I know it sounds a little unorthodox to say this, but there is a reason not to fund your child's college education. Let me explain. 

For college, there are funding options: loans, grants, scholarships. You don’t have these options when it comes to retirement.

As a parent, we all wish to provide our children with a college degree, but that does not always happen. Children may not desire college, and if they are not focused, they may end up in the party scene and wasting your money. 

A solution to test the sincerity of your child’s interest in college is to focus on your retirement investment on a monthly basis. In other words, start putting away an amount of money that you can afford for that college investment consistently on a monthly basis. 

Year to year, this should increase and builds into your monthly budget. Once you get to the time for college graduation, you should be comfortable putting upward of $1,000 a month away for your retirement. This will obviously vary based on family income.

During high school, let your child know you do not have the money for college and that they should look into scholarships, grants, and or work/loan programs. With this approach you will see their real interest in college. Start the process early.

The program I deal with starts working through the prep work in the student’s freshman year. There are many things to factor in when filing a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Just as any other government filing, putting down the wrong information, omitting information, or giving too much information could disqualify you for aid. This is not just a one-time filling. This will need to be filed each and every year your child is in school and needs aid.

Some steps to keep in mind: Evaluation programs are available to help narrow down what major and minor your child should pursue. Once this is established, the next step narrows down the search of the best colleges for that area of study.

The next complicated step is to understand how your income and assets affect what each school will make available to you as far as work/loans, grants, scholarships or any combination of them. 

Once you narrow that down to a handful, then you can pick the right colleges for your child to apply to that fit your budget. By following this process, you may spend some money up front, but it can save you a lot of travel expense visiting colleges and unnecessary application fees to colleges that may not be right for you.

The best graduation present you can give your child is to take over the payment book for their student loan. You have already budgeted this into your monthly expenses (remember that monthly retirement savings?) so you just replace the dollar amount with what you are funding your retirement.

Hopefully, you are putting more away per month for your retirement than your new student loan payment. Your retirement value can continue to grow even if you don’t contribute to it while you are paying off your child’s student loan. Once you have the student loan paid off, you can pick up again on your retirement investing. 

Another plus to this is that you are helping your child build their credit. Additionally, you should be making a better return on your investment money than you pay on the student loan. If you qualify, you may have a zero percent loan. 

I also recommend never putting money in a child's name, even in a custodian account. Once the child turns 18, there is nothing you can do about them purchasing a new motorcycle, car, etc., with that money. Then the funds for college are gone. And, any money in your child’s name will lower the amount of aid your child qualifies for.

With this financial approach you have now taught your child some good lessons in responsibility and accountability. At the same time, you’ve given them what you wanted all along -- a paid-for college education.  

Information in this column is not intended to be specific advice for anyone. You should use the information to help you work with a professional regarding your specific financial goals.