Students researching colleges tend to have a set of questions they ask: And every spring, I get calls from frantic parents trying to figure out how they’re going to pay for a college that ticks those boxes but doesn’t fit the family’s budget. Here are some additional questions to ask: Good news: my College Selection Research Worksheet helps you corral…
I write a lot about the FAFSA, but there’s a second financial aid form that’s also important: the CSS Profile. While all schools use the FAFSA to allocate federal funds such as Direct Student Loans, a subset of schools– primarily private schools– use the CSS Profile in their financial aid calculations. There are a number key differences between the two forms: Prior…
Parent assets seem to be the area that most families and planners focus on, despite the fact that they typically have the smallest impact on the formula of each of the components. Strategies and tactics to minimize parent assets abound, but for most families these result more in nibbling around the edges than actually making a significant dent in Student…
The speaker at my son’s graduation, Michael Tubbs, delivered a fantastic address full of meaningful and actionable advice. One message in particular stuck with me: “College doesn’t make you a better person, but it does make you more prepared to deal with the challenges you’ll face in the future.” A recent study shows he may be wrong about that: College…
Last week, the Department of Education updated its draft Pell Eligibility and SAI Guide for the 2024-25 FAFSA. This is a draft of the formula that will be used for the FAFSA that will be released this fall. While it’s not final, the key elements in it are already part of the Federal Register so we’re unlikely to see changes…