In This Chapter

Years ago, my wife and I worked with at-risk high school kids. Many of these teens didn’t get enough attention at home or got the wrong kind of attention. One day after a football game, we took a bunch of kids out to eat, including a kid whose mom refused to let him eat anything with even a trace of sugar in it. While we were all looking at the menus, I caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye, frantically ripping open sugar packets and dumping them into his mouth. I remember thinking that the old saying held very true, that “desperate times call for desperate measures.”

If you’re staring down some massive tuition bills and starving for some cash, the techniques in this chapter might be right up your alley. Like sugar straight from the packet, they can provide a huge dose of the cash you need. But they might require you to make some strategic and desperate moves, literally.

Employer tuition reimbursement programs, as well as state and local challenge programs, do something that was unheard of in college planning until a few years ago. They give you money, sometimes a lot of it, simply for working for the right employer or living in the right ZIP Code. In fact, many employer plans pay for tuition tax-free up to the IRS limit ($5,250 in 2010), and some state challenge programs pay nearly the entire cost of college.

Is that worth packing up your desk or your house and making a switch? It probably depends on how employable you are and how movable your family is. But it is something you should consider, especially if you have a few years until college starts or will be putting multiple people through college. When you do the math, making a move can be the equivalent of receiving a $5,000 to $20,000 raise in pay.