fbpx
Browsing Category

Getting Started

New (School) Year’s Resolutions

Here in Oregon we’re not yet back to school (thankfully) but based on all the first day pictures I’m seeing on the socials, it looks like most of the rest of you are. With a new (school) year upon us, here are some resolutions your family might make for the coming school year. And, here’s hoping they don’t get broken…

Step 2 in Finding Scholarships

Now that you’ve completed Step 1, it’s time for Step 2 in finding scholarships. Step 2 is using colleges’ financial aid and scholarship tools to determine what scholarships you’re eligible for at which colleges. Colleges themselves are the best source of scholarships, since scholarships and other forms of tuition discounting are one of the primary vehicles colleges use to attract…

Step 1 in Finding Scholarships

How do you begin the process of finding college scholarships? Step 1 is finding out what type of scholarship you’re eligible for: need-based or merit. Need-based financial aid is aid that meets the difference between Cost of Attendance (COA) at a college and your Expected Family Contribution (EFC) (which is being renamed to Student Aid Index or SAI). Your EFC…

What Kind of Aid is it?

Scholarships and grants are free money. Does it matter which kind of free money you get, as long as you get some? As a matter of fact, it does. Just to refresh: colleges offer two primary types of financial aid, need-based and merit-based. Need-based aid is allocated on the basis of the FAFSA or CSS Profile and reduces or even…

How Much Should You Save for College?

A client’s former advisor told her that she should save $800,000 per child for college. None of my initial reactions to that were appropriate for a client meeting, but how much should you save for college is an important question for a lot of families so let’s dig into that. First, why do advisors tell people that they need to…

Save thousands of dollars & millions of headaches with the College Financial Plan Masterclass
This is default text for notification bar