College Funding Advisors

Paying for College
1

<p>There are companies in our area presenting free workshops promoting their college funding/applications business. They promise to

  • help with student positioning (figure out the best fit schools based on his stats and historical generosity of colleges to get the best FA package)
  • advise parents on assets positioning
  • fill out the FAFSA and Profile forms properly
  • keep track of all the deadlines
  • help with writing appeal letters, etc.
    Fees may vary for a package, I heard from 1K to 4K. Of course they say if will pay for itself in the FA you get back.Their testimonials are full of praise.
    Did you have any experience with firms like this? I am thinking to try it with the first child until we gain more experience with FA process, but not sure they can provide more than a peace of mind to salaried parents.</p>
2

<p>Frankly, I think many of those folks are ripping people off. They can’t get any FA that you can’t get on your own. The info that they provide is largely found on sites like CC. </p>

<p>Qualifying for FA is largely based on INCOME. If your income is too high, there aren’t any financial gymnastics that you can do to get aid. And, many/most assets can’t be moved around in any kind of honest fashion.</p>

<p>Your income is from salaries? Then it’s even more likely there isn’t much/anything you can do to change your EFC. </p>

<p>And, the best schools use CSS Profiel, and they’re going to count nearly everything…sometimes even retirement accts.</p>

<p>Last year there was a student who didn’t qualify for aid, and didn’t have the stats for merit scholarships. The family paid a bunch of money to “advisors” with the hopes of getting aid. They got nothing but a nice bill from the company. </p>

<p>What is your situation? People here can probably advise you nearly as well for FREE.</p>

3

<p>Anything that they charge money for you can find for free here on CC. Don’t waste your money.</p>

4

<p>The whole FA process seems a little overwhelming. I probably can fill out my own FAFSA and profile forms (though I don’t do my taxes – do you?). We are salaried parents, and my husband is approaching retirement. We have EFC of about 25K at private OOS schools, so we are not a full pay family. I would like to get S through undergad debt-free. Therefore, finding merit money or evaluating and appealing award letters seem to be important.</p>

5

<p>And again, all of that can be found on CC. Some of our regular posters are (or were) financial aid officers. Our posters come from all over the country and know of many, many merit scholarships- far more than a single person could. I will say it again, there is NOTHING they can tell you that you can’t learn on here. It is a waste of money.</p>

6

<p>*We are salaried parents, and my husband is approaching retirement. We have EFC of about 25K at private OOS schools, so we are not a full pay family. *</p>

<p>Where did you get that EFC info from? that may not really be accurate since most schools don’t meet need and some schools use CSS Profile.</p>

<p>Someone with an EFC of $25k likely has a combined AGI of about $100,000 a year with assets less than $40k. </p>

<p>Keep in mind that merit scholarships are applied to NEED first. You may be thinking that your child will be given need based aid based on your EFC, and then can get merit scholarships to reduce your EFC. It doesn’t work like that. merit would get applied to need first.</p>

<p>It sounds like you have an unaffordable EFC, if that’s true, then your child needs to apply to the SCHOOLS that give VERY large merit scholarships so that your remaining costs are affordable. </p>

<p>For example:</p>

<p>$60,000 Cost of Attendance (tuition, fees, room, board, books, personal expenses, travel, etc)
$25,000 EFC
$35,000 determined need (determined by the SCHOOL)</p>

<p>If your child is given a $15k per year scholarship, then that just goes towards that $35k need.</p>

<p>$40,000 Cost of Attendance (tuition, fees, room, board, books, personal expenses, travel etc)
$25,000 EFC
$15,000 determined need (determined by the SCHOOL)</p>

<p>If your child is given a full tuition scholarship of - say $23,000 at an OOS public, then the remaining costs would be $17,000…a large reduction of your EFC</p>

7

<p>Our income is 150K. It is not a lot for our high cost of living region. I filled out net price calculator at a couple of schools and that is how I got 25K. We may have to borrow to cover EFC, and I prefer to limit his college debt to that amount. I understand merit is applied to the need part of course. </p>

<p>Thank you romaniegypsyeyes for the confidence to do it on my own. I will try. </p>

<p>Still I would like to hear from parents who used this service for their high achievers. Did you get anything out of it?</p>

8

<p>LoveMyPuppies, an EFC of $25k sounds low based on an income of $150k unless you are looking at some exceptionally generous privates, or there’s merit aid and/or loans included in the award. EFC calculated by FAFSA is usually 25-33% of household income. </p>

<p>Don’t know if you’ll find many here who’ve used these kinds of services (one customer in this thread <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/892430-private-loans.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/892430-private-loans.html&lt;/a&gt; did), but I agree with others that you’ll find the help and advice you need here for free.</p>

<p>What year is your S?</p>

9

<p>I only know one family that utilized such a service. They paid several thousand dollars and their child received unsubsidized Stafford loans and a merit scholarship based on his admissions stats. That is exactly what he would have received without the “help” of the service. In retrospect, the parents acknowledge that the service did nothing that they could not have done themselves. Personally, I think anyone who has internet access and is willing to put some time in exploring college websites and asking questions on Collegeconfidential will be far more successful in finding the appropriate, affordable school for his or her child than any service that is purchased.</p>

10

<p>*Our income is 150K. It is not a lot for our high cost of living region. I filled out net price calculator at a couple of schools and that is how I got 25K. *</p>

<p>What schools’ NPC did you use?</p>

<p>That EFC is very low for that income. Once over $100k, the EFC is often about 33% of income.</p>

11

<p>The only problem I have with these services is that it is impossible to tell if you have someone who really knows his stuff or not. I think they can be very valuable. They can sit down and tell the family exactly how it is if consultaiton is early enough and break that illusion that the money fairy is going to grant huge scholarships and pay for all of college “somehow” and that there are billions of dollars just waiting to be scooped up.</p>

<p>I know a number of people who pay to have their taxes filed each year even when the form they use is one of the short ones. Some people have the same situation year in and year out and can easily file their own and instead get some tax service that hires people right off the strreet practically to do their taxes.</p>

<p>There are enough complication and it can be difficult to get all right in applying for financial aid, so that advice can be important. I don’t know how many people I know who have filed FAFSA and/or PROFILE on payday and get that extra hit. Money in a kids’ name that should be used to pay for expenses not only get hit 20% but some schools will make sure that the money is still there for the next 3 years. It can be very expensive to make these mistakes.</p>

<p>I helped my cousin with financial aid and college choice last year, and it made a huge difference in what they decided to do right from choices of colleges to what to do with assets and how to apply for aid. They had no idea that there are need blind colleges, colleges that meet most need and colleges that just plain don’t. So, I’m all for a for fee service that can walk a parent through all of this. I know that there are folks who refuse to apply for financial aid because they can’t be bothered to fill out the FAFSA and to have someone on top of them to guide them through it can be useful. Those who find their way here and ask questions via these posts, even when the questions are the most fundamental tend to be the upper echelon of those interested in researching how college financial aid works. A lot of people don’t even go that far.</p>

12

<p>Our income is 150K. It is not a lot for our high cost of living region</p>

<p>Cost of Living for various regions is not taken into acct for determining aid. </p>

<p>It sounds like you may have used the NPCs for a few unique schools that give exceptional aid, or you made a mistake in your input. </p>

<p>That EFC sounds way too low, unless you have a very large family. How many children are in your family?</p>

<p>If you have made contributions to retirement accts (401k, etc), then those contributions need to be added back in.</p>

13

<p>Momof2collegekids, I think I used an EFC calculator on CollegeBoard. Once using a federal methodology and another time using institutional for Profile schools. It is possible that I made a mistake somewhere, though our taxable income is much lower. How can people possibly pay 33% of income for college, save for retirement and provide for the siblings? We are just making ends meet. It may sound weird if you are in Iowa, but we are in NY, the land of 15K real estate taxes and the highest state tax in the nation. I know it does not matter in the application process unfortunately and we look rich.
Cptofthehouse thank you for a great post. Too bad I am not your cousin:) I am starting to learn the ropes here on CC, because I don’t want to disappoint our son. Unfortunately kids don’t want to go to schools with good merit aid, they want big name schools. My son is very competitive.</p>

14

<p>I agree with cptofthehouse and mom2collegekids in that you can find quite a lot of info from just reading the internet and sites like CC. Many of these college “advising” agencies seem kind of parasitical. You’d have to really luck out to find a good FA.</p>

15

<p>

Your EFC is not supposed to be solely out of current income. It’s expected to come from savings, income, and loans.</p>

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<p>Want is not nearly as important as possible. Competitive schools are expensive. At very few schools are you going to get financial aid with that income. If you want significant aid, it will be at a lower ranked school where he can get merit.</p>

16

<p>Welcome to CC. If you hang here long enough, you will get a lot of great information here and the parents forum (as many posters here are parents/GCs/ teachers/financial aid people who have been there, done that). </p>

<p>Unless your child can get admitted to Harvard, Yale or Princeton with an income of 150K (and typical assets- house, some $ in the bank), you are going to be full pay or close to it at most schools in the country. </p>

<p>Is your income soley from a salary from work?
Do you/your spouse own their own business.
Is your primary resident, the only real estate that you own?
Do you have extenuating circumstances-large amount of unreimbursed medical expenses, special needs child, high school tuition for other children?</p>

<p>The monies that you contribute to retirement, will be added back on as income for both the FAFSA and the profile. Profile schools, will ask how much equity you have in your home, how old are your cars, etc. </p>

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<p>The reality is that you need to sit with your son now and explain how much you are willing to pay/borrow for college especially because you have other kids coming down the pike. There is an expectation that funding college will come from 3 sources: past income (savings) current income and future income (loans).</p>

<p>You have to absolutely make sure that your son has a couple of financial safeties. These are schools that are</p>

<p>You son could gain admission (either rolling or early action)
Offers the major that he is interested in
If accepted, he would be happy to attend
Is a financially feasible option for your family.
This may have to include a couple of SUNY schools.</p>

<p>How did your son do on his PSAT? Is he a national merit finalist/commended?
He as to look at schools where he stand a good chance to get merit $$.</p>

17

<p>Every student needs to apply to a variety of schools…even those students who view themselves as “competitive”. At the end of the day, this is NOT a contest about getting accepted to the top schools or paying the most money. It is about finding a college YOUR family can afford where your kiddo can pursue the courses of study that interest him.</p>

<p>I would suggest making a list of characteristics of schools. You might want to post those over on the parents forum where you can get some ideas (our daughter graduated from a college we heard about on this forum).</p>

<p>If you want a better GUESTIMATE of aid at a particular college, you should run your financial info using the net price calculator for each college. Because need based financial aid policies vary so much, you will need to do each school separately.</p>

<p>With an income in the $150,000 range, you would not receive need based aid at all…except at the handful of very generous schools. But the first hurdle at these schools is to be in the less than 10% of the applicants who get accepted. That generous aid does you no good unless you are accepted, and at these schools that is never a certainty.</p>

18

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<p>I’m delighted that your kids are high-achieving and competitive. Now it’s time for you to be assertive!</p>

<p>You have a choice between pushing yourselves into unmanageable debt, compromising your retirement, etc. . . . and sending your kids to schools you can afford. That’s YOUR choice - not theirs. No financial advisor is going to be able to make money fall out of the sky for you - there’s no “magic” solution. Set a limit on what you can afford to spend, tell the kids what it is . . . and stick with it.</p>

<p>Encourage your son to apply to a mix of schools - some where he’ll be guaranteed substantial merit aid (if not a full ride!) and some where his chance of getting the aid he needs is anybody’s guess. But cross off those schools that don’t award merit aid at all . . . unless you’re willing to make the sacrifice necessary to afford them.</p>

<p>It sounds like your son will have lots of options - between his strong stat’s and your ability to provide at least part of the necessary funding, he’ll have many more choices than a lot of kids have.</p>

<p>But, no, he won’t be able to attend any school he wants . . . and as long as you are able to live with that, he should do just fine also.</p>

19

<p>*Quote:
Unfortunately kids don’t want to go to schools with good merit aid, they want big name schools. My son is very competitive.
*</p>

<p>Well, not to be harsh, but in the real world, when our children want luxury items (big name schools), and we want them to have them, then WE have to pay for them. If we can’t afford those things (for various reasons, not enough income, high cost of living area, etc), then we FIRMLY tell our kids that we can afford X and that’s what they’re going to have to deal with. </p>

<p>Tell your child how much you can pay/borrow (keep in mind that you shouldn’t be borrowing much if you have younger kids to put thru college as well, because you won’t have paid off son’s college debt before next one goes to college.) </p>

<p>Tell your child that he can apply to a few reach schools and see what happens, BUT, if the aid doesn’t materialze for all 4 years, then it’s a “no go.”</p>

<p>Tell your child that he must apply to 2-3 financial safety schools that you know FOR SURE are affordable because of ASSURED merit scholarships and family funding.</p>

<p>Tell your child that YOU are going to pick 1-2 “parent picks” that YOU know will be affordable that he MUST apply to (and visit if possible). </p>

<p>Time to put the Big Parent Panties on.</p>

20

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<p>Don’t agree. A “safety” is only a safety if the kid is willing to attend.</p>

<p>You tell the kid what you can afford. If he chooses to apply only to schools that are NOT affordable, then he can flip burgers at McDonald’s for a year while he reconsiders his options.</p>