Sorry not to have written anything in a while. We had spring break (more on that later) and now it’s the crazy season at my day job (financial advisor).
With admission offers out and acceptance deadlines coming, many students jump on the acceptance from their top choice. Often, that’s the right thing to do: it relieves the stress Continue reading When to Accept an Admission Offer
If your college savings fund is generating negative emotions, you’re in good company: A recent survey by Student Loan Hero found that almost half of parents who are saving for their children’s college feel guilty about not saving enough. The survey also showed some rather worrying data: Continue reading Feeling Guilty About College Savings?
If you’ve been reading this for a while, you probably know I’m a huge fan of College Navigator as an information source. It’s run by the National Center for Education Statistics and has some information that any prospective student should be aware of. Last week I mentioned the loan default rate by school. Another affordability-related topic that prospective students should consider is the student body’s borrowing rate– also available on College Navigator. Continue reading Student Loans by School
While you’re waiting for acceptances (seniors) or starting to get more serious about particular schools (everyone else), you might want to check out student loan default rates at the schools you’re interested in. Even if you’re not planning to borrow for college, the default rate can be an interesting number insofar as it is probably indicative of whether graduates of a particular school are finding gainful employment, particularly Continue reading Student Loan Default Rates
Many parents and grandparents purchase education savings bonds– series EE or series I bonds– to pay for college. These bonds are tax-free within some limits, and it’s not uncommon for families to find out too late that they’ve landed outside the limits. Continue reading Series EE and I Bonds
Many schools’ FAFSA deadlines are rapidly approaching, or even past. Whether or not you think you’ll get need-based aid, you should be completing and submitting the FAFSA (and PROFILE, if applicable).
What happens if you miss your school’s deadline? Each school has its own policies so Continue reading Do the FAFSA. Really.
Does your mailbox look like this each day?
If you have a college student, you (or they) probably received a form 1098-T. Schools are required to send this to any student who paid qualified higher education expenses. Here’s what you need to know about your 1098-T: Continue reading What’s a 1098-T?
When it comes to negotiating and aid award, it’s helpful to understand both how the Professional Judgment (PJ) process works and how negotiating in general works.
With the PJ process, the school has a specific set of constraints and you must work within them. The Department of Education allows schools to make adjustments “on a case-by-case basis only to adjust the student’s cost of attendance or the data used to calculate her Continue reading Negotiating an Aid Award
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a nifty tool for comparing school costs or financial aid offers, here. As you get acceptance and financial aid offers, enter them into the site to get apples-to-apples comparisons of what you’ll pay and what you will owe upon graduation.
Those with some time left before college can use each school’s net price calculator or College Navigator to get estimates of schools’ financial aid offers. The calculator provides estimated costs for each school, and it allows you to enter your own resources including savings and cash flow, scholarships and work study. As you enter that data, it keeps a tab of how much you have left to pay (if the resources you’ve entered don’t cover the cost of attendance). When you add loans to meet that difference, it also calculates what you’ll owe upon graduation and your monthly payment on those loans.
