"The College Authority"

arabrab
Sat, 17 Aug 2013 19:34:31 +0000

Are they registered investment advisors? Do they have the letters CLU after their names (chartered life underwriter)? Then my guess is that they’re primarily selling investments or selling insurance, or both.

There are strategies that can help make a student eligible for more financial aid at schools that actually meet full need – but I wouldn’t say that new investments (insurance,…) is part of that answer for the most part. But maybe they give practical recommendations like:

1. If you have a bunch of money in bank accounts (more than the protected amount) AND you have a bunch of consumer debt, paying off some of that consumer debt has two benefits (at least) --less contribution in the formulas towards your EFC and frees up cash flow (in terms of monthly payments) that you can then use towards the cost of college;

2. Spreading out 529 usage evenly across four years might not be the best strategy for maximizing financial aid if your student goes to a college with a lot of aid;

3. How to document excess medical expenses and request professional judgment for them (and what counts as a medical expense: many people forget premiums, which can be substantial for the self-employed) and how to request consideration for Roth conversions;

4. Are family sizes counted correctly? (Harder than it seems – I’ve seen a number with errors on this, particularly in the case of divorced parents.) Undercounting by one kid has a big impact.

5. Correctly documenting wages from work, which is also frequently misinterpreted.