How to Use Certificate of Deposits As Part of Your College Savings Strategy

The cost of college education increases at a rate that far exceeds inflation. It is also much greater than the average rate of return your savings and investments are getting, which makes it difficult to save enough money to keep up with the ever-increasing costs of higher education.

Saving for your child's higher education is a challenge faced by most families regardless of their income levels - but the money you save now will help prevent your son or daughter from graduating under a mountain of school loans they will struggle to pay for many years after leaving college. If you want to help your child graduate in something other than debt, here are some tips for developing a strong college savings strategy that includes certificate of deposits:

Start Saving for College As Early As Possible
The key to saving for college is to start when the children are young. The earlier you start saving the more time your money has to grow. Many people invest in riskier options when their children are young in an effort to increase their earnings, and figuring they have more time to recover if their risks don't pay off financially. As children get older and approach their college years, your choice of savings and investment vehicles are likely to move to less risky options in order to prevent the loss of money.

Risk Free Savings Strategy: Certificate of Deposits
Once you've saved up a sizable amount of money for your child's education, you might think about using fixed-rate certificate of deposits to give those savings a chance to grow risk-free until you need to use them to pay for college expenses.

When you open a certificate of deposit with your college savings, you will earn interest in exchange for agreeing to leave your money alone for a specific period of time. Once the money is in a CD, you don't have easy access to it. It's not completely impossible to withdraw money from a certificate of deposit before it matures, but it's certainly not recommended to take it out early because you will pay penalty fees and lose money in the process.

Depending how many years your child has before starting college, you can select a certificate of deposit with as little as three months to five years (or more) until it reaches it's maturity date. The longer the CD term, the higher interest your savings will earn. You may find using certificate of deposits as part of your college savings allows you to diversify and increase the amount of money your savings earns. While your saved money is held in a certificate of deposit waiting for it to reach it's maturity date, you can continue saving money in money market funds, high interest savings accounts, 529 plans, or Coverdell Education Funds to increase the amount of money you have when your child approaches their college years.

CD Laddering Increases Saving Potential and Access to Funds
Creating CD ladders may be a reasonable college savings strategy, as well. Once you have saved enough money through other means, you can withdraw it and open multiple certificate of deposit accounts with different maturity dates. By staggering the maturity dates of the certificate of deposit products you open, you can gain access to the money at pre-determined intervals. Plan it right, and you can have certificate of deposits maturing right before each of your college semesters begin, and gain access to money to pay for tuition and expenses right as you need it each semester.

Debra Dragon is a freelance writer for DepositAccounts.com. She writes about how to make your money work better for you through various deposit accounts, including savings accounts, interest checking accounts, IRAs, and money market funds.

Accredited Distance Learning - An Option For the Gifted Child

Whether your gifted child is enrolled in a traditional school or a homeschool, finding enrichment to meet his individual needs can be a challenge. Many traditional schools simply cannot meet the individual needs of a gifted child and parents end up scrambling to try to find enrichment opportunities. Many homeschool parents find it an overwhelming challenge to try to meet the extraordinary needs of their gifted child. One viable option for many gifted students is an accredited distance learning program.

A variety of distance learning opportunities are available for your gifted child. In evaluating these options, take some time to first define what you're looking for in a distance learning program. Most gifted children have specific areas of interest or expertise. Be sure to identify those areas of interest and look for programs with strength and depth in their course offerings.

Look for distance learning opportunities that are more than just courses that require a student to acquire a bunch of facts. Gifted learners thrive in environments that require higher level critical thinking skills and encourage exploration and experimentation. You'll want to find a distance learning course that provides your gifted learner the opportunity to interact with his teacher to a large degree. This can be through email or through the distance learning website, but it should also include real time interactions, whether through instant messaging or by phone. You'll want to see that the teachers are flexible and encourage independent thought and action. These are important when dealing with gifted learners.

Be sure that this distance learning course offers students the ability to interact with each other. Gifted students often thrive in settings where they can collaborate with other students and where they can learn from them as well. Courses that offer large degrees of interaction and encourage community building can create meaningful learning communities that are exciting for your gifted student to be a part of. This sort of atmosphere and encouragement can be so important to your gifted student. They may not have been able to find that in a traditional school environment or in a homeschool environment. This might afford them their first taste of finding a learning community where they not only fit in, but also thrive.

Be sure that student interaction is monitored by the course teacher or by the school. You'll want to know that a teacher is overseeing community message boards and virtual classroom sessions and that the rules of the school are being adhered to. Understand the policies set forth by the school for proper etiquette in using these boards and in interacting during class time. You want to ensure that this learning environment is safe for your child.

You'll need to make sure that the distance learning school you choose for your gifted learner is an accredited institution. Schools are accredited through a governing body, such as the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WACS). In order to achieve accreditation status, the schools must provide information about their school and submit to a monitoring process. Taking courses from an accredited distance learning school will ensure that your child will be able to use those courses in the college admissions process.

To learn more about a quality, distance learning program for the gifted and talented, please visit Laurel Springs School. Laurel Springs School is an accredited, college prep private school offering distance learning programs and teacher services for students in grades K-12. Laurel Springs uses web-based communication tools, a standards-based curriculum, and personalized instruction to offer students the highest quality home education experience based on your child's learning style.