When the CollegeAdvantage program started, I knew it was something we had to do while our children were still young because the cost of college was increasing. Twenty-six years ago, our boys were 11 and 10. Keith and I knew we needed to start saving for their college education. We opened our account and started saving for both boys. By the time they were in high school, we had covered four years of tuition for each of them.
When they got to Bowling Green State University — one in the fall of 1998 for applied science and the other in the fall of 1999 for integrated language arts/secondary education — we tapped into our funds.
Our younger son got a partial scholarship, which meant that we didn’t use his entire fund. So when the older son needed to attend BGSU for an extra year, we were able to transfer what was left in one account to the other. We then used all of that for the son who took a bit longer to finish college. I think there was only one semester that we actually had to pay for; the rest was covered by what we had saved. I might add that college tuition costs more than doubled from the time the first one started college, but what we had saved with CollegeAdvantage covered it all!
Jonathan and Jason are both graduates of BGSU and both successful in their chosen careers.
I think it’s great that CollegeAdvantage is still making a difference in the education of our youth.
Sue and Keith Hamen (both retired teachers)
