Hi friends you're listening to the Money Girl Podcast I'm Laura Adams.

At the end of the show I'm Laura Adams.

At the end of the show I'm going to tell you how to win 10 great new personal finance books that I'm giving away to promote financial freedom this July 4th. So be sure to stay tuned for that information.

Paying for college and graduate school is a huge financial challenge and the cost of

higher education is likely to continue rising year after year.

So whether you're a parent who wants to pay for a child's education

or whether you're thinking about heading back to school yourself, it's smart to start a college

savings plan as soon as possible.

Before you get started, you should know the best ways to save for college that will also

maximize your eligibility for financial aid.

I'm going to give you eight strategies to follow so you qualify for as much federal student

aid as possible and have more flexibility to pay those hefty college bills.

The reason you need to be strategic about how you save for college is that having certain

kinds of financial assets will count against you and reduce your eligibility for

financial aid. Knowing the rules for how financial aid is awarded will help you structure

your finances so more of your assets are not included in the formula for calculating your financial need.

Now here are eight legitimate strategies to maximize your eligibility for federal student aid.

Strategy number one, don't save cash in the student's name.

To qualify for financial aid for college, you have to complete a lengthy form called the free application for federal

student aid or FAFSA.

The information you submit on the FAFSA is used to calculate how much aid you can receive, and it generally assumes

that a student would contribute a higher proportion of their own income and savings than

...