September is National College Savings Month, making it the perfect time to think about smart strategies for saving for the cost of higher education, says Mark Singer CFP®.

Just as you'll benefit from starting early when saving for retirement, you should begin saving for your children's college education as soon as they are born. As we all know, the costs of a four-year degree have skyrocketed in recent years, and the earlier that you begin saving for college, the more time that your money will have to grow.

In addition to saving early, you also need to think about how you manage those college savings. While an aggressive investment strategy may make sense when college is a decade or more away, as kids get closer to the age of 18, the approach to managing college savings should be more conservative. Also, it's important to realize that tapping into your retirement nest egg to pay for college expenses is rarely a smart idea. Remember, your children can borrow money to fund their college education, but you can't borrow money to pay for retirement.

Today, planning for college expenses is more complicated than ever. To help put your children on a path to success, consider consulting with a financial advisor who has experience helping people plan for college. He or she can help you develop a plan that works for you and your family.

Mark Singer is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional and the author of The Changing Landscape of Retirement—What You Don't Know Could Hurt You. He has been The Retirement Guide to thousands of investors for close to 25 years and is the creator of the Retirement Roadmap and the Financial Organizer System, both of which contribute to a solution to investors' greatest concerns—properly coordinating their financial affairs.