Funding college can be a daunting and fleeing task. Parents ponder frequently as to how they would manage to finance their children's college education. These are your average Americans who struggle with mortgage, car payments, insurance, health care costs, and other basic need bills. What are they to do?

For parents, if your children are still small, join a state college plan that allows small amounts to be put away for the future. If you find yourself trying to finance a college education for your child, and you only have a 4-year period to do so, you would have to consider other progressive options. The first thing to do is sit down with your child, and find out possible areas of study that they would be interested in. You can then look for scholarship opportunities in those specific areas, and find some local businesses in your area that may let your child work part-time while in high school. If your child is interested in pursuing a career as a Pharmacist, you may want to look for independent pharmacies, and since this is an area your child would be pursuing see if they have scholarship opportunities. They may be willing to sponsor your child (after he or she has proven themselves for 4 years). The point is to establish relationships with businesses, your church, nonprofit organizations, and see how your child can contribute to these organizations that may at least allow him or her to compete for college funding.

Also, you may want to check with your job to see if they have scholarship programs in place. If they have no programs in place, how about starting one (present the idea to them as a proposal). Other options would be to check on line for all scholarship programs. They have programs suited for almost every individual.

Since you're working with a four-year gap, you can also do additional work to earn the money. Consider jewelry making, sewing, making doll houses or any other item that would be easy and mobile to sell. You can try flea markets on Saturdays, rent booth spaces at art fairs, carnivals, and even at your local mall during the holidays. Think about-if your net profit were six hundred dollars a month for eight months, for four years, you would have $15,000 accumulated. By all means as you find funding for your child's college education, include them in the process, and remain positive and optimistic. There is money out there.

Learn more about this author, Donna Alexandria.
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