Please note that this transcript was auto-generated. We apologize for any minor errors in spelling or grammar.

[00:00:00] I will attempt to share this screen in a way that is not too sloppy, uh, for a transition, but all right, not too bad. So again, thank you very much for joining me tonight for MEFA’s college planning for middle school families. And I am a, um, parent of a middle school student. So, um, I’m right there with you.

What we’re going to talk about tonight is You know, this is really the first time I think that you can kind of see college on the horizon right and so you might starting might be starting to think about it a little bit. So we want to kind of give you the lay of the land what you should be thinking about what are the things that are going to be coming up soon.

Don’t want you to stress too too much about this yet you still have time it’s still a ways [00:01:00] away. But just to give you an idea of the landscape. Higher education, how people pay for college, how people do college applications, what you can do now to prepare, and we’ll go over this. We are going to go through a lot of information tonight.

So again, we’re going to touch on a lot of topics. We’re going to touch on topics from areas that we do whole presentations on. So college admissions, there’s some college admissions in here. We do a full college admissions presentation, saving for college. We’re going to touch on that too. We do a full saving for college presentation, financial aid.

As well. Um, we touch on that here and we do of course a financial aid presentation. So we are going to cover a little bit of a lot of things and so that can lead to a lot of questions. So, um, please feel free to put those questions in the q amp a not the chat, the q amp a. So I can see them and I can answer them as I go I may not answer them right [00:02:00] away.

I’ll be around after the presentation as well to answer any questions that you may have. So again, this is how you want to work the the zoom here you can put the questions in the q amp a, you can click live transcript if you want to have this closed caption somebody is already activated that so I know that somebody here knows about that but you probably were all kind of used to zooms at this point.

And as I said I’m recording the presentation. So, um, Don’t be shy to go ahead and ask the questions as we as we go through about MEFA. Before we start, MEFA is the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority. We were created by the state legislature back in 1982 with a public service mission to help families to plan, save, and pay for college and career readiness.

And we do that in a variety of ways. Um, the first thing that we were created to do was to offer a loan. And that is something that we still do. We offer a fixed interest rate [00:03:00] educational loan for families. Um, that’s how we help folks pay for college. We have two savings programs, the U plan and the U fund.

The prepaid tuition program is the U plan. The five 29 plan for Massachusetts is the U fund. Uh, so those are our savings programs. That’s how we help folks save for college and how we help. Folks, plan for college is kind of what we’re doing here tonight, offering sort of free education and guidance. We have a lot of offerings as far as guidance and education is concerned.

If you go to MEFA. org, you’ll see a lot of tools, calculators, content, videos, articles, and more. on all topics related to, to, to college and admissions and financial aid and paying for college and saving for college and career readiness, uh, as well as podcasts. Uh, we, but also just as importantly, we have a bench of college guidance experts that are there to answer whatever questions you may have for free.

[00:04:00] Um, and so. The one thing that I want you to take from this, if you don’t take anything else, is that we are here as a free resource to help you with any questions that you may have. You’re going to have questions after this, contact us. Okay. Now, as far as what we’re going to talk about tonight, it’s a lot of things we’re going to discuss.

First of all, academic planning. And we’re going to only talk about that really briefly, um, because, you know, with your, your students in middle school or, or entering middle school, or perhaps getting ready to go to junior high or high school, um, You know, this is the kind of the first time where they’re going to start planning their courses and that can have ramifications for college.

Remember what college they go to, and we’re going to talk about that just a little bit. Um, give you some lay of the land as far as college admissions is concerned. So, um, what are the important factors when you’re applying to colleges? How can you Search for colleges effectively. What are some of the important things that colleges are looking for for college [00:05:00] admissions, applications and whatnot.

We’re going to talk about the value of college as an investment. And as an investment, I mean, you know what you’re getting for your Investment. What are you getting to from for your money that you’re paying for college? So we all know that college can be expensive. It doesn’t always have to be, but it can be expensive.

But there is a subsequent or a value that is associated with that. So how can we gauge? What is a good investment? I mentioned the cost of college. It’s a big story. Everybody seems to know or have the idea that college can be very expensive or is very expensive. Um, you know, when you hear things like that on the news, just, just know that they’re talking about sticker price, which is not financial aid and very few families are going to pay that sticker price.

So the challenge. for us becomes how might college, how much might college cost for us? Like how much is going to cost [00:06:00] your family once financial aid is factored? And there’s a couple of ways that we can estimate that. Once that happens, let’s say you’ve done your, your financial aid and you have a balance due, how do people pay for college?

And so that is probably the most common question that I’ve received over my 20 plus years at MEFA, uh, from families, which is, How do people do this? How do they pay for college? And we’ll talk about some ways that they do that. We’ll talk about the importance of saving and some strategies for saving.

Saving is probably the best thing that you can do right now to prepare for college. And we will talk about two Massachusetts savings options. The one I mentioned earlier, the MEFA programs that you fund and that you plan. We’ll talk about those particular programs. I will say that any way that you can save is a good way.

The best savings plan is the one you actually use. But there are some Ways to save that are specifically designed for college. Um, and so these are examples of those, those plans. So we’ll talk about [00:07:00] that. And then finally, what can you do right now to prepare? So I don’t want to overwhelm you. It’s not like you have to take on everything and figure this all out right now, if you have a middle school student, but start thinking about it a little bit.

And that’s going to go a long way later. Okay. So I mentioned that we were going to talk about academic planning. And so. This might be a good time for you for you to be acquainted with the idea of mass core and mass core is essentially a set of guidelines established by the state through the department of education, specifically the department of elementary and secondary education, that students need to meet in order to graduate from high school.

So, you can check out what they are on doe. mass. edu. But essentially what it is, is that Uh, students need to graduate with four years of an English language arts program, four years of math, three years of a lab science, three [00:08:00] units of history, including one of U. S. history, two modern languages, world languages of the same year, so two years of the same year of a foreign language.

Um, as well as five additional credits. So that is what students need to have under their belt by the time they graduate high school, so that they can then graduate high school and be admitted to a college. And this is something that, um, your students will be working with their high school counselors or their counselors in school, uh, when they get there and when they start choosing courses, they will help them sort of, Make sure that they’re checking off all the boxes and taking the courses that they need to take in order to meet these requirements.

Now, if a student is, uh, attending or wants to attend a specific college, uh, or a specific field, for example, like science and an engineering school, for example, they may consult with their high school counselor to pick the right [00:09:00] courses in order to To go to that college or to be, uh, sustain a better chance of being admitted to that college.

So, you know, more science courses, for example, or if they’re going to a, uh, a journalism program, you know, you might take the right courses in English or, or journalism or media in high school. Um, so that’s something that they can do. And that’s something that, you know, that high school counselor relationship is going to be a really important one.

So make sure that they, they really cultivate that and get the most out of that high school counselor or school counselor. The other thing that you might want to do is review the admission standards for Massachusetts State Colleges. So when I say Massachusetts State Colleges, I mean public colleges, universities in Massachusetts, so the UMass, Bridgewater State, Framingham State, the community colleges, etc.

The community colleges have open enrollment, so, um, They’re not really what I’m talking about here. But for the four year public colleges, they have admission standards that students need to be made need to meet in order to be admitted to [00:10:00] those. So they need to, you know, complete their mass core colleges, but they also need to maintain a 3.

0 GPA for I believe that’s weighted GPA 3. 0. Um, and that’s on a sliding scale. So you can still be admitted if you are under a 3. 0 unweighted GPA. If you have a high enough SAT scores, um, or high enough SAT scores or ACT scores, this is again at mass dot. edu or you can go to our article here on MEFA. org navigating high school academics where we link to all of these as well as knowing these programs like ap international which is advanced placement courses ib which is international baccalaureate dual enrollment Early college programs, etc.

So these are some options that your students may be faced with when they get to high school. Do you want to take advanced placement [00:11:00] courses or international baccalaureate courses? Those are sort of a heavier course load and they can result in college credits if, you know, AP and IB programs. and in an exam.

And if you get above a certain score on your exam, certain colleges will take that score and give you college credits for that. Also, you know, if you’re taking advanced courses or international baccalaureate courses, This is going to make you, you know, be an attractive student and it’s going to increase your chances for enrollment at universities.

Um, but there’s a balance with that, right? There, there’s course load, there’s workload associated with that, and you don’t want to overload your students. So again, Make sure you’re you’re working with your high school counselors to determine what’s appropriate. Dual enrollment is a program where high school students can supplement their high school education by taking college courses.

And so, [00:12:00] um, you know, again, earning college credits while they’re in high school. So these are options, uh, typically at a local or a college that is close by. Maybe a community college, maybe not, maybe a private college, these programs, if the student is interested, again, they should speak with their high school counselor.

So, um, these are all good options. And just to give you the lay of the land of You know, when the student starts to make their choices about what courses they’re going to take the ramifications that these could have in terms of being admitted to college and earning college credits.

The next thing that they’re going to encounter is, of course, the college admissions. process. Uh, so and they begin that with with their college search. But just to give you an idea of sort of what’s the trends in college admissions have been over the past few years. [00:13:00] Number one, students are applying to a greater number of schools.

nowadays than they were certainly when I was going to college. And part of that has been the common application, which is, uh, an application that you can file online and send to multiple colleges at a time. Uh, when I was going to school, of course, you had to actually fill out individual applications and send them to each college.

So students are applying to a greater number of schools, which means that schools are seeing a lot more applications from students. And so they have to sort of determine who they want. To admit to those colleges. Now, of course, they’re going to look at GPA and all these other factors that we know of. But one thing that you might not be thinking of is demonstrated interest.

So what that is, is that When a student admits, I’m sorry, when a college admits a student that’s applying to them, they want to make sure that they’re admitting a student that they think has a good chance of accepting and, and attending that college. And so one of the ways that, um, they [00:14:00] tell, this is called demonstrated interest.

And one of the ways that they tell is how many contacts has the student have. with the college. Have they made an appointment to visit the college? Have they attended a tour? Have they contacted the college over social media, et cetera? So more and more colleges are looking at contacts like this, um, to demonstrate, to get a feel for a student’s demonstrated interest.

in that college. So again, if there’s a student, if there’s a college that your student has in mind already, they may want to make sure that the college knows that they are really interested in going to that college. Social media, again, is a way to do that. Uh, it’s a way to demonstrate interest and it’s a way.

just to communicate with the college and find out more about the colleges. So colleges, of course, have social media presences, admissions office, you can be in contact as a student, make sure again that that they, um, they know that you’re attending or that you’re [00:15:00] interested in attending. And of course, social media, you want to make sure as a student that your social media profiles are, um, not going to have anything on there that that may make it more difficult for a school to admit you, um, or if they do admit you and they find out that you posted something later on that that is going to make them look bad, they might rescind that, that acceptance.

It’s not often that it happens, but it does happen from time to time. So it’s just something to be aware of as a student or as the parent of a student. Also, with the cost of college being big news, um, Parents are and students also are factoring in how much a college costs in terms of whether or not they’re going to apply to that college.

And so on the one hand, that’s very appropriate. Of course, you want to make sure that you have a good range of options as far as affordability when it comes to colleges. Um, but on the other hand, I would [00:16:00] just say, you know, if you’re looking at a sticker price. A college with a high sticker price doesn’t necessarily, what that is, is a price before financial aid.

Um, you know, I wouldn’t take a college off of your list because of a high sticker price because, as I said, most people are not going to pay that price. The majority of families are eligible for some level of financial aid and the higher sticker price for a college. the greater ability they may have to offer aid.

So, um, but it’s just good to have a range. It’s good to have a range of colleges that have different costs so that you’re not stuck if you don’t get a generous financial aid offer from a college. So, um, as I sort of hinted at earlier, there are more ways to interact with colleges virtually, and this is sort of a holdover from COVID.

This is something that was, you know, something that came out at that time that That was a good thing for a lot of people. They couldn’t go and visit colleges. So you can go and do virtual tours. You can do [00:17:00] interviews virtually. You can talk with alumni. There’s just a lot more, um, accessibility that way.

Also, there are more test optional schools. And what I mean by test optional is that, um, you don’t, you aren’t required to send your SAT or ACT scores, uh, to be admitted. So, um, You know, this is something that, again, really got accelerated during COVID when people really couldn’t go in person and take their SAT or ACT, uh, exams.

Um, so there are more test optional schools. If your SATs or ACTs are good, uh, send them if, if, if they’re going to bolster your case to be admitted. Uh, if you don’t send your SAT or ACTs, just know that the weight that was given or would have been given to those at those test scores will have to go someplace else, which is probably GPA.

Um, so just know that, but they’re in general, there’s more test optional schools. [00:18:00] Um, and there are more applications that those colleges resulting in more selectivity, right? So they have more applications, they need to be more selective with who they admit. And, you know, on a related point, longer wait lists.

Um, so A lot of colleges are using waitlists now. I think the last thing I saw was almost 50 percent of colleges are using waitlists. Um, so you may not be admitted or, or rejected from a college. You may just be put on a waitlist. So, um, that happens if that happens and you want to still go to that college, you may have to formally accept a spot on the waitlist, and keep the college notified of your grades.

As long as they’re going to, again, bolster your case to be admitted. Um, but you should make other plans because a lot of times you just don’t hear one way or the other after being placed on a wait list. So it’s a tough position to be in, but it is [00:19:00] something that is happening more and more. Now I mentioned the first part of the college sort of journey is researching colleges, right?

Compiling your college list. And again, not to make it about me, but I remember when I was researching colleges. And if you, you know, parents are on, they may remember this too, going to the guidance counselor office at your high school, and they had those big books and you flip right to Hawaii or California and you see what’s there.

Uh, and you know, what, what programs are offered at those schools, but that was how you researched colleges. So now, of course, with the internet, there’s So much information, a lot of information, and that becomes a kind of challenge on its own. Right? So we want to just call out a couple of resources that you can visit, um, and start your college search.

So a couple of sites, collegenavigator. gov is a federal Government site, and there’s an image of it right there, and it has a ton [00:20:00] of information. It pulls from the national, I believe, National Center for Education Statistics, and they have all sorts of information, class size, uh, college type, so four year public, four year private, two year public, um, et cetera, religious, not religious, um, You know, where is it?

Is it in the city? Is it in the country? Is in suburban school? What’s the size? What’s the male to female ratio? What is the, what are the class sizes like? You know, the, the, the professor to student ratio, what majors are offered, what programs, what degree programs are offered. So bachelor’s programs, associate programs, et cetera.

You can see right there. Um, some of the things that we’re talking about. And you can do searches based on location and find all sorts of sites. It has, you know, almost every sort of statistic that you can imagine. You can search for a college navigator. The only problem is, is that it, you know, that’s a lot of [00:21:00] information, right?

And it kind of looks like a site that just has a lot, a lot, a lot of information. Um, but it is a. really good search tool to get started with. Another one is College Scorecard, and this is another federal site, and we’re going to actually look at that in a little bit more detail in a few slides. Uh, this has some other information associated, and the layout is a little bit different.

It’s designed to be a little bit more easier to use. And it’s really designed to give you as a parent or you as a student an idea of what kind of investment is this college? Uh, and, you know, is this going to be a good investment for my family? So, um, we’re going to look at that in a little bit more detail in a few slides, but those are a couple of, of, um, search sites that you can get started on.

I’ll throw another one out there, uh, which is the college board, the, the. organization that does the SAT and the AP programs. They have a site called Big Future that you can look through. Uh, and MEFA has [00:22:00] a couple of resources as well that we’re going to talk about. And this is one of them, MEFA Pathway. So this is our college and career portal.

And this is actually for students beginning in grade six. So, uh, sixth graders can start using the pathway. It’s for use in schools in Massachusetts and outside. So anybody can sort of, uh, get an account and do college searches. They can look for scholarships. They can do career searches. They can do skills and an interest assessment.

So it’s kind of fun for, for sixth graders to just like. Figure out answer questions about themselves and what they like and what they’re interested in and, you know, search for careers and, and which ways do I like to learn and, and what are my interests and what are my values, right? And so, um, that’s how they start as they move into high school, they can start to keep track of their courses.

They can start to keep track of their letters of recommendation from teachers. They can do college searches. They can save those searches. They can apply [00:23:00] for scholarships. They can do a whole bunch of things that actually file a common app. Form and apply to colleges that way. Uh, so this is a free resource for you to use for anybody to use.

And if your school uses that, you know, you may use it for a lot of those high school things like keeping track of, of, um, letters of recommendation and building resumes and things like that. Uh, but even if you don’t, if you’re, if you’re outside and you want to start just the search, you can do that and you can do that for, you know, students can do it, parents can do it.

And counselors can do this as well. So MEFA pathway is also a search for college and a lot more now when you’re looking at different colleges, how can you start to decide if you’re interested in a particular college? And these are some of the important factors that people look for. And the first one right away is the institution size and the location.

So how big is the college [00:24:00] and where is it? And so this is probably, you know, if you think about a college visit, probably the first thing that is going to impress upon people like, wow, this is a really big school or while this is tiny. And I think, you know, everyone has their own comfort level, right? Some people really like Big, big schools.

I remember my brother went to Syracuse University and I went up to visit him and I thought, no, this is too big for me. Um, you know, Syracuse with all due respect to the city, everything is a college. I didn’t want that. I wanted to be in the city. I went to school in Boston and a smaller school in Boston because I wanted to be around, you know, sort of a, a downtown and things like that.

So, um, That is something that I think people just sort of inherently gravitate towards or know when they’re looking at colleges. How big is it? Am I going to be comfortable there? And where is it? The second thing, academic fit, right? So is this an academic fit for me as a student? Is there a [00:25:00] place that I can do well at this college?

And this is something that you have to determine as a student, and something that the college will determine when they’re looking at your application. So. Um, if you wanted to look at colleges, college websites, they, they do have class profiles, right? So they do have, you know, students, our class profiles, we accept students with the, this spread of a GPA, right?

So 3. 0 to 3. 9 or what have you, uh, and this spread of, of SAT scores. These are the types of students who are admitted here. Um, of course. Your intended major if you want to study engineering. Is this a good engineering school? If you want to study journalism, is this a good journalism school? Um, you know, learning style also.

Do you like listening to lectures in big classes? Do you like to work on projects? Um, do you, if this is an artistic school, you know, there may be not even grades at certain colleges that you may just sort of grade yourself. There may be course [00:26:00] long projects that you work on. So these, these are the types of things that you want to, to know.

Campus culture, this is where college visits are, can be really important. So campus culture is, what is it like on, on, on this particular campus? So, you know, Boston University is going to have a different campus culture than Hampshire College is going to have a different campus culture than Amherst College.

So, um, what type of place is this? And again, The college visits are so valuable because you can get a sense of those things right away. You step on campus. College campuses are open spaces. You can walk on, you can go to the student union hall, you can go to the cafeteria and get something to eat, um, and just sort of see, what is it like here?

What are the flyers that you see on the board? Um, you know, is this a big sports school? Is it a political school? Uh, is it, uh, an art school? Is it a community college where a lot of [00:27:00] commuters are here and they’ve got, you know, jobs or kids or something like that? Where am I going to be? comfortable. Um, Also, if you like certain activities, especially sports, or as I mentioned, you know, maybe political things, whatever, is this going to be represented at that school?

And then sort of a more formal thing, if you’re interested in study abroad programs. Is that something that’s represented if you want, if you’re really career minded and you see very clearly where you’re going to go after this college in terms of your career or the field that you’re entering in, how is the career and internship services there?

And then, of course, affordability, right? So that is important as well.

So when we talk about college as an investment, you may have heard statistics about the college premium. [00:28:00] So, you know, people who have graduated from a four year college tend to earn more, right? I think you see figures like a million dollars over the course of your life. I don’t, you know, I’m not vouching for those statistics, but, but that is the idea, right?

So that you’re going to, As a, as a, as a counselor said, and I can’t say this, I can’t do this without thinking about this kind of corny, but I like it. The more you learn, the more you earn. That’s the idea, right? Okay, good. But of course, the other side of that is how much does college cost. And so, as I mentioned, it’s a big story and we all know it’s a big story, that college can be very expensive.

And I say can be because, um, you know, the story comes out every year. It now costs X amount of dollars to go to this college and big amount, right? Or now you might hear, are we nearing 100, 000 a year for college? Um, two things about those stories. Number one is they often are the most expensive [00:29:00] colleges in your area that they’re going to be highlighting.

Uh, and this is before financial aid, right? So this is what’s called a sticker price that almost nobody is going to pay. Um, but to, I want to even complicate it a bit further because There were different types of colleges and different types of colleges have different prices associated with them so that it now costs X amount of dollars are almost always that private nonprofit for year.

campus. So when you’re thinking about that, think about things like Harvard, Boston College, Emerson College, New York University, you know, these are, these are examples of private four year colleges. And so this information here is taken from, uh, a publication called Trends in College Pricing. This is by the College Board, again, that the organization that does the SAT and the AP programs, but they do research as well.

And this is a [00:30:00] publication that they put out. And it’s trends in college pricing. So how much does, uh, what’s the average price of these different types of colleges? These are national averages. Uh, so I want to start off with the most expensive. So at the bottom there, this is, uh, the national average for private non profit four year colleges.

Um, and this includes everything. So it’s not just tuition, tuition and fees. Food and housing, books, supplies, and equipment. So this is all what’s called the cost of attendance. So you can see here the national average for a year is 62, 990, right? So that is, that’s, that’s a lot. That’s expensive. And if you live where I live, and I’m guessing many of you do, in Massachusetts or New England area, It’s going to be a bit higher than that.

Um, so our costs are a bit higher. Um, but as you see, if you go to a public college, you’re going to pay less. [00:31:00] And so I’m going to skip that third line from the top and go right up to the second, because if you go to a public college or university in the state that you live in, you get a discounted tuition.

So, um. Let’s say you’re a Massachusetts resident and you’re going to a University of Massachusetts school or or just a Framingham State or wherever it might be. So a public four year college for an in state resident student, the national average there is about half of what it is for private colleges, right?

29, 910. And I’m not sure about Massachusetts, where it is in relation to that. It may be a bit higher, but it’s closer to the average than than the private colleges, even if you go to a public college outside of your state of residence. So again, if you live in Massachusetts and you go to University of Vermont or something, um, you lose that in state discount, but you can still see that you pay less, right?

And then the most affordable options, of course, are [00:32:00] the public two year colleges. So the community colleges, um, so lots of different types of schools with different price tags. And you may not be paying all these expenses, right? If you’re not living on campus, you’re not paying. food and housing. Uh, there’s some, there’s some elasticity with the, how much you’re going to be paying for transportation, books and supplies and personal expenses.

You know, there’s ways to, to lower that cost. Um, but again, all of this is before financial aid is even taken into account. So, um, I just, uh, oh, I see a long question here. Um, I’m gonna, I’m gonna answer it accurate or not. Our perception is that all the money saved to be used across four year degree program would be seen as a single lump sum that a school would use at the first year to consider us.

I see. So, um [00:33:00] It feels misguided, but I’m tempted to save less aggressively and then navigate the financial aid process based on a lower amount of savings. Can you clarify if college savings can be used across college years or if financial aid expects us to use all of our saved money in the first year?

Okay, that’s a great question because it touches on a few points. One of them, and we’re going to talk about this when we get to savings, um, and, and, and financial aid is that, um, when colleges are looking at how much you can expect, be expected to pay for a year of college, basically when you’re doing your financial aid forms, they will ask you about your income and they will ask you about your assets, including college savings.

But I’ll just say this for now, that the vast majority of the, the weight in those calculations, is going to be directed towards your income and not your assets as a parent. So savings, um, may have some impact on your financial aid eligibility, um, but a relatively small one. So it’s definitely worth [00:34:00] it to save.

And then as far as, you know, how you’re going to use the funds, Um, you can use them all at once. You can sort of dole them out over the four years. It really is up to you. It’s true that the financial aid does look at what you have as a lump sum saves. But again, I think that, um, the difference there is going to be really slight.

So, um, I always think that you should save. I don’t see a downside in saving. Uh, and again, we will talk about that in more detail. Um, but I working with the savings programs to me, if I have always said that I had never met anybody who has. regretted saving. And that is true.

Thank you for the question. That was a very good question. Okay. So that is the sticker price for college. That’s the national average. We know sticker prices can be high. And I’ve said a few times [00:35:00] that families are eligible for financial aid. How can we figure out how much financial aid we’re going to be eligible for?

Um, so you can do this, uh, when you’re filing your FAFSA, which is your free application for federal student aid, which is what you’re going to be doing when your student is applying to colleges. Um, And they may have to file another form as well based on the colleges that you’re applying to. They’re going to ask you to list your income and your assets and your family size and your taxes paid and all this information.

And they’re going to come up with a number called the student aid index. It used to be called the expected family contribution. And I like that better because it sounds more like What it is, but the student aid index is basically the amount that the calculated amount, according to the formula that you should be able to absorb for a year of college based on your family finances.

And so you can go to me for. org and do a student aid index calculator. And that’s the same formula that they [00:36:00] use so you’ll be able to know exactly as long as you’re accurate. What according to the federal formula, you’re gonna be expected to pay. And then again, an institutional formula, they use something else called the CSS profile.

You can do that as well. Um, and that will give you your student aid index. And so if it says, for example, that according to this formula, you can be expected to pay 10, 000 this year. That doesn’t mean that they think you can just write out a check for 10, 000. But that’s the amount that they expect that you will be able to pay.

Okay. That’s not necessarily the amount that you will pay though. So what that is, what that means is that if a college costs 50, 000 and the SAI says you can pay 10, well then you’re eligible for financial aid to cover that difference. So 40, 000, right? Cause you’re going to pay the 10. College costs 50, so you’re eligible for the rest in need based financial aid, but it doesn’t mean that you’re going to get all of the money that you’re eligible [00:37:00] to receive.

Um, so that’s up to the college really ultimately to determine how much financial aid they’re going to give you. That’s your eligibility and they can give you up to that, um, but they may or may not do that and unfortunately it’s probably more common that they don’t give you everything that you’re eligible to receive.

So you can actually figure out how much you’re likely to get from a college by using a net price calculator. Every college is required to have one of these on their website, and it works in a similar way to the SAI calculator in that You know, it takes you about five minutes. You put in your income, your assets, your family size, etc.

Depending on the college, they may ask for grades, because they might do merit based aid, and they might want to know if you’re, you know, if you’re going to qualify for that, etc. And it should give you a sample financial aid offer from that college, and hopefully a resulting balance, so you know what you’re likely to receive at that [00:38:00] college.

They’re not set in stone by any means. And some colleges have more detailed net price calculators than others. But I think that they’re a good tool to use to just give yourself an idea of what you might be paying at that particular college. To give you an idea, a ballpark. So again, you can look at college navigator.

You can look at college scorecard as well. We also have a college cost projector at MEFA, which is, you know, based on how old your student is. By the time they get to college, this is how much this type of college may cost. So four year private, four year public, two year public, etc. Based only on the increase in tuition, so not aid.

Sticker price. This is how much college may cost. So if you see that sticker price, like, I did this when my son was just born. My colleague said, let’s see how much college is going to be for him when he goes and he turns 18. And I remember that big [00:39:00] figure. And I thought, oh my goodness, I can never do this.

But I remember this is before financial aid and all that stuff. So, um, there are ways to sort of determine how much you may be eligible to receive and what your resulting balance may be. I would look at that student aid index calculator and certainly the net price calculators and individual college websites.

I mentioned we were going to talk about college scorecard in more detail and here’s where we do that. Um, and this is why, you know, you can get a feel from this image how this is going to help. families and parents see if this particular college is a good investment. So you can search for colleges. You can search for colleges by area.

You can search for colleges by type. Let’s assume that we’ve already done this and we’re interested in Boston college. Um, this will give you some information here. Like you see 5, 751 undergraduate students. So it gives you an idea of the size. It’s a four year college. It’s a private nonprofit. It’s in a city.

And it [00:40:00] is a medium sized school, and it is a Roman Catholic institution. But the important things that I want to drill on here is that the bottom of this graphic, you can see that they graduate 92 percent of the students that enroll, right? So, you know, If your student enrolls and you send your student there, they got a pretty good chance of actually completing their degree.

So they graduate 92 percent of those students, the average annual cost. So this is not sticker price. The average annual cost for families after aid is 39, 000. 90. I know the sticker prices. I would say it’s about twice that. So if you just saw something like, you know, 000, you’d think there’s no way I can pay that.

But the average family pays about half and you may be on either side of that. Right. Um, so you can do their net price calculator and find out. And then lastly, and I think this is really cool too, is. What are the media median earnings for, for graduates, right? So 10 years after [00:41:00] enrolling. So about five years after graduation, what are Boston college students earning?

So here it’s 103, 000, 99 37, which is pretty good. Um, for being so, uh, fresh out of school, really. So this you can see. Is how this will give you an idea of, okay, this is going to be an investment that’s worth paying 39, 000 a year for figuring out how we can do that. Or it isn’t, um, and we can continue our search.

I see another question coming in, but if you have twins or two kids going to school the first year, did they consider that in the family expected payment, um, that’s a really good question. And by and large, they do not. They used to, uh, it used to be a federal in the federal formula that you would list other students enroll that are going to be enrolled [00:42:00] in the same year, but in the past two years or so that has gone away.

So, uh, and I hate to say that, but that’s just the way it is. Um, so I, you know, you may be eligible for aid from the colleges because colleges, that’s the federal form and by and large. Institutions fought would would follow that same script, I think, but each one is different. So, um, especially if a college wants that other financial aid form the CSS profile.

I would always encourage you to talk to the financial aid offices and stress that right any circumstances that are not looked at on financial aid forms, that is going to impact your ability to pay. Definitely reach out to the financial aid offices and see if they can make exceptions. They do it all the time.

Um, it just depends on the reason, right? So, [00:43:00] um, I would do that. But unfortunately, for the most part, it, it, it, they don’t look at that anymore. Um, okay. This is an example of one of those net price calculators that, uh, that I was talking about. We’re supposed to sort of give you a sample financial aid offer based on the information that you input.

So you can see here, you start with an estimated total cost of attendance, that’s tuition and fees, uh, food and housing. books, supplies, equipment, etc. Um, of 29, 664. And it breaks out all those costs there. And then it would estimate here your total grant aid. So that’s money that’s just taken off the bill.

And it leaves you with 26, 527. I know though that I see here that it does not include federal student loans, which would be about 5, 500 for freshmen. So if you want to take those, that [00:44:00] comes off the bill, although it’s a loan you have to pay back. And it’s, it’s the only loan that’s considered financial aid and it has benefits and sort of, um, discounts or whatever you want to call it associated with them that other loans don’t have.

Um, but yeah, that, that, this gives you just sort of an idea of what a net price calculator will tell you.

Um, Oh, Prince wants to know if there are any schools outside the U. S. A. That are represented in scorecard or navigator tools. That’s a good question. I’m not sure. I think so. Um, but I’m not 100 percent sure. I can find out and let you know, or we can, we can go ahead and look at it.

Oh, um, when it comes to paying for college in Massachusetts, if you’re [00:45:00] going to school or public school, especially in Massachusetts, um, this is a really good time for Massachusetts financial aid programs. So, um, there is, uh, a new mass aid portal that you can keep track of your state financial aid. So financial aid can come from a few different sources.

It can come from the federal government, the state government, The college and the university itself or outside scholarships, right? And so to qualify for aid from the federal, state, and colleges, you need to file this form called the FAFSA, which is the free application for federal student aid. And you would do that in your student’s senior year of high school, right?

The year before they’re going to be attending college. Um, and so based on the information that you put into the FAFSA, they will [00:46:00] Calculate your eligibility for aid and what your eligibility for aid from the federal and state governments are so, um, for the state governments. Now there are new programs.

So there’s a grant program called the mass grant, which has been around, but there’s been an expansion of that called the mass grant plus which expands free or reduced tuition and fees for low and middle income students, along with a potential book allowance. So that really really is going to drive down costs for a lot of Massachusetts students to attend public colleges and universities in Massachusetts.

There are also free community college programs. So there’s a program called the Mass Educate, which is free community college tuition and fees for all students. You need to file your FAFSA. but you can attend for free. Um, there’s also a program called mass transfer, which has been around for a long time.

And you can use that in conjunction with mass [00:47:00] educate. So you can go to a two year public college in Massachusetts, earn your associate’s degree, um, for free, and then use the mass transfer program. to transfer all of those credits into a four year public college or university in Massachusetts, and essentially just pay for that final two years and get your four year degree program.

And this is um, a program that you, you need to let them know that you’re doing mass transfer at the beginning of the process, and there are layers to it. So depending on your GPA, you’re eligible for other benefits like guaranteed admission into a four year program, uh, a tuition freeze so that tuition won’t increase as you’re moving through, uh, your, your four year program, uh, as well as even a tuition rebate, like you can be rebated 15 percent of your tuition if you’re maintaining your GPA through your program.

So there are a lot of programs designed at [00:48:00] the state level to allow students to go to college and get a degree for little to maybe even no debt. So this is huge. Um, I would really encourage people to look into these programs and to look into public college and university, uh, school, schools in Massachusetts, and even going outside of Massachusetts, there’s a program called tuition break, where if you’re going to a public college, don’t say you want to.

You know, be sort of frugal and or fiscally responsible and you want to go to a public college or university in Massachusetts to keep your costs down. But let’s say you want to study a major that is not offered at that college, but it is offered in a neighboring New England state at a public college.

Um, So let’s say you want to study astronomy, but you have to go to the University of Vermont for that. Well, then through the tuition break, break program, you would pay a [00:49:00] reduced rate to do that. And you don’t have to do anything there. And you, they would just know that you’re eligible for this program.

Um, so lots of different things that you can look at. Uh, if you want to go to me for. org slash paying per college, Massachusetts, uh, we have a lot more information on that. I mentioned financial aid briefly. I’m going to mention it again. What is financial aid? It’s basically money set aside to help students pay for college.

It comes in three main varieties, grants and scholarships, which is the best kind of financial aid because it’s gift aid. It does not have to be repaid. It just comes off the bill. Grants are typically need based. So they, they determine your eligibility for a grant based on your income and assets and whatnot.

You know, are you eligible? Scholarships are typically given out, um, for merit. So academic scholarships, athletic scholarships, etc. That is typically done at the college level. So most everything merit [00:50:00] based is done at the college level. There are some Massachusetts merit based programs. Most are need based and everything from the federal government is need based as well.

But those, that’s the first type, grants and scholarships. The second is work study, that’s money set aside for a student to earn by working a job on campus, um, and that is a federal program and it’s need based as well. If you want to be eligible for that or if you are eligible for that in your financial aid offer, it’ll show.

And you can get a work study job that gets paid to the student in a check, just like any other job throughout the year, you have a certain work study allowance. And that’s the amount that you can earn every year. And then student loans. And now when I say student loans, I don’t mean that any loan that you may get.

is financial aid. I’m talking about one specific program, the one I mentioned earlier, which is the federal direct student loan program. And so, um, things to know about this program, uh, is [00:51:00] that basically these are the only loans that students can get in their own name without a co applicant. There’s no credit check to be approved for them.

A lot of families are surprised about this because The way we talk about student loans, and, and, you know, you’ve seen stories about students graduating with, with all this debt, people just assume, I think, understandably so, that students can borrow whatever they might need for college, as long as they promise to pay it back afterwards, but that that’s not really the case.

These loans are really the only loans that students can borrow in their own name without having to pass a credit check. And there are loan limits associated with them. So 5, 500 for freshmen, 6, 500 for sophomore, 7, 500 for juniors, and 7, 500 for seniors again. And this is part of the financial aid offer already.

So if you have to borrow After that, which many families do, [00:52:00] um, that the approval for those loans needs to be based on credit approval. So students will need a co applicant to be approved. Um, we do recommend these are the only loans that are considered financially because of the benefits associated with them.

If you are going to be borrowing anything at all for college, you start by taking these student loans first. Okay. Now there’s two ways. And again, I mentioned this that, um, financial aid can be awarded, right? So merit based and need based. Merit based, awarded in recognition of student achievement, I think scholarships.

The thing you need to understand about merit based scholarships is that Different colleges have different practices. So some colleges give out a lot of merit based scholarships. Some don’t, some don’t give out any, it really depends on the capability and the policy of the college. So some colleges with a lot of money don’t do merit based scholarships.

All they’re in is need based. Um, so it really depends on the schools and this is a question you can ask a school and it can [00:53:00] be part of your college search. Do you do merit based aid? And then if you do, if you see, uh, an aid, uh, a scholarship in your financial aid offer, this financial aid offer is for this year and you need to apply every year.

You need to file your FAFSA every year. And get your financial aid offer. So is this a scholarship that I can renew every year, or is it just for the first year? So these are the questions. And then if you can renew it, what does the student need to do in order to qualify? to renew that scholarship every year.

There’s probably GPA requirement that they need to meet. There may be others. Most financial aid, though, is not merit based but need based. So it’s awarded based on the family’s financial eligibility. Basically, their financial need is determined by what they put on the FAFSA or the profile, whatever form that they filed.

That asks you to put income and assets and family size, et cetera. So most things are, are need based. So most [00:54:00] examples of federal state institutional aid are based on your financial need. And also I like that this, we have the amount here because again, we know the college can be expensive. What is not as well understood is the sheer amount of financial aid that is granted every year.

So 190 billion. has been granted to students, mainly, um, uh, that’s the amount on a yearly basis. And again, that, that figure comes from the college board trends in student aid. So, uh, there’s a lot of money, a lot of money that’s granted every year to families. Most families will be eligible for some level of financial aid.

Now, when it comes to this point, That you’ve got your financial aid offer and you have a balance due. There’s really only three ways that you can use to pay that balance, right? There’s past income, present income, and future income. Past income is what you can build right now, which is savings, right? So you can use savings, you can use any other [00:55:00] assets that you may have.

If you can pay with just your financial aid, great. I mean, that’s amazing. That almost never, that doesn’t happen very often. If you can pay with financial aid and your savings. That’s amazing. Um, again, most people probably can’t, but, um, it is worth it to pay what you can out of pocket, even if it’s not the full amount that’s due after financial aid.

So, um, It’s worth it to use your savings. It’s worth it to use your present income, the income that you’re earning while your student is in college. And what I’m talking about is a payment plan while the student is in college. So most colleges use an outside provider, uh, to offer a payment plan to a college.

And basically you figure out what it is that you can pay every month, and that can be your monthly payment. And so let’s say it’s 500 every month. You can sign up for a 10 month monthly payment, and that’s 500 every month. That’s going against tuition. Um, every dollar of it is [00:56:00] not going to interest going against tuition over 10 months, that’s 5, 000, excuse me, that you’re not borrowing and not paying interest on because the only thing that’s left after financial aid, past income and present income is future income or loans.

Now, again, the fact is, is that most families will be borrowing something to get through two or four years of college, or maybe more than four years. That’s not necessarily a problem. The problem is when people. Borrow more than they can comfortably afford to pay back. And so remember the student has their own loans through the federal government.

That’s part of the financial aid already. Any loans in addition to that need to be credit approved probably to be approved. Um, which means that most students will not be able to be approved on their own without a co applicant, which means mainly, you know, not necessarily, but oftentimes parents. So, um, if you’re a co applicant on a loan, you are equally responsible with the student.

So how much you borrow and how much you’re paying back on a monthly [00:57:00] basis will be important to you. So it is worth it to maximize what you can pay out of pocket before you start to borrow. And so this is something that you can work on now through savings. So it’s something that I would encourage you to, to, to think about.

This shows you the benefit of saving because it’s not just what you have saved, but if you have money in like, for example, a 529 plan, you can earn interest on that or compound interest on that, right? So, um, this is just sort of a very general figure. It’s going to show you if you’re trying to finance 10, 000 for college education, you could borrow that full amount, assuming a 7 percent interest rate.

If you’re paying over 10 years, you’re repaying 10, 000, you’re going to pay an extra almost 4, 000 of interest upon that. So it will cost you 13, 920 to borrow 10, 000 and to repay it over 10 years at an interest rate of 7%. Whereas at the same interest rate, 7%, it would cost you about 6, 000 [00:58:00] 960. So about half it’s going to cost you to save to earn the interest that extra 3, 040 up to 10, 000.

So, um, it’s worth much more to you to save and invest and earn that money, uh, and earn the interest rather than to pay the interest after borrowing. So we’re going to move into the savings portion here and this is kind of the question that that was already just sort of touches upon it. Number one, myths we’ve heard about saving for college, my savings will hurt my financial aid.

And as I mentioned, income is really the much more determinate factor on how much financial aid you’ll be eligible to receive. So I mentioned the FAFSA, I mentioned the profile. They’re going to put all of your information into this formula, and they’re going to come up with that number that they’re going to expect to you to pay for college, right.

So within that formula, your savings as a parent, they’re going to look at all the eligible savings that you list, and they’re going to take anywhere from three to 5. [00:59:00] 6 percent of that, right. as to what you can pay, uh, for college. So if you have 10, 000 saved, for example, they’re going to say, okay, you can, you can take 560 of that and use that for college.

That’s what we assume. Whereas if it’s income and it’s a, it’s a sliding scale. So the more you’re earning, the more they’re going to ask you to, to contribute, but it’s anywhere from zero to 47 percent of your adjusted gross income. So, um, Income is the much more determinative factor when it comes to financial aid, not savings.

And then the second one is it’s not worth saving for college if I can’t save the entire cost. So again, hopefully we’ve realized at this point we’re going to be eligible for some level of financial aid, we’re going to have a balanced due. Savings is always going to help us because anything that we’re saving is something that we’re not borrowing or paying out of pocket at the time, right?

So your college savings Will help you give you more education options. It’ll [01:00:00] expand your school list or program list. Really the biggest thing to me, it will reduce or eliminate hopefully the need to borrow loans. We really want to minimize borrowing. That’s the most important thing. Allows the student to work less and study more as it has a minimal impact on financial aid and.

It motivates your child, right? So there are studies done that show that if a child knows that money is set aside for him or her to use for college, they’re much more likely to attend college and much more likely to graduate regardless of the amount, right? So even saving a small amount has an outsized impact on finance, on college attendance and graduation rates.

So how can you save? Uh, we recommend starting as early as possible. Uh, if you’re in middle school, you still got plenty of time. I recommend people who are parents of seniors in high school start saving, but use time to your advantage. You can start with a goal in mind. You don’t have to, [01:01:00] um, I think just opening an account and beginning is the most important thing.

Take advantage of unexpected funds, like income tax refunds and, and, um, you know, inheritances, whatever it might be using automatic transfers, right? So set it up. Um, I tell the story all the time. I was contributing to my son’s 529 plan for about eight months before I even knew I was doing it because my wife had set up automatic transfers out of my account.

Um, you know, take a look at it every once in a while. If you can up it, that’s great. But, um, we know that people who, who do use automatic transfers, uh, do save more. This one I love. Get the word out to family and friends as parents. You can certainly, you know, uh, can contribute and probably will be contribute the main contributors they can, but you don’t have to do it all by yourself.

So, uh, this image here that you see is the sample of the gifting page that we have set up through fidelity and we’re going to talk about it. Are you [01:02:00] funding just a minute, but you can create this page to the picture of the child. the, the, the age of the child, the year that they’re scheduled to enter college.

And you can just take that link and email it out to folks and they can gift money directly in, uh, through the gifting page. So that’s a great way to do it. We have college gifting cards set up specifically branded with the U Fund, but they don’t have to be brand, you know, you can buy a gift of college card and gift it to somebody.

They can input the card info in and it’ll go right in. People come right to a check, you know, and you can take a picture of the check with your phone and mobile deposit it that way. So there are lots of ways for other people to gift into your child’s, uh, college savings fund. And you can even involve your child in the process, right?

So I remember speaking to a, um, a financial aid advisor at a college here who said she, whenever her daughter got anything for a birthday or a milestone, whatever it might’ve been, she has to save half of it, right? And so that went into the college fund and not only [01:03:00] did it help pay for college, but it became a habit that she just kept up throughout the rest of her life to save, right?

So, and I, I remember I asked her, I said, can I still tell that story? And she said, oh yeah, you know, I just talked to her. And she said she still does it, you know, just feels wrong not to save. So I mean, it’s something I wish I grew up with, but I didn’t. Um, but that’s, you know, involving your child in the process is huge.

And again, if they know that money’s being set aside from, they like to look at the balance, let’s see the balance go up. They’re going to be more likely to be excited to attend college. Right. And so. This is where I want to talk about our two Massachusetts savings options. The one I’ve talked about most so far is the U Fund and that’s our 529 plan.

So that’s the one on the right here and 529 plans have become probably the most popular way to save for college or educational expenses, right? There, there are programs that every state offers a 529 plan. Um, And basically the way they work is you put money in, it’s invested in the [01:04:00] case of the U Fund, which is the Massachusetts 529 plan through MEFA.

We have contracted with Fidelity Investments to handle the investments and to service your account. So again, when I, I have U Fund accounts for my son and one for my nephew and I call Fidelity and they tell me what’s going on with the account and they manage the investments. So you put money in, it’s invested.

It grows hopefully with the market and it grows without taxes, right? And so when the time comes to use the funds, as long as you, as you use them for qualified educational expenses, like tuition, fees, uh, food, housing, books, supplies, and equipment, you don’t pay taxes on the earnings. So, um, they can be used at any accredited college or university in the country.

Actually, even some international colleges, as long as they’re set up to take U. S. federal funding, uh, you can still use them. It doesn’t even have to be used for college specifically can be used for vocational training programs as long as once again, those, those colleges are set up to take us federal fund or those institutions are set up that way.

there’s no minimal [01:05:00] to open there’s no minimum to open an account, so you can open an account with no money and issues fund later on that combined account maximum cannot exceed 500, 000. You have a lot of different investment options, um, including an FDIC option, which, which safeguards your, your principal, right?

So that is a 529 plan. That is the MEFA U fund. The other option is a MEFA U plan, which is a prepaid tuition program. And this, again, you put funds in. It’s not invested in the market. They’re invested in bonds that are backed by the full faith and credit of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and that locks in no matter how much, depending on how much you save in the plan, it locks in a percentage.

of tuition of this year’s tuition at each participating college in Massachusetts. So all the participating colleges are in Massachusetts. So if you put in 1, 000 and a particular college in Massachusetts costs [01:06:00] 10, 000, well, then you bought 10 percent of tuition. And as tuition rises, you have 10 percent of whatever that is, right?

So when you’re caught by the time your student ends up going to college, if they go to that college that you purchased 10 percent at when it was 10, 000 and you put in 1000, if that’s now 20, 000, well, then you have 10 percent of 20, 000 or 2000. So your, your investment keeps pace with the increase in tuition.

And so that’s the way that the U plan works. Um, If the child ends up not going to one of those participating colleges, you can transfer the funds over to another beneficiary or you can cash out and get what you put in plus the interest. Um, and the interest is at CPI. Now, again, we can say more about these particular programs.

If you have questions about them, I’ll be happy to answer. You can visit me for. org. Um, you can, you know, we do a college savings presentation that goes into more detail. But that’s the general overview of those programs. So [01:07:00] this, to give you an idea, this is the list of participating UPlan colleges. Uh, and the list has stayed pretty static throughout, uh, my time, at least at MEFA.

It’s gotten a little slimmer because certain colleges have closed or merged, but that’s about it. Um, Yeah, let me check the Q& A at this point, because I see I got a couple other ones.

Oh, if my child doesn’t go to college, am I able to get the funds? Yeah, so for the, for the U plan, you can cash out again and get what you put in, plus the interest. For the U fund, it’s a little trickier, right? So if you have to cash out and not use the funds as they were intended, Then there’s a 10 percent penalty on the earnings.

I don’t want you to put in, but in the earnings and again, the earnings will be taxed at the owner’s rate of income. So you lose the benefit if you take an unqualified disbursement. However, there’s a, you know, you can use it for college. You can use it for vocational. Programs, you can transfer the beneficiary with the youth fund as well.[01:08:00]

So if the child doesn’t go into college, but there’s somebody else in the family that may be able to use it, you can transfer that beneficiary or you can, um, this is a new thing that just happened. They passed a law about a year ago that does this. You can transfer then funds into the benefit into a Roth IRA retirement account for the beneficiary up to 35, 000.

Um, so That is something that people are really excited about because they do worry what happens if the child doesn’t end up going to college. Am I going to get, you know, a tax hit for that? Uh, so there, there are options if that ends up being the case.

One other benefit that is associated with both of these programs, the U plan and the U fund, is that there is a Massachusetts state income tax deduction that you can claim for your contributions. So you can claim up to 1, 000 for individual filers or 2, 000 for married filers. [01:09:00] for your contributions to the U plan and the U fund.

And that limit is per filer. So that’s the absolute limit that you can, um, deduct from your Massachusetts state income, uh, by, for contributing to those programs. So limits are per filer, not per account. But it’s just an extra benefit, an extra spur to sort of, um, uh, start saving. And the finally, I think this is one of the last things we’re going to talk about here, is MIPHA’s college planning tool.

So, um, this is a tool that was designed to sort of help you figure out how much you should be saving every month. Because I would get calls from Particularly the parents of newborns and we say I want to make sure that college is paid for by the time he or she gets there. So how much do I need to start saving every month?

That’s a really hard question to answer, right? Because there’s a lot of things that we don’t know. We don’t know where the student is going to go to college. Different colleges are going to cost different things. We don’t know [01:10:00] how much financial aid you’re going to be eligible for. What’s your net cost going to end up actually being?

Um, we don’t know. So this is a way that sort of helps you estimate how well you’re doing, right? So you can go in, you can start a profile as a family and say, okay, this is the year that my child is going to be entering college. And what, and you can search by specific colleges or specific college types.

And that’ll give you an idea based on their tuition, you know, sort of rates every year, how much Those colleges are project projected to be by the time your student gets there, right? So that’s that line that’s going up that you see on that graph But then it’ll ask you to estimate, you know, what you’re gonna have saved So, okay, let’s say I’m gonna start with 1, 000 and then every month I’m gonna put 100 in you could do that It’ll calculate for you based on a certain percentage of rate of return and you can change that How much you are [01:11:00] going to have projected to have saved by the time you get there.

And then if you put income information in, it’ll sort of assess you for how much gift aid grants and scholarship that you’re eligible to receive in financial aid. So it will give you the cost, the sticker price, what you’re going to have. in what you might be eligible for an aid and then leave you with a shortfall.

So in this example here, the yearly cost is going to be just under 60, 000, 59, 995. Family’s going to be eligible for about 7, 000 in gift aid, and they’re going to have about 32, 000 in savings, leaving them a shortfall of about 21, 000, just under 21, 000. This is for the first year. So they need to know that they either need to start increasing their savings, start applying for outside scholarships, which they can do through the tool, start looking for cheaper colleges, which they can also [01:12:00] do through that tool.

And it will give them guidance on how to meet that shortfall. And there’s a lot of other things that it does too, but this to me is kind of the heart of it, right? So it’ll give you some idea. Okay. I’m I’m in good shape or I’m not in good shape. I have to figure out what I’m going to do. That’s MEFA’s college planning tool on MEFA.

org. So, what you can do now, you can sign up for me for emails, we’ll send you one or two a month with information that will be relevant to you based on the age or grade of your student or students. Definitely, if you have not started savings, uh, saving, I would recommend that you start saving for, for college and open an account and just that once you open an account, that really is, um, you know, the, the most important thing that you can do.

Even if you’re only saving a little bit, um, that is going to add up over time. And it’s the amount that is going on the investment as well. Uh, if you want more information from MEFA, you can watch all of our webinars are recorded and hosted at MEFA. org and you can visit MEFA. org slash save for [01:13:00] just, you know, a whole bunch of content, whether it’s video or articles or calculators or however you want to do it, it’s going to be there.

And this is our social media information. And we’ll be posting. All sorts of stuff on college admissions and college savings and paying for college. And a lot of times people who are offering scholarships want us to, to, to sort of blast their scholarship out there for people. And we do that. Um, I’d point you towards Facebook and, um, Instagram and MEFA tweets, and also selfishly my, um, podcast.

So MEFA. org, our podcast, where we talk about all this stuff, um, as well. That is our information for MEFA. If you have questions, I’ll be glad to answer them. Uh, and don’t be afraid to call us, email us, request a one on one appointment through Zoom. However you want to interact with us, you know, contact us over social, whatever you want to do.

We’re, we’re happy to meet you where you are.[01:14:00]

Oh, yeah. Okay. Um, you know, I don’t know about South Carolina. Is there a specific, uh, resource in South Carolina? I don’t know specifically about South Carolina. I know that many states do have similar resources to MEFA. Everyone’s a little bit different though. Um, but I will say this, that MEFA helps everybody throughout the country.

So if you want to talk to MEFA, about saving. Um, if you want to talk to me about admissions, about financially, about borrowing, about anything like that, we’d be glad to help. Um, you know, you don’t have to borrow a loan or anything like that to, to, to be a customer of MEFA. And you actually can do anything as a, as a resident of South Carolina that you could do as a resident of Massachusetts when it comes to, to that.

So, um, I don’t know South Carolina. They probably do, I’m guessing, but, um, we’re happy to help. [01:15:00] Anything else?

Oh, okay. So, some support for South Carolina in terms of cost. That’s good.

All right. Well, thank you very much. Thanks everybody for your attention and, um, good luck to everybody. And, uh, again, you know where to find us if you have questions. So thank you.