With ever-increasing college education costs and average graduation rates of almost six years (per child), like most parents, you’re probably concerned about paying for college without going broke, jeopardizing your retirement, or taking on significant student loan debt.
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Saving and paying for college is just one piece of a much larger puzzle.
We can help. Here’s how.
We take a holistic view of your financial situation, tax status, and other factors to help you best integrate your college funding solutions with your overall financial, investment, and retirement planning goals and strategies.
Our College Planning Services:
Our College Planning Services help you make well-informed college planning and funding decisions and show you ways to both SAVE on and FOR the Cost of College. We will:
- Show you practical and actionable strategies for reducing your out-of-pocket college costs – regardless of your finances.
- Advise you on how to become eligible for more financial aid and grants for college.
- Help you decide which college savings option is best suited for you and suggest effective strategies for funding any shortfalls.
- Inform you about merit scholarships for college that your student is eligible for and how to obtain them.
- Provide you access to hands-on coaching and guidance through the entire college admissions, financial aid and forms process – to help you in your efforts to send your student to the right college, for the right reasons and at the right price!
Ways you Can Get Started Now:
Learn if your student qualifies for scholarship money.
Scholarship finder
School-based merit scholarships are the number one source of potential free money for a family and one of the best ways a family can reduce the cost of a college education.
Use our exclusive scholarship finder to learn:
- Exactly what school-based scholarships the student qualifies for – even if they are not at the top of their class
- The requirements associated with each scholarship in order to obtain them
- Additional scholarships available to the student with only a modest increase in test scores
Many families miss out on thousands of dollars of scholarship money because they don’t know what’s available to them at colleges across the country and exactly what the requirements are to obtain them. This exclusive scholarship finder solves that problem!
Get a FREE Instant Personalized College Planning Report.
Here is how it works and what you’ll get:
Step 1
Click the green button below to complete and submit the simple fact finder.
Step 2
Your customized college-planning report will be immediately emailed to you.
Step 3
Optional: Call or email us to schedule a free college planning consultation.
Your personalized report will answer vitally important questions that every parent with a college-bound student MUST know:
- Will we have to pay the school’s sticker price?
- Are we candidates for financial aid?
- How much financial aid could we expect?
- Can we increase our financial aid eligibility?
- Is our student eligible for merit-based scholarships?
- Are 529 College Savings Plans the right choice?
Mistakes and missteps can drive up your college costs.
With our help, you can get answers to these vitally important college planning questions, and a game plan put in place to help you achieve a great outcome for your student, and your finances.
- Will we have to pay the school’s sticker price?
- Which schools are the best fit for my child academically, socially, learning style, etc?
- Which schools want my child to attend and would attract them with financial inducements?
- Are we candidates for financial aid?
- How much financial aid will we qualify for and we increase our financial aid eligibility?
- How much of our financial aid will be scholarships/grants as opposed to loans?
- How do we negotiate a better financial aid award?
- What merit scholarships does our child qualify for and what are the requirements?
- How can we increase the likelihood for tuition discounts at schools of interest to us?
- What are the mistakes to avoid that may significantly drive up college costs?
- Are 529 College Savings Plans the right choice?
- Are there other savings options that may be preferable in light of our circumstances?
- Will we qualify for tax credits? Which ones? How much?
- How can we leverage our business to reduce college costs?
- Would test prep benefit our child?
- Which schools should we apply to maximize financial aid or tuition discounts?
- What is the proper funding role for the grandparents? Pitfalls to avoid?
- Can we maintain or possibly increase retirement contributions during the college years?
- How can we maintain or increase cash flow during the college years?
- What are the appropriate funding strategies for covering any shortfalls
- Should we pay college with after-tax income or are there preferable options to consider?
Here are your next steps:
Here are your next steps:
- SCHEDULE your free consultation by calling us at (508) 870-0440
or by submitting our contact form. - WATCH the brief educational video “A Lesson in Paying for College”.
- DOWNLOAD the report: Insider Strategies and Secrets to Reducing Your College Costs.
- SUBSCRIBE to College Ed Xpress e-Newsletter and learn insider secrets and strategies about college admissions and financial aid.
Schedule a Complimentary Consultation.
We offer a complimentary, no-obligation initial virtual or-in person consultation where we can chat about your College Planning goals and we will give you our honest feedback regarding our ability to help you achieve them.
College Admissions & Financial Aid Services
In collaboration with Collegiate Funding Solutions – we offer a college admissions service called Your College List and financial aid service called FAFSAssist, two components of what we call the Family Care Center. When added as part of our college planning services they will help ensure your child goes to the RIGHT college, for the RIGHT reasons and at the RIGHT price.
The college list is the single most important factor in paying the least amount of money possible and still getting a great education for your child. Building the right list of candidate schools is the essential first step for families that are in this stage of the timeline (junior and early senior year of high school). Your College List will yield the right list of candidate schools for your child. Your College List is the ideal launching pad to your custom plan that we’ll formulate for you based on Your College List.
The final step in the college-planning process is the completion of the requisite financial aid forms. All parents – irrespective of their financial situation and ability to pay for college – should complete the financial aid forms. This video explains the little-known reasons why and how FAFSAssist can ensure that this vitally important piece of the college-planning puzzle is successfully completed.
FAQs
Why should we enroll with the College Family Care Center?
Short of buying a home, the investment many parents make towards their children’s college educations will be the largest they make in their lives. As long as you have a strategy to pay for college and control what you can control, you have a high probability of success.
Why should I pay for the services when my student goes to a school with a guidance counselor that helps them do the same things?
Many people are expecting the guidance office to do all of the things that Your College List and FAFSAssist will do. However, before assuming they will, ask your child’s guidance counselor if:
- They are going to help the student decide which careers they are best suited for
- They are going to work on a college list that takes into consideration the way the student learns and his or her personality
- They are going to find research colleges that offer majors of interest that will lead to employment
- They are going to educate you on acceptable graduation and retention rates
- They are going to tell you, on balance, which colleges or universities will give your child the best educational value
- They are going to find the best academic, social and financial fit
- They know which colleges have large numbers of graduates that are accepted to medical/law school
- They are going to help them gather, organize and complete the financial aid applications
- They are going to evaluate each offer of admission’s merit and need based financial aid awards for fairness
- They are going to advise you on how to present your family and financial information so you don’t lose out on possible financial aid
- They are going to follow up on the FAFSA
- They are going to make sure your tax returns are submitted to the college (if required)
- They are going to be your advocate when something goes wrong (and something always goes wrong)
- They are going to tell you whether or not your student received a fair financial aid award
- They are going to help you appeal a bad financial aid decision
- They are going to help you leverage one financial aid award to get a better one at the college your child really wants to attend
Won't our "free" school guidance counselor help our family achieve the same outcome and peace of mind as this "fee" service?
Let’s start with the core issue: Guidance counselors are completely overloaded. And all schools have guidance counselors but they can’t do the same things as a private counselor. During the academic year, guidance counselors spend, on average only 35 minutes with a college bound student. The recommended ratio is 250 to 1, but only four states (Louisiana, New Hampshire, Vermont and Wyoming) actually meet this guideline.
I make too much money and won't qualify for financial aid. Why should I fill out and submit the FAFSA or CSS Profile?
Many families with six figure incomes are surprised to learn they too can qualify for financial aid. The financial aid office at Dartmouth College, and anyone associated with financial aid will tell you that every family, regardless of income, should apply. In addition merit based scholarships and grants that are given out independent of financial status are often contingent on filing financial aid forms. Likewise with the Stafford and PLUS loan programs which are often excellent loan strategies for the more affluent clients.
What is considered a successful outcome for our family?
Your child attends the right college for the right reasons and at the right price.
Can you guarantee that my student will receive financial aid?
It is unethical to promote these kinds of guarantees, as it is impossible to know what a college will offer a student. The best we can offer is to use our many years of experience and expertise to ensure that the financial aid process is accurately and timely completed in order to maximize the student’s aid eligibility.
Couldn't we just do all of this ourselves?
Absolutely. Just so long as you’re willing to become an expert on the admissions process and its impact on financial aid, as well as the thousands of pages of rules and regulations required to take full advantage of the process. Each family is unique and it takes an experienced financial aid specialist to know how to advise the family.
Why do high schools and colleges discourage parents from paying someone to fill out a free form, such as the FAFSA?
There are several reasons. First, there is no charge for completing the FAFSA. The idea that you shouldn’t pay someone to complete the FAFSA for you came from companies that preyed on unsuspecting parents with guarantees of free money. These are the ‘scholarship scams’ that you’ve been warned about. No one can promise you that your client’s student will be guaranteed of anything. We agree that these scholarship scams and companies that offer free money for a fee is a complete waste of money and a rip-off.
I've seen posters at my high school that reads '8 easy steps to get financial aid'. Why do they say that if it isn't true?
It’s just good marketing. Lots of food products make all sorts of health claims on their packages; like how their snack cakes are low in fat or their yogurt promotes better digestion. But the ingredients aren’t healthy because they are loaded with sugar which contributes to Type II Diabetes!
Ask any parent who has gone through the process of applying for financial aid and paying the rest with loans or income and assets will likely tell you that applying for free money is anything but easy.
Something that isn’t addressed by guidance counselors and financial aid directors is that there is no charge to file your own taxes. You can fill out the 1040 for free. However, many taxpayers choose to purchase tax return software, hire a tax service or accountant/CPA. Why is that? Because the tax laws are confusing and it’s to your benefit to get professional help so you don’t pay a penny more in taxes than you have to. Same idea with admissions and financial aid.
Can't the colleges help my family?
The smaller colleges (under 2,000 students) are more likely to help with the forms than larger schools. If you go that route, in essence, you are showing the school all of your cards, which could cost you a lot of money.
Look at it from this perspective: colleges can’t serve two masters. They’re looking to protect their interests first and foremost and help your family second. To maximize the financial aid potential at any college, you need to know what they know while telling them as little as possible.
How does the Family Care Center help?
Parents today are really busy. We act as their personal admissions counselor and financial aid advocate, as well as administrator of all of the paperwork involved. The current FAFSA has 202 entries, while the federal 1040 has a mere 76 by comparison. However, the CFS Client Care Center is not about filling in forms. It’s about the entire financial aid process which includes some key elements: making sure the family’s financial data is presented in the best possible light, that all of their information is consistent so as not to draw questions that they may not be prepared to answer in a way that is not in their best interest, updating their tax information, evaluating their student’s financial aid awards for fairness and advising them what to do if the award is less than expected.
What are some of the problems that parents experience?
Like anything else, there can be difficulties. The CFS Client Care Center is intended for the active parent who doesn’t have time to squeeze one more thing into their already hectic schedule. Problems that parents encounter are data mismatches, errors on forms, including financial information that should have been left out, etc. Our Client Care Center professionals have years of experience and are experts at dealing with the many issues and problems so that your clients don’t have to spend hours figuring out what went wrong.
I've heard colleges will negotiate or give discounts on tuition. Is this true?
Colleges will deny that they “negotiate” with parents, but the fact is that if the school wants your student, they may sweeten their initial aid offer during the appeals process. Odds of receiving a preferential financial aid award are improved if the school really wants the student because of a special skill, talent or scholastic achievement.
How does the College Family Care Center interface with us?
Your College List begins with interviews of both parent and student. This is followed by a review of what the student has done to prepare for college and then assessments assigned. Then a college list based on their grades, test scores, high school transcript, personality and potential careers, affordability are brought to bear to curate a targeted list of colleges.
Parents are provided their own secure, web-based interface. All of the information that will be used to complete your student’s aid forms is available to you 24/7.
For each of the student’s colleges, we will advise you of any additional requirements and forms, assist with the Early Decision/Early Action process, as well as their deadlines, etc.
We follow up with you if there are steps that are required before we can proceed with the financial aid process, first by email, then by telephone.
How long does the service last?
The service begins when the student is enrolled with the College Family Care Center until the time they enter college.
Is there a discount for additional children in the family?
The short answer is no. The work for each student in the family is unique to them and so the work can’t be duplicated. We have priced our services so as to be affordable to as many families as possible while maintaining the highest standard of client care.
Do we have to have use the service through the college years?
Since the student has to reapply for financial aid each year that they are in school, we highly recommended that the family continue with the Client Care Center to ensure that their aid is properly renewed. Rules, regulations, policies, and even the forms change each year.
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