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Your dream is to provide your children with a college education. But college has become so expensive, paying for it now requires specialized financial planning. With advanced expertise in this area, we’ll be your trusted partner in navigating the complex landscape of education savings accounts, multi-generational gifting, taxation, financial aid, college search, scholarships, and loans. If you have college-bound kids, of any age, you can feel comfortable knowing you won’t have to figure it all out on your own. We’ll help you through every stage of the process so you can put your kids through college and meet your other financial goals.
The first step in the college planning process is to establish a budget. If your kids are young, we'll help you figure out how much you need to save. If you have late-stage high school students, we'll help you optimize your income and asset positions for financial aid purposes and avoid making mistakes on the financial aid forms that could inflate your costs.
One of the most important elements of college affordability is where your kids choose to go. Using our cutting-edge search technology, we will help you search and explore more than 3000 colleges in the US by preferences like location, size, major, ranking, and net price to your family. This will enable you to find schools that are a good academic, social, and financial fit.
Scholarships are the best form of financial aid. They're called "gift aid" because it's free money that doesn't have to be paid back. But not all scholarships are made equal. We'll help you find the best scholarships your student can get, targeting those that are large in size, renewable for all 4 years, and ideally, awarded automatically based on your student's grades and test scores.
How you pay is just as important as how much you pay. Once your student decides where they're going, in the Spring of the Senior year, you will know how much it will cost for all 4 years. We will then help you develop a payment strategy to pay the bill in the most efficient way. Typically, this involves an optimized combination of savings (e.g., 529 plans), cash flow, and loans (if needed).
If loans are necessary, it's important to find the best and avoid the worst. We'll help you analyze your loan options and secure loans with favorable interest rates and terms and conditions, such as income-driven repayment options, public service loan forgiveness, and co-signer release clauses. Not all student loans are bad, but bad loans, and too much loans, can negatively impact you. We'll help you avoid that.
The last step comes after graduation. If you have loan balances that need to be paid, we'll help you figure out the smartest repayment strategy. This is done with an eye toward your retirement because for most parents, retirement is right around the corner. We'll help you plan for that next milestone when, having gotten your kids through college, it's time to start preparing for your "empty nest" dreams.
College planning involves both academic and financial preparation. Starting early and having a sound plan will help to ensure a smooth, stress-free, and successful journey to and through college. Here are 4 essential steps to prepare for college and beyond.
