THE GIRL NINJA
Liza Gaspar
(Part 1 of 3)
“Liz, your goddaughter dropped from Top 1 to
Top 11 this school year because she doesn’t have extracurricular activities.
She was crying when she learned. Naawa nga ako sa bata eh.”
My heart
broke when I read my friend’s Facebook message. Unfortunately, my goddaughter’s
situation is not unique. Millions of brilliant children with lots of potential
are deprived of the best opportunities a well-funded education will bring them.
Every day, in this country and in other parts of the world, the divide between
the wealthy and the poor becomes wider and more so when it comes to education.
The children
of wealthy families go to the best school and given the best learning
environment and experience that money can buy while the children of poor
families make do with inaccurately written textbooks, wading through rivers
just to be able to attend school, and even skipping meals which my Leo, my
brother, did when he was studying at the University of the Philippines Los
Baños (I will eventually write my mother’s story – how she survived sending the
four of us to university after my father died and with just her public school
teacher’s salary as her income).
Recently
hundreds of thousands of high school and elementary students graduated.
Statistics show that out of every 100
who enrolled in elementary only 65 will complete Grade 6 and 43 of these
graduates will complete high school. Out of these 43 who finished high school,
only 7 of them will successfully earn a college degree. It is not difficult to
surmise (yes, these is one of the words I learned in my 17 years in formal
school which mean conclude) that one of the reasons for this dismal graduation
rate is the financial ability of parents to send their children to elementary,
high school, and then university.
What the
above statistics means is that for every 10 babies born in the country, only 1
will grow up to have gone through our complete educational system. Look around
you and ask yourself, “How many of these children will finish university?”
I am not
here to pontificating how alarmingly bad our educational system is – God knows
how this is so – rather I am here to help you plan your financial life such
that with the wealth you have, no matter how small, you can provide the best
educational experience for your children based on your resources.
For parents
with young children, I am pretty that you want your kids to be those which
statistics says will graduate after 15 or so odd years through our educational
system. So shall we plan such that the chances of your children earning their
college degree increase? Then, let’s begin removing the financial uncertainty.
When
planning to save for your children’s education, we will answer the following
questions
Where will
he or she study?
When will he
or she go to college?
How much
will you need to send her to his or her college of choice?
How do you
save for this amount?
A note
before we begin. I decided to focus this discussion on the building of college
education fund for children. Though I understand that where our children go to
for elementary and high school education are also very important, after all
these total 12 years, financing college education is much harder to do than
elementary and high school.
In the next
two columns, we will answer these 4 questions. I will walk you through how you
will need to answer them based on your specific circumstances.
(Liza M.
Gaspar is a wealth coach and personal finance enthusiast. She also volunteers
for the Rotary Club of Makati McKinley (rcmmckinley.org) and the Gerry Roxas Leadership Awardees (grlawardees.org). Engage her in a discussion about anything you fancy at
www.thegirlninja.com, liza@thegirlninja.com or www.facebook.com/annalizagaspar.)
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