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C Using elementary math to plan for a post-secondary education Dollars & Sense Peter Watson Guest Contributor 13 | Thursday, September 4, 2014 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | www.insideHALTON.com Indira Naidoo-Harris MPP Halton Wishing staff, students, and parents a safe and successful school year! Constituency Office 174 Mill Street, Suite 1, Milton, ON L9T 1S2 Tel: 905-878-1729 | Fax: 905-878-5144 Email: inaidoo-harris.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org For some helpful tips for on how you can improve your child's performance at school through healthy eating visit: www.eatrightontario.ca. For a list of tips and tools for parents to get your child ready for school, visit: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/abc123/eng/tips/ alling all parents of school-aged children. University can cost a ton. Regardless of your child's age, we recommend you begin planning now. September is back-to-school month, so now is a perfect time to look ahead. Today, we will use elementary school arithmetic to plan for a post-secondary education. The starting point should be with the cost. A reasonable estimate is between $20,000$25,000 per year. This includes tuition, books, rent, food, clothing and entertainment. If the cost is $25,000, that is $100,000 for a four-year degree. In ation will increase the cost by the time a young child is ready to head off to university. That expense is per child with many families having two or three children who will attend university. Parents encourage their children to study and learn. That comes with an expensive price tag after children graduate from high school. In the early high school years, there are several family decisions to be discussed and made with your child. How are the costs to be split? A healthy option is to consider cost sharing between you and your child. They would contribute some money during their rst year and then as their summer earning power increases, contributions can increase. Regardless of a family's af uence, the child's participation is a part of the journey to becoming a self-suf cient and nanciallyindependent young adult. All children will bene t by taking on some nancial responsibility. There are creative ways they can be involved and motivated to earn and save money. You may pay for the tuition and text books while your child can be responsible for their spending money. If they fall short, then that will affect their ability to spend on the fun things that unisee Having on p.15 Best wishes to everyone on this upcoming school year, let's get to work!