When I went to graduate school at Syracuse University, I had a small scholarship, and federal student loans. However, even with these resources, I still didn’t have quite enough money to pay tuition for my Master’s program.

So I turned to a private student loan to supply the deficiency.

“After students have considered scholarships, grants and federal student loans, their next step is to find private student loans,” says Beatrice Schultz, a licensed College Planning Relief specialist and co-founder of Westface College Planning.

“Private loans come from many sources, including public banks, private group, or individual lenders,” she continues. “All will require a co-signer, ideally with good credit.”

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I was talking with friends over the weekend when one of them asked me a question I’d, surprisingly, never saw before (I would also later see it on Reddit). My friend received a letter in the mail from his credit card company that “congratulated” him on his good credit behavior. It also increased his credit limit by about 25%. Nominally, it wasn’t a huge increase but it was a large enough number that my friend thought about it.

A little bit of background (self-reported, I only asked because I told him I was going to write a post about it) – he has no credit card debt, has pretty good credit, has a car loan and a mortgage. The letter he received wasn’t written in a way that asked him if he wanted the increase, it simply told him that it was increased. (in theory, he could call them and ask to have it reduced but the default was acceptance).

So should he accept it?

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Remember Brewster’s Millions? In that movie, Richard Pryor plays Brewster who must spend $30 million in 30 days to inherit $300 million. The rules are that at the end of 30 days, he can have no assets from the money, and he’s only allowed to give 5% to charity and spend 5% gambling. He can tell no one why he is spending the money.

Many of us may daydream about what we would do if we won the lottery, but the hard part of Brewster’s challenge is that he can have no assets. What is not completely clear is if you can buy assets for others, since he does shower his friends with clothing and jewelry. If I had to blow through $30 million in 30 days, there are several ways I would spend it. (Let’s just ignore the fact that $30 million in 1985′s dollars is now the equivalent of $64.5 million in 2012 dollars, according to the U.S. Inflation Calculator.)

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There have been many movies made about money. One of the more interesting — at least from a spending perspective — was Brewster’s Millions. The movie was based on a novel written in 1902, and is one of 10 films based on that novel.

The main plot point of the movie is that Brewster has to spend $30 million in 30 days in order to get an inheritance of $300 million. Of course, he does have the option to accept $1 million up front and avoid trying to spend all that money. If he takes the $1 million, the rest goes to charity (minus a fee for the law firm executing the will).

Personally, I’d take the $1 million. I can’t even think about what I’d do with $30 million, much less $300 million. Plus, I’d feel great about the money going to charity. But that would ruin the point of the movie, and, of course, a thought experiment for the rest of us. The 30-day challenge comes with the following rules:

• You can only donate 5% to charity.
• You can only gamble away 5%.
• You have to get value for services you receive (no extravagant tipping just to spend money).
• You can’t own any assets already not yours at the beginning of the challenge.
• You can’t tell anyone what you’re doing.

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As you work to save up enough money to send your child to college, one of the tools at your disposal is the 529 plan.

This plan allows you to put money to work on behalf of your child. With a 529, money grows tax-free — as long as it is used for qualified education expenses.

But could the 529 be a little too effective? What happens if the account grows just enough that assets affect eligibility for financial aid? Depending on the situation, the 529 might be good enough to help out, but not quite enough to completely cover the costs. But if there is too much in the account, you could lose some of your  ability for the financial aid you need.

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I love all of Forbes’ sports related money/valuation/richest lists. Every year I take a peek at the World’s Highest Paid list and I’m not terribly surprised that the names that dot the top.

So who makes up the top five? Tiger Woods, Roger Rederer, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Drew Brees. Total take? $322.3 million. If you add the second half of the top ten, total earnings is $552.50 million. In fact, if the top ten were a country, it would be 189th on the GDP list according to the United Nations.

How are the sports represented?
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Next Tuesday (at 2pm ET), I’m participating in #AllyBRChat, a joint tweetchat with Ally Bank and Bankrate, and the subject of the chat is teaching new college graduates about the real world, so I thought I’d get myself ready by trying to come up with a few tips I’d give the parents of new graduates. Some of these are actually from our own Tweetchat last week with Jeff Rose, which was investing strategies for new graduates (the many wrinkles of personal finance!), so if you were part of that a few of these may be familiar.

Here were our tips:

1. Get your child a consultation with a financial adviser. This is an idea shared during the tweetchat (Thanks Fatwallet!) and I thought it was brilliant. Why not schedule a consultation where the adviser can help your child get their finances in order? Their situation shouldn’t be complicated and it gives them a leg up.
2. Help, but don’t support. When you first go out on your own, there are a lot of up front costs. If you had an apartment, the first month’s rent and a security deposit was a big deal. I remember my first month’s rent was a share of $1200. Security deposit was something like $500-800. Give your child a hand but don’t support them for too long.
3. Teach them the value of networking. This isn’t directly financial but teaching your child how to network and helping them expand their network is crucial. Whether it’s trying to find a good mechanic for their car or finding their next job, your personal network is invaluable. It can save you a lot of time and a lot of money.

Do you have any suggestions for parents of new graduates?

One of the pieces of advice you are likely to receive about investing is that you need to make sure to diversify your portfolio.

However, diversification isn’t just about asset class and sector. Diversity also includes geography. For true diversification, you need to consider the where of your investments.

For some investors, it’s possible to do this by investing on a foreign stock exchange. A foreign market can provide you with access to different companies and opportunities.

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