Blog
What do you mean I have to fill out the FAFSA AND the CSS Profile?
Knowing from personal experience exactly how much fun it is to fill out the FAFSA form, I would not wish to add additional headaches to that process for anyone. However, if your child is planning to attend a small to midsize private...
Read MoreHow to capture 529 tax savings in just 24 hours
First let me say that we are not offering tax advice here. You should seek out the help of a qualified tax advisor in your home state that can help verify the opportunity we are pointing out here. That being said, I was reading some...
Read MoreIs My Child’s Top College Pick Going Broke?
According to a recent article in CNBC’s website, Moody’s Investors Service is estimates one in five small private colleges are facing fundamental stress. This is due to declining revenues, rising expenses and very little...
Read MoreParents, start planning EARLY on how to pay for college!
We do dozens of workshops every year at high schools around our region to help educate parents on how they are going to pay for their children college. And while we love doing them, the one thing that is most frustrating to us is how...
Read MoreHow to appeal your financial aid award
If you get a financial aid award letter, you may think that’s the last and final offer. That is certainly not the case. You can appeal that award. There’s a formal process you need to go through so that you have the...
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Trophy Colleges-Are They Really Worth the Money?
Over and over again, our individual financial counseling sessions with families about college uncover a sense of entitlement that some teenagers possess. These teenagers seem to believe that excelling in high school means that their...
Read MoreCan out of state students get in-state tuition?
I get this question quite a bit. Once my child moves to another state to attend a university in that state, don’t they qualify for in-state tuition? Here are the general rules as to how most state universities judge whether your...
Read MoreWhat does this term “tuition discounting” really mean?
According to the association of government boards of universities and colleges, tuition discounting is defined as “the process by which the institution offsets its published tuition price (sticker price) with institutional grant...
Read MoreCan I be an independent student for the FAFSA?
As many of you know, when you fill out the FAFSA form, you have to list both the assets in the income for the parents and the students. However, we often get the question, “Is there any way I can just list my students income and...
Read MoreWhy 4 or More Years For College? What About Three?
Though there are some programs that require more, most four year colleges have approximately 120 credits that you must earn before you graduate with your bachelor’s degree in your major. Most of us enter into college with the...
Read MoreDivorced parents: Who fills out the FAFSA? Or the CSS Profile?
When we do our workshops, this question comes up nearly every time from a parent in the audience. In the FAFSA world, it’s custody that matters. The parent who has majority custody of the college bound student during the previous...
Read MoreWhy you really need to use Net Price Calculators- sooner rather than later!
Every college has something called a net price calculator (NPC) on their website. The purpose of this is to give families some general idea of what they are net out-of-pocket cost will be for college. It often takes into account things...
Read MoreSome Q&A on outside scholarships for college
Question: how can I find out about what scholarships I can obtain? Answer: there are tons of resources on the Internet. www.fastweb.com is probably the most well-known. Other than that, your local community (Check with your local...
Read MoreTrying to read Financial Aid Letters is a fool’s game. Be prepared.
As if the college decision process wasn’t hard enough, when schools finally send out their financial aid award letters, you are going to find that they are not standardized. So, it is going to be difficult for you to compare and...
Read MoreHow is Covid 19 going to affect college admissions this fall
Just know that these are my opinions based on everything I’ve been reading over the last six weeks while imprisoned in my home. How will the virus pandemic influence student choices for College? A few things come to mind. Based...
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