Planning for Our Children: How far can we go and succeed

I am presently in the situation where my only child, my son is now 15 years old and in the eleventh grade of school.

He has before him a very vast array of choices to make, on the direction he wants to launch his life into for the next decade wherein he will achieve his educational qualifications that will characterize him in the eyes of his future employers, and determine his trajectory in professional life for the rest of his life.

It is a very big decision to take for a teen aged stuck-in-the middle mind. One awesome decision that can make or break his dreams. How well equipped is he in this humongous task?

I often ask myself this question. But in retrospect, I find him in an enviable position of having a great deal of information at his fingertips, knowledge of fields that did not even exist as possible career paths during my time, and of course parents who are equally well informed and capable of finding out what needs to be known. That puts him into the superleague straight off.

So to answer the question, I would vouch to say on a safe note that he is! As a matter of fact, as our children grow in the next several generations, much of the critical decisions will be taken by them on their own, and parents will be merely told of the outcome, probably the entire game of advising your children on issues will slowly cease altogether.
On the carreer choice we can only weigh in by giving peripheral decision critical information like;
1) Finances- whether we have the resources to support their basic goal in education
2) Sub-trees and branches of streams of choice: Being a doctor is fine but MBBS is not the right end of the story, whether to go on for surgery, radiology, Doctor of medicine(oncology etc.) and other new emerging career fields.
3) Once we find any gaps in our analysis compared to the children's ambitions, we now seek redressal by way of available financing options, alternate paths that either take less time, or are less expensive, or reduce the stress on the way etc.

All this should in my opinion be undertaken ideally the year before the critical uni applications are despatched. This gives us time to ponder our decisions, and look for new alternatives that previously were not visible in the ensuing year. The child also gets a full year to reflect on whether the choice made is well suited to one self. I have attached here links that relate to these inportant stages and their related issues that can help reduce the tension during this greatly stressful period.
A) Guide to Grants available: Grants worldwide for Education!
B)Once having taken a Student Loan, how to get out of the perpetual cycle of debt: Get out of Your Student Loan safely!