Higher Ed Utah

(Lois Colllins, Deseret News) – The trend seems scary for parents of high school or college students. Headlines have for several months blared that student debt is rising and may exceeds credit card debt in America. And proposals in the new Obama budget get rid of subsidies for some student grants and would see interest start accumulating before the ink dries on some loan document for graduate students, rather than being deferred, among other changes.

But you don’t have to mortgage the house and send the kids into servitude in order to secure a good college education, according to a story in Tuesday’s Christian Science Monitor, which offers six tips courtesy of a senior art-history major at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who is graduating debt-free.

Zac Bissonnette, that senior, wrote “Debt-Free U: How I Paid for an Outstanding College Education Without Loans, Scholarships or Mooching Off My Parents.”

He’s not the only optimist out there.

There are, in fact, a number of tools available to help parents and students get a handle on college costs and debt, starting with this primer, offered by MSN.com

And colleges and universities are concerned about student debt and the ability of students, especially those who are low-income, to access a quality college education. The Institute for College Access and Success, which sponsors the Project on Student Debt(

projectonstudentdebt.org/pc_institution.php), offers some information on both what colleges and universities have tried to do to help and what the financial debt load has been for students at different institutions.

To read the rest of this article from the Deseret News, click here.

Be sure to also visit UESP to learn about saving for college and UHEAA for more on paying for college.