses and subject matters.

At my school, I see this most often as many rising seniors choose either calculus or statistics. These students would have already had pre-calculus but would have had little to no in-depth statistics throughout their entire academic career. Nevertheless, a great number, I’d say a majority, of college majors will require at least one statistics course. Thus, in this example, I think exposure to statistics in high school is highly beneficial to my college-bound students even if it’s a challenging course and one for which they have no prior knowledge.

In struggling through a new area, I believe students will be more prepared when they take a course in college. I also believe that, if I must choose, success in college is more important than success in high school. This can be a difficult concept for a student and family to accept. It’s taking on some potentially short term consequences (a tough school year, grades that might not be what one is used to) for long term benefits (an easier trip through college and a better more, well-rounded education). It is also human nature to gravitate towards what is familiar and known rather than what is new and different. However, that aspect of ourselves really runs entirely counter to the pursuit of knowledge.

So, give your babies some peanuts. Force a big spoonful of physics in their mouths. Give them a computer science cookie, or even just a little cup full of creative writing to munch on. Let whatever courses your student doesn’t know anything about be what guides your course selection, especially if it is one that could have anything at all to do with potential college majors. Sometimes we have to choose between what we like and what we need, and that’s exactly what needs to be done here. Go for the early exposure.

Don't Rely on Scholarships

All too often, I sit down with families and ask, “What’s the plan for paying for college?” only to hear the answer, “We’re hoping for a lot of scholarships.” That family might as well say, “We’re hoping to win the lottery.”

Placing all of your paying-for-college eggs in the basket of scholarships is a bad idea. The truth is, only the most elite students earn full rides and even then that “full ride” might not cover every last expense for a student like housing, food, transportation, and entertainment.

Most families hope to obtain these full rides in one of two ways. One of those is athletics. Many parents of athletes rely on their child earning an athletic scholarship to pay for college. These families need to remember that typically only revenue sports (football, basketball, and sometimes baseball) offer full rides, and even then only at Division I programs. This means only the best athletes in the country are getting these scholarships. I’m sorry, but if you’re not getting calls from head coaches from these big time programs by sophomore year, you’re probably not one of the best athletes in the country. Your next best bet is to get a partial scholarship from a Division II or Division III, but here again that’s a partial scholarship so you better have a supplemental strategy to pay for college.

The other way families hope to earn a full ride is through academics. This is usually in spite of a less than perfect GPA and test scores that might be good but not outstanding. There is a sea of very good high school students in the United States and I’m sorry to say that colleges are only going to roll out the red carpet for those who are truly at the very top. Others might be able to get a little money that recognizes their academic achievements but that is very unlikely to offset the full expenses of college for four years.

My point here is that if a family works with tunnel vision that scholarships should be the only mechanism to pay for college, they are doing it wrong. Scholarships are best case, windfall scenarios and relying solely on those is foolish. Families would be better off preparing to pay college entirely through other means, and then enjoying the boon of scholarships if they materialize.

When families do inevitably have to pay for college without scholarships the alternatives are most often loans or out of pocket savings. If there is nothing in pockets to speak off, a family might be eligible for grants (which still are not likely to cover full college expenses) or they’ll just have to borrow more. And, student loans don’t have to be the scourge they’ve been made out to be. If student loans are taken wisely and a student is diligent as they make their way through college, they’ll be in a better position with a college education and a student loan payment than without.

Saving for college in a life insurance policy

There are several vehicles a family may choose to save money for college in. One that has gained increasing traction recently is a universal or whole life insurance policy. In this, a whole life insurance policy is purchased and extra contributions are made to the policy. This methodology is as viable as any, but there are some important pros and cons to consider when comparing it to other college savings options.

Let’s start with the advantages. The first and most obvious is the child now has a life insurance policy though it might not be likely the child produces an income for the family that needs to be protected by life insurance. The next huge advantage over a 529 plan in particular is flexibility. Withdrawals from 529 plans are limited to use on “qualified educational expenses” such as tuition, room and board, and fees. So if your student’s car broke down while away a college and they faced a $500 repair job, a 529 plan couldn’t be used whereas funds from a life insurance policy could.  Insurance policies also guard against risk. 529 plans are usually tied to the stock market so down years could devastate college savings. Life insurance policies have a stable rate of return that can inch up with time. Of course, with this you could be missing out on the upside of the boom years in the market. Lastly, life insurance policies won’t count against financial aid the way a 529 plan does. For every dollar saved in a 529 plan, 5.64 cents will be deducted from potential federal student aid. This is not true of insurance policies.

Okay, now let’s look at the downside of this savings vehicle. The costs associated with life insurance policies are usually going to be higher. 529 plans typically have low administration fees. Many states also offer state income test tax deductions for contributions to 529 plans which can be quite valuable depending on your state of residence. In a life insurance policy, you’re paying for the coverage provided by the policy which is rarely truly needed on a child. There’s also some other associated fees with the policy. Next, making withdrawals from a life insurance policy is complicated. Most financial advisors will tell you withdrawals for college should be taken as a loan from the policy and therefore must be repaid with interest. There are a lot of other complex tax implications here too. Finally, parents should remember a whole life insurance policy is going to get sold to you, probably by an agent, and buyers should beware. You’re not going to find the same kind of sales pitch coming from something like a 529 plan so you need to be cautious that an insurance agent is working in your best interest and not theirs.

Personally, the 529 plan is the direction I’ve chosen for my children but I have some financially savvy friends who are utilizing life insurance policies for their college savings. These aren’t even the only ways to save for college and other strategies have their own benefits and downsides. Whatever path you choose, just make sure you do your homework first and remember that any attempt at putting money aside for college is a smart move.