I will help you strategize ways to find schools that are right for your family and give you the skills to understand how financial aid/merit aid works. Doing the homework early will ensure that your student has choices when April of senior year rolls around. 

Paying for College

College is one of the few areas in life where we must first apply and then find out what it will cost, often months later. In the meantime, the family doesn’t know, can we afford this school? They said they would offer us a scholarship, but how much will it be? 

I don’t know about you, but the idea of not knowing the potential cost makes me very uncomfortable. Some families get around this by only applying to state schools where they know for sure what the cost will be. Other families bury their heads in the sand and say “We will just apply and see what the offers are.” 

But there is a better way. It makes enormous sense to do the financial homework right at the beginning of the process. That way your student can craft a list of schools that will be more likely to be affordable(ish!).

I offer financial aid tools. I can tell you what your Expected Family Contribution (EFC) should be, and I can help you to identify appropriate schools for your budget. Some families are looking for need based money, other families have too much income for need based, but can’t or don’t want to pay full fare, so they are looking for merit based money.

Just this week, one of my students asked why her college list looked completely different from her friend’s, who was also working with me. The answer? Because the first student was looking for need based aid and the second student was looking for merit aid. The schools that are most generous with need money are not the same schools that are most generous with merit money.

So, it is crucial to determine up front, what kind of family you are. Unless, of course you are one of the very lucky ones who can pay the full fare at any school. Although, I suspect that if you were, you wouldn’t be reading this column!

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