Truth be told, it was only a matter of time before the contests and sweepstakes emerged.
With the cost of college rising so astronomically, without any legitimate and deserving reason, paying for college has kind of become a joke in our national collective mind.
Parents liquidating assets and putting off retirement…
…and teens signing on for tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt…
…has all become a thing to which we just shake our heads and shrug our shoulders.
So contests and games where you can enter to win money for college, with little to no merit requirements, sounds pretty good–right? Why not enter to win a chance at a contest like the Dr. Pepper Tuition Giveaway?
If you watched any of the college football conference championship games this past weekend, you might’ve seen students hurling footballs into giant barrels that resembled soda cans during the half-time show.
The winners (meaning, the ones who threw the most footballs into the cans) won $100,000 to be put towards college tuition, room, board, books, and student loans. The runners up won $25,000 for the same purposes.
In each conference championship game, there was one winner, one runner up, and two consolation prize winners who won $2,500 each for college. That makes five $100,000 winners, five $25,000 winners, and ten $2,500 winners–out of who knows how many thousands.
It was a glorified carnival game. Name-branded, of course. Dr. Pepper states clearly in the contest’s official rules that “By accepting a prize, you grant Sponsor (and its designees) the right to use your name and/or likeness for advertising purposes in any medium, without further compensation.” This includes winners’ biographical information, voices, quotes, stories and photos.
What, then, is all of this saying about the way we value higher education?
Is college something that only the super lucky win affordably by chance? Like a trip to Disney World?
Is it really so inconsequential that it can be boiled down to less than 350 words and 60 seconds in video? (Per Dr. Pepper’s rules.)
And are the life goals of our younger generation seen as little more than advertising fodder for major corporations?
The system has indeed evolved this way, and everyone and their mothers are blindly buying into it.
But you don’t need to. There’s a better way.
You, as a parent, can start by having your child properly plan for college. That way, they’re not taking any risks or chances on silly games.
Instead, you’ll both be working to establish your child’s best career path, find the right school with the right program for this specific career path, and manage the finances so that you’ll never need to overpay or “wish upon a star.”
We here at College Liftoff can help you do just this. We’ve worked with hundreds of families, finding ways for them to save average of $80,000 on college. (With much better odds than winning the Dr. Pepper Tuition Challenge.)
And the work is meaningful–much more so than throwing footballs into giant cans.
And after college is over? These students are prepared for a career…and for life.
Can a Dr. Pepper lottery do that? No. But College Liftoff can.
College Liftoff is Ohio’s premier college planning firm. Since 2009, College Liftoff has helped hundreds of teens find their best-fitting colleges and career paths, while saving their families more than $35 million in higher education costs. College Liftoff’s motto is “securing your son or daughter’s brightest future…and saving you thousands of dollars along the way.” Let them do the same for you.
Call 614-329-6633 or visit collegeliftoff.com.
