Secure your child’s future

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: Higher education is becoming more and more expensive. If you wish to equip your child with that much coveted post-graduate degree, begin saving now. Here’s a detailed, step-by-step guide to planning for your child’s future
Children are the light and the joy of our lives. But in this age of privatisation of higher education and with it, mounting costs, they also signify a heavy financial burden. Most of us are not going to be able to meet this cost if we wake up to it only when our child turns 15 or 16. Only by beginning to save from an early age — as soon as the child is born or soon after — will we manage to reach our goals comfortably.

Set your goals
The first, and very important step, in saving for your child’s future is goal setting. Goals lend concreteness to our plans. They also help us initiate the process of saving and stay on course.
Broadly, this is how you determine how much you need to save each month to fund your child’s education. First, identify targets. Now, you could argue that it is impossible to predict whether your child will want to pursue a course in architecture or in business management, or any of the myriad other career options that are likely to mushroom in future. The point is valid. Nonetheless, it would help if you did a survey of how much today’s leading courses cost (See table: The earlier you begin…). Assume that your child will need money to pursue at least an undergraduate and a post-graduate course (in all likelihood, from private institutes, which are expensive). She will also require coaching to prepare for the entrance exams of at least a couple of courses. These, too, don’t come cheap.