What If Education Funds Are Insufficient?

There are occasions where funds are not enough to support the child education cost. The reasons behind could be:

• Parents did not save for the child's education at all

• The family income cannot fully support the cost of education

• The inflation of education cost is higher than expected

• The rate of return of the financial vehicles used are lower than the anticipated

• Unemployment or wages cut

• Drop of family income due premature death, disablement or dread diseases

So, what if the funds are insufficient? Find ways to improve on the situation.

Ways to Improve Insufficient Fund for Child's Education

• Defer retirement. When the child's education fund is not sufficient, we may need to work till the older age. The longer we work, the more money we can generate and we need not utilize the retirement savings.

• If defer retirement is not possible, we may choose to work part time or as a free lance to generate some extra income. This may also help in funding the education cost.

• Adopt moderate lifestyle by decreasing expenditures.

• Increase earnings - by increasing working hours of current job, finding another job with better pay, taking a second job.

• Invest more aggressively. If time is short, we may need to shift from invest securely or moderately to invest aggressively. But, it may depends also on individual's risk appetite.

• Co-contribution from child. Our child can help to ease the burden by applying for study loan or taking up a part-time or a summer job.

• Choose a less expensive school. We may always want our child to go to a recognized school. But, if the situation is not allowed, we may have to choose a less expensive one.

• Choose a local college or university to save on lodging.

• Enroll in an accelerated program to reduce the course period to save costs.

• Go for a twinning program to avoid staying long at overseas.

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