An informative guide to the complexities of affording and paying for a child’s college education.
A handbook for families preparing to pay for college.
In this debut education book, Okun, an experienced college counselor, shares thorough and level-headed advice for understanding the factors involved in determining the cost of attending college and the options that exist for paying the amount due, acknowledging the challenges while urging parents not to become overwhelmed. While Okun guides the reader through the technical elements of college financing, like the expected family contribution, the FAFSA, and the difference between subsidized and unsubsidized student loans, the book gives equal emphasis to the importance of communication. Okun urges parents to begin discussions of the financial aspects of college early in the process, in order to prevent misunderstandings over who will pay—and how much—by the time the student is ready to enroll: “Having your child involved at each point along the way helps them understand what it means to be financially responsible.” [8] After an in-depth look at 529 plans, scholarship resources, and evaluating financial aid packages, the book’s final section addresses the personal finance challenges confronting college students, from easy-seeming credit card offers during orientation to the realities of loan repayment after graduation. Okun is clearly knowledgeable about the financial aid process, and the book’s explanations of complex and acronym-laden topics are easy to follow, and URLs point the reader to further information from reputable sources. The book does maintain a narrow focus on its intended audience—the parents of teenagers planning on full-time enrollment at a four-year college or university—and as a result does not address the financial aid challenges and funding opportunities facing non-traditional and part-time students. There is also no mention of the student-debt problems associated with for-profit colleges. But for readers who fit the book’s target demographic, Okun has provided a valuable tool in the college planning process by being realistic but not unduly alarmist about the challenges of paying for a child’s college education and strategies for making the financial burden a manageable one.
An informative guide to the complexities of affording and paying for a child’s college education.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9973527-0-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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