There are currently eight tax breaks that can help you reduce the cost of college or other post-secondary education. Whether you're saving for college for your kids, paying for classes you're taking right now, or making payments on student loans, there may be a tax break for you:

Saving for future expenses

• Coverdell Education Savings Account
• Qualified Tuition Programs (529 Plans)
• Savings Bond Interest Deduction

Paying for current expenses

• American Opportunity (Hope) Credit
• Lifetime Learning Credit
• Employee Assistance Plans
• IRA Withdrawals

Making payments on student loans

• Student Loan Interest Deduction

The Higher Education Expenses Deduction expired at the end of 2011. However, it has been extended several times in the past and there's always a chance that could happen again before the end of 2012.

Here are some facts you may not know about these tax breaks:

If your income is too high, you won't be eligible for most education tax breaks. And the limit varies from one tax break to another. A single person with a Modified Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) above $60,000 will begin to lose some of his student loan interest deduction, and it will phase out entirely when the income reaches $75,000. The numbers for a married couple filing jointly are $125,000 and $155,000 for 2012.

Yes, there is a deduction for savings bond interest that is used to pay for post-secondary classes. But the bond owner must be at least age 24 when the bond is purchased, and be either the sole owner of the bond or own it jointly with a spouse. Most people buy bonds in the name of the child, making the interest on that bond ineligible for the deduction.

You don't have to be working toward a degree to get a tax benefit. The Lifetime Learning Credit is can be used even if you already have a degree. Taking a single class to acquire or improve job skills qualifies; so classes for a graduate degree or a recognized credential. That's why it's called the Lifetime Learning Credit.

Married couples must file jointly in order to claim the American Opportunity Credit, the Lifetime Learning Credit, the Student Loan Interest Deduction, or the Savings Bond Interest Deduction.

If you're under age 59 ½ and you take distributions from an IRA that you use for graduate or undergraduate classes, you can avoid the 10% early distribution penalty – but not the income tax.

Not all of your expenses are eligible. Tuition and fees are qualifying expenses for all of the tax breaks. But the cost of your textbooks won't count for the Savings Bond Interest Deduction or the Lifetime Learning Credit.

To get more details, see my fact sheet on Tax Breaks for Higher Education and IRS Publication 970, Tax Benefits for Education.

Classes -- done! Finals – done!  After too many hours studying, sleeping in and hanging with friends sounds grand. But, you need the money so off to work you go.

This summer a smaller percent of youth will work since World War II. Only 25-27% of teens will find a job, predicts Andrew Sum of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. As a comparison, in 2006 the teen summer employment rate was 37%, reports the Huffington Post. The unemployment rate is high for those adults 20-24 years old too – 14.7% in May according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Lots of young people looking for summer (or full-time) work!

Do summer jobs have value to young people beyond the money they earn? Looking back I think having a summer job taught me valuable lessons:

• Work was more fun and easier to do if I had a decent amount of sleep the night before;
• Taking college classes seemed more worthwhile after a boring summer job of selling souvenirs and bikinis to beach tourists; and
• Money can accumulate if you work enough hours and put a high percentage into savings.

What do you remember about your first summer job? Did you learn any life lessons?

I worked in the summer to help pay my expenses in college. Working meant that I would have the money I needed for personal expenses, books, and even a good percent of tuition the next school year. (Of course, college tuition was a lot less then!)

If you're beginning a summer job ask, "Why am I working?" "How do I plan to use this money?"

Set goals. Do you want a certain amount in savings when your summer job is finished? Do you plan to make a large purchase? What percent of your earnings are you planning to spend on summer entertainment? Will some of your earnings help pay for family expenses?

Write down your plans. If you decide now what you plan to do, at the end of the summer you are much more likely to be satisfied with how you managed your summer earnings. You don't want September to roll around and find yourself asking, "Where did all my money go?"

How do you feel about summer jobs? Do you have advice for others? Click on the comment link below and let me know. And, good luck staying awake as you start work on Monday – that was always my challenge!

Oh, the good old days! When I went away to college my freshman year, my financial life was relatively simple. All I really needed to know how to do was write a check and manage my money for entertainment. Food and housing costs were set and paid for in a lump-sum because I lived in a dorm.

Finances for young people are more complicated now. With two sons leaving for college in a few weeks, I'm impressed with the financial skills they need. Check writing is a dying art, although they still need to know how to write a check. But they also need to know how to use and keep track of ATM withdrawals, use a debit card, and manage a credit card. Looking to the future, their checking and savings accounts are through an online bank. How do you do deposits for an online bank? By fax, of course!

When they arrive on campus, my sons will have more opportunities to mess up their finances then I did. First, the basics – eating. Rather than having a set meal plan, today's students often find that they need to budget their food spending even if they live in a dorm. No more eating all you want for one price!

Across college campuses, credit card offers abound. Young people can easily get credit cards without parents co-signing for cards. I decided to take the initiative this summer and helped my sons choose a credit card with a low-interest rate and no annual fee so that hopefully they won't be tempted by other credit card offers.

So, do I agree with a recent MSN Money article, "Why Generation Y is broke: 20- and 30-somethings are in a financial mess. Is it because we're dumb, arrogant or simply uneducated?"?While several interesting viewpoints are expressed, I think that young people today are struggling because there's more they need to know at an earlier age!

If you're interested in ways to help young people manage their finances as they move away from home, read "Helping Young Adults Budget Money".

Young people starting new jobs also are often challenged by making wise job benefit choices. Unlike "the good old days" retirement plans today usually require people to make investment choices and decisions. To learn more about different kinds of job-related retirement plans, visit University of Illinois Extension's free website, Plan Well, Retire Well.

How can you learn to manage money if you never have a chance to practice? I believe kids --from preschool on up -- need opportunities to practice spending money. They need a chance to make choices and learn from their choices (and mistakes).

Summer is a great time for kids to practice spending money. For one thing, they have all this free time to think of things they want! Of course, to spend money you have to have money. And that brings us to the concept of earning money.

Every summer I have created an "extra jobs" list of things I'd like to have done around the house. Each of these jobs has a dollar value -- from a quarter when they kids were young to several hundred dollars now that I have big teenagers with real muscles and skills. I think these need to be real jobs -- not make work -- for kids to really buy into the concept that what they do has value.

To introduce older kids to concepts of compounding interest and saving money, check out the Plan Well, Retire Well: Your how-to guide website. Online calculators are a fun way to set financial goals.

For example, perhaps your child has a goal like Jamie's:

"Jamie has a part-time job and makes $80 a month. Jamie would like to go with a school group to Florida, but it costs $350. Jamie has 12 months to save the money. This is what Jamie spends money on each month: food, $20; movies, $20, CDs, $30, and school and sport supplies, $10. How can Jamie adjust her spending so that she can go on the trip?"

Use the Plan Well, Retire Well calculator "What's It Worth to Reduce My Spending?" under the section "Dollars from Dimes" to develop a plan. Is there something your teenager would like to have or do in the next year? Here is an opportunity to practice skills that will make a difference throughout their life.

A worksheet is available to help guide teenagers through the website's first two sections. The free worksheet, "Take Time to Save Now", is available for download.

How do you encourage kids to make and spend money? What has worked for your family? Lets use this forum to share ideas! Click on my name below to send in your ideas.