paying off student loans

Brad Baldridge
Learn about getting your degree debt-free with Denise Thomas.

Presenter
You have kids, they grow up and before you know it's it's time to plan for college. Where do you start? How much is it going to cost? Will you qualify for financial aid? Should you be looking into scholarships? When will you be able to retire? What about student loans? The list of questions is never ending. The good news is all the answers are right here. Welcome to the Taming the High Cost of College podcast. Here is your host, certified financial planner, Brad Baldridge.

Brad Baldridge
Hello, and welcome to Taming the High Cost of College. I'm your host, Brad Baldridge. Today we have a great interview with Denise Thomas. She is a debt-free college coach. She has a podcast called Debt-Free Degree. And she runs a consulting and coaching practice at Get Ahead of the Class. So she's got a lot of great information, she's been helping students for years, she actually started by helping her own family figure out how to plan and pay for college. She got a wealth of information, and she's been talking about things like scholarships and other ways to avoid debt while paying for college. So I'm not going to steal the thunder, we'll go ahead and jump right into the episode. As always, we have show notes available at tamingthehighcostofcollege/149.

Alright, today I'm sitting down with Denise Thomas. She's a debt-free college coach. Welcome, Denise.

Denise Thomas
Brad, thank you so much for having me on your show.

Brad Baldridge
It's great. I think this is a topic that most parents are going to really latch on to. So I guess before we jump into the meat, let's talk a little bit about how you became the debt-free college coach and kind of a little bit of your story. And we'll go from there.

Denise Thomas
Awesome. Well, I'll be honest with you, it was by desperation for the most part. We were like most every American family out there, we expected our kids to go to college but didn't save a dime. It's just the way we live, we spend what we have, we get those bonuses. And instead of putting an aside for college, we buy a new car, or a big screen TV, or whatever. It's just not something we are ingrained to do. And that's unfortunate, because by the time our kids are getting close to the college years, anything can happen. Even for us, I didn't realize this, but my husband had assumed we would pay for college with our retirement, we had a lot of money invested, and we could have retired at age 40. But then we had some severe financial problems. My husband was laid off, he was able to get another job almost immediately, but then within months was laid off again. And then the stock market crashed. We just weren't paying attention to what was going on in the world or in our industry. And life happens and this part of life, to be honest with you, sucked. We lost everything. With the stock market crash, our so called retirement was gone. With losing the jobs as well, we had to pay for our mortgage or mortgages, we actually own two houses at the time with what was left in savings. And that did not last very long. So we ended up having to declare bankruptcy and this was liquidation. We had to sell everything we owned if you could touch it, it was gone. Not long after that, as I'm recovering from this financial devastation, I realized, 'Oh my gosh, my kids are about to start literally around the corner.' How are we going to pay for college? We had no savings, no 401 K to borrow against, no house to borrow equity from, and oh yes, that bankruptcy means we can't co-sign for those student loans. So they tend to forget about that, they talk a lot about the student loan debt crisis and how expensive school is, and we always assume it's the kids who have this debt. Yes, they do have the debt, but I promise you, the majority of that debt, their parents or grandparents are co-signing for it meaning it's 100% yours just as it is 100% for your kid. Well, this bankruptcy took that off the table for us. So now, what would we do? In addition, I had another hoop to jump through. I was homeschooling my kids. How are they going to even be accepted to college? I started doing the research, Brad, and one of the things that came across was that 70% of college students graduate with some amount of student loan debt. But I can do the math. That means 30% are graduating debt-free? How the heck are they doing it? What do we know? What do we not know that they know, right? How come the media isn't talking about this? So I set out to figure out what these kids were doing, what was different, that they were debt-free. It doesn't matter what the economy is doing. This every year, for decades, it's about 30%. It might change 1% on either side, but it's about 30% every year graduating debt-free. Another thing that I found that was quite interesting, a lot of stuff we believe about that 30% is not true. And I hear it all the time. 'Well, if you're a student athlete, you get free school.' No, they don't. 'If you're a genius, you get free school,' not usually. 'Well, if you're destitute, you get free school.' Not necessarily. Again, we believe these things to be true, because that's what's been coming down the pike for decades. And we just, we hear it over and over again and just assume it. But it's making these assumptions that leaves parents and teens disheartened. Because my kid's not a genius. He's average. My kid's, not an athlete, she doesn't do any of that stuff. So how are they going to be able to go to school debt-free? Well, when I was trying to figure this out, and I'm telling you, it was thousands of hours of research, I stumbled upon some things that were eye-opening.

The most important thing is to start early. And the second most important thing is to choose your colleges, your college list, wisely, and choose the scholarships that your teen applies for equally as wisely. It's not rocket science. But waiting until the last minute, waiting until you've already chosen, 'My kids going to XYZ school and we have a $40,000 gap,' you can't make that up. You can't change it, you can't fill that gap with private scholarships. So starting early, and the earlier the better, makes an incredible difference. For everyone out there, one of the stats that was eye-opening for me is that, and again, we always assume you have to be a genius to win scholarships. But the majority of private scholarships are won by kids with a 2.4 to a 2.6 GPA.

Brad Baldridge
Uh-hmm.

Denise Thomas
It's incredible.

Brad Baldridge
Yes. All right. So let's talk a little bit more about how this works. So one of the things you mentioned was the gap. So that might be new to some listeners, so when you say a $40,000 gap, what does that mean?

Denise Thomas
That means that the school your child has chosen to attend, maybe it costs $70,000 per year, with tuition fees, room and board included. I know that might shock a few parents out there. 70K is a lot of freaking money. And yes, there are schools that cost that much money for the cost of attendance.

Brad Baldridge
For sure.

Denise Thomas
So Johnny's gonna attend this school that costs a lot of money. Awesome. And Johnny has awesome grades. He's got great test scores, and he's had 15 AP classes, and he's got almost a 4.0 with everything, fabulous. But the school is only offering 30 grand. Well, somebody's got to come up with the 40.

Brad Baldridge
Right, so it's essentially

Denise Thomas
That's your gap

Brad Baldridge
Right? The 70 minus the 30 in scholarships means there's 40 left to pay.

Denise Thomas
Exactly.

Brad Baldridge
Right. Okay. So if our goal then is you mentioned start early. And if our goal is to try and get college at a reasonable price, so perhaps we can avoid scholarships, starting early doing what?

Denise Thomas
Well, let's start with how early. The first thing to remember is that, I'm gonna say back in the day, when you and I were attending college, colleges, we're looking for the jack of all trades, and college applications for probably 99% of the schools were not submitted until mid to late senior year, January, February, March. For everyone, today, both of those, both of those revelations, both of those assumptions are wrong. Colleges are not looking for the jack of all trades. They're looking for passion. What is it that really puts that spark in your child's eye? They're looking for where do you fit into their campus community? How will you contribute to that community? They want to know, of course, will you pass and graduate, and your grades and test scores will show them that. And then they also we're looking for what kind of an alumni will you be? How will you as an adult, reflect back on your alma mater later in life? All of these things are important to colleges. And it does show up on the application in different ways. So when I say to start early, when I mentioned that, it used to be that applications were submitted almost late senior year. Today, college applications are submitted sometimes as early as August 1, of the high school senior year, your child has not stepped foot on their senior, on their high school campus yet. What that means is that when they list their activities and their leadership roles, your child isn't president of XYZ club yet, they haven't started their senior year. Maybe they'll be chosen for that. But they don't have senior year activities and leadership roles to list because those applications are going in early. What that means is that years ago, we would have our kids when they start high school, 'Okay, hit the ground running, join every club, see what you like, see what you don't like. And let's see if we can narrow some things down in sophomore year, to two or three that you really like.' And then, the next year you narrow a little further and by senior year, you'll have a leadership role in something that you really can participate in. Well, we need to back that scenario up into middle school now. So now what I tell parents is that in middle school, this is your opportunity to offer your child as many opportunities for growth and exploration as possible. It may be that your child is attending all of the free vacation bible schools that are available in your area, because everybody's got a different thing. And perhaps you'll offer one paid camp per summer. Just something interesting. Let them explore what their interests are. That way, by the time they start high school, they will have found something that really floats their boat, something they can really sink their teeth in and grow with. You see on that college application, it looks a lot like a resume. There's going to be different sections, honors and awards, activities or extracurricular activities, community service, employment. And then of course, there's the essay. So how does a college look at this list of things and figure out where your kid fits into the campus community? It's quite simple. If there is something that tends to show up in more than one category, in multiple categories, that's the key to showing the campus, showing the college that I fit in that area. For example, if Johnny loves playing chess, maybe he is the founder of the chess club at his school, or during the 'COVID years,' as I like to call it. He started an online chess club that makes him founder and president. So now we've got leadership activity. What about competition? Maybe Johnny participates in chess competitions. Maybe he wins first, second or third place in some of these competitions. That goes in the honors and awards category. I've seen parents and teens who are under the mistaken belief that the honors and awards category has to be academic. No, it doesn't. It's nice if it does, but anything that your child has been chosen out of a group of other kids, that goes in the honors and awards category. I'll give you some oddball examples here. I had one family whose child was chosen as a children's counselor for the Billy Graham Crusade. That's way out of the box. I had another who was selected by audition, to participate in a pre-professional music program. These are the kinds of things that colleges are looking for: what makes you stand out, what makes you unique? So, for that example with Johnny who plays chess, he started the club, so that's leadership. He's a member of the club, he wins, or participates in these chess tournaments, perhaps goes to the local aging facility, and plays chess with grandparents. Maybe he does that at some of the hospitals where they have some aging individuals who just need some company. That's community service. So you can see how it's easy for what it is that puts that spark in his eye can show up in multiple areas of the application. And this is something that colleges are looking for. But believing that old school thinking that they're looking for the jack of all trades, and I hear this all the time. Well, they've got all these activities and there's that assumption that you have to do a bunch of things, but you don't have to do, quote, a little bit of everything. You really, mostly just need to have that one thing that makes you who you are, that one thing that really is important to you.

Brad Baldridge
Right. Okay, so, hypothetically, let's say that that exists in our family. So we've got kids that have a focus and a passion. What's the next step, so to speak? Because I think it's, there's a few errors that people make around that when they start selecting schools. And again, I've seen situations where, 'grandpa went here, Dad went here, I'm going here, no matter what.' And now let's make it low cost, which you and I know, that's very difficult to do, because we're not, you know, getting it takes a lot of our opportunities off the table. So can you talk a little bit more about, okay, so we've got a strong application, we've done our homework, we know how to do that well, what's the next step with that student as far as...

Denise Thomas
The next step is, I'm going to call it the students responsibility. Your teen should know early on and this is something parents have to do no later, in my opinion, no later than freshman year, parents and teens have to have the money discussion. I don't care if parents are making 6,7,8 figures. Do you want to pay for a piece of paper? Or would you rather give your kid a house or a car at graduation? Because it's doable. If your child can go to a college that wants them and will pay them to go there, then maybe that chunk of change you thought you were going to be spending on college can go towards something a little more tangible. But when it comes to your kid wanting to go to the same school that you... things are different today than they were 30 plus years ago, college is a buttload more expensive than it used to be. That sticker price is sticker shock for the vast majority of Americans, trust me. And the worst thing that a family can do is a, be stuck on a name. Because mostly if you know a name, a name brand school, chances are they don't have an incentive to offer very many folks, I don't care how great your GPA is.

Brad Baldridge
Right?

Denise Thomas
It's kind of like, I like to show them the difference. It's kind of like the difference between Saks Fifth Avenue and Macy's. I don't know when's the last time I saw a really good sale at Saks. They don't have to, they don't have to entice people to come, they're going to come and spend their hard-earned dollars, whether or not they really have it to spend.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Denise Thomas
Same is true for those name brand schools.

Brad Baldridge
Right. Exactly. I think name brand schools. I mean, that's, I think a lot of colleges aspire to become that name brand school. I mean, that's their goal. Because then they have that pricing power. It's like well, yes, we get more applicants than we can accommodate, so we're going to take the ones that are willing to pay.

Denise Thomas
100%, you are so correct there. And I think that we need to start looking at the entire process more like we look at buying a car. I like red. So when I walk into a Tesla showroom, I am all over that red car. But I also know I'm not driving out with it. I'm only there to ogle over the pretty color. We need to start looking at college as a financial decision, but it's colleges that have made it an emotional decision. That's college marketing.

Brad Baldridge
Oh, and colleges haven't done it alone. We parents have done it as well.

Denise Thomas
We have, we have

Brad Baldridge
We're complicit in it at least. But yes, the college is definitely want it to be emotional.

Denise Thomas
We're suckers

Brad Baldridge
I would agree

Denise Thomas
100%. And when it comes to starting early with your kids and helping them to make the right decision, doing the math is really important. Even if you want to spend that money, or even if you're gonna have those loans, and you've resigned yourself to that, which I wholeheartedly disagree with, what's the outcome? If, and I've had students that I've talked with about this, if the entry level income for the degree program that you plan to be in, is $35,000 a year, but you're gonna have debt at $260,000. Where on this earth, does that make sense? When you do the math, Brad, this child will literally walk out of college bankrupt, she will be living on her mama's couch for the rest of her life. And unless she gets two additional jobs, she will never have a hope of paying that debt and living on her own.

Brad Baldridge
Right

Denise Thomas
You've got to do the math with your kids. What really makes sense? I had one client recently, who, again, people tend to come to me a little later than they should, have already chosen their college, they've already been accepted, they have this gap. And although they only put in the application to this particular college to quote, 'Oh, just a shot in the dark. Let's just see,' even though they've had the discussion that said, no way hell or high water is this possible financially, now, Susie has this in her heart. She really wants to go to this school. She saw it, and it's just awesome.

Brad Baldridge
Right? Yeah, that's something I talk with clients, a lot of, you know, when you get started to look at colleges, you really need to understand what you're looking for, and that type of thing. And you need to be careful, because you can say, 'I'm just going into the car dealer and looking at cars.' But if you go there enough Saturdays in a row, eventually you're coming home with a new car. And

Denise Thomas
You're so right.

Brad Baldridge
So you need to be careful with, yes, the most expensive schools especially, have beautiful campuses and beautiful neighborhoods, and they look really good. And they're really good at selling what they have. So, and again, many people can say, 'Well, that's fine. I can I can resist the sales pitch.' But can everybody in your family resist it, the student and your spouse? Because I think in a lot of cases, again, I'm not saying you shouldn't look at them, but you just need to be aware that you need to kind of talk and be very serious upfront about well, these schools are likely to be expensive. Therefore, if the numbers are high, the answer is going to be no, so don't fall in love.

Denise Thomas
Yeah, and you are 100% correct. I remember doing college tours with my daughter. And for one of the colleges, we were driving to the school, and my daughter started crying. And I'm, 'Wait, what's going on with what's wrong?' She said, 'I'm afraid I'm going to love, and I know we can't afford it.' Now as a parent, that just that just hits you right here. Because that's the problem right there. We want to give our kids their greatest desire, that's so important to us, as parents, and we will move mountains, but that mountain is going to be your retirement. Trust me, when your kids are in their 40s, and they're still paying their debt, they are so not thinking about helping you in your retirement years, that is not on their radar.

Brad Baldridge
Right, absolutely.

Denise Thomas
So you've got to think about you first as a parent, what is your future going to look like if you're the one who is stuck with this $200,000 debt? Oh, well, Johnny is going to be you know, Johnny's on the note. Well, yeah, but you cosign for it and is 100% yours as it is Johnny's. Which, by the way, for parents, by the time the kids are out of the house, you're looking to do something else with your money. Maybe you aren't going to buy that midlife crisis car, or a second house or a summer home or take vacations worldwide. Can I tell you have awesome international travel is? It is freakin awesome. And there are there are buildings in other countries that are older than our entire country is, it's cool to see. You can't do that, if this debt is on your own shoulders as well. Something else that needs to be understood, too, is that, in general, if you're applying to the right schools, private schools give really good discounts. They're usually not scholarships, necessarily, but they are discounts. Those discounts can be as much as 30, 40, 50% of the sticker price. That's cool, but the percent that's left, because that's what you need to be looking at. And it's not that this isn't doable. But you need to know ahead of time going in. The other thing that I want to mention is that when it comes to choosing that college list, and I, Brad, you do a phenomenal job of helping students with this. When it comes to choosing that college list, there are so many factors that are important. But I want to know, what's your bottom line. If we put 10 schools on your list, what is the out of pocket expense you're willing to come up with? Because that's what's really important. Because the truth is, nobody cares what the main one your diploma is.

Brad Baldridge
Right, exactly. So I think that's where many families need to understand that. Five and ten years ago, it was really a challenge to try and figure out what a college actually costs because it's kind of like going to those stores that have all these crazy discounts, right? You go into a Kohl's, and if you have all the right coupons, you get, the T-shirts are marked at $45, and nobody pays $45 for a T-shirt at Kohl's. And by the time you use all your coupons and discounts and everything else, it's a $10 T-shirt just like at Walmart

Denise Thomas
Which it should be in the first place, right?

Brad Baldridge
Which it should have been in the first place. So I think that same thing is happening at colleges in general, was some of them have marked up their price to compete with the big boys, so to speak. But they really can't get that as often as they'd like. Therefore, they end up providing substantial discounts kind of like Kohl's does, right? They say, 'Well, this is a $40 T-shirt.' And at some high-end boutiques, there are $40 T-shirts, but not the Kohl's t shirt that we're talking about. Of course, it's one cut above Walmart, maybe, and therefore, nobody wants to pay $40 for it. But again, you add up all your discounts, and generally you don't. Now, so then the savvy shopper says, 'Well, I'm not going to Kohl's unless I've got all my discounts and points and whatever else my Kohl's cash' or whatever else that you can collect up, and all in order so that I can get a reasonable price. Well, that's the same thing you need to be doing around the colleges is you need to understand the game. Get everything lined up and understand that well. For the right students, some of these schools will give us substantial discounts. But we got to figure out, am I the right student? Because you may not be the right student at this college, but you may be the right student at that college. And that challenge, I think is where a lot of families need to understand that that alone takes quite a bit of work. And that's kind of on the parents, most students aren't gonna be able to figure that out. They're just not...

Denise Thomas
True.

Brad Baldridge
Wise is the world as they should be to have any idea how that works.

Denise Thomas
And you can, this is not their job. I know people, parents especially think, that's their job, but it's not. If parents would understand what it is that makes one child more enticing than another to offer not only admissions, but to offer some type of scholarship or discount. A lot of what makes this work is understanding the, quote ranking system. Now, I'm gonna just throw this out there real quick. It means diddly squat. The US News and World Report college rankings that comes out every year has nothing to do with educational quality, or student outcomes. That is not even part of the ranking at all. Some of the criteria, the colleges themselves are manipulating to help them grow that ranking for themselves. Matter of fact, there's one criteria, they literally vote for each other. It's crazy. But for example, one of the criteria that they're ranked on is average entry level entry, freshmen test score ACT and SAT score, well, how do they manipulate that? Well, prior to COVID, only 10% of the thousands of colleges and universities in the US were test optional for admissions. Why would they have done that? Well, these are the top quote schools who are test, who were test optional. Why? Because if you think about it logically, the only kids not submitting their test scores are the ones who have crappy scores. I'm just laying it out there for you. So the college cannot submit scores they don't have, if they don't have the scores in their average, their average automatically increases. That is a way of manipulating that particular statistic.

Brad Baldridge
Right? Well, on the

Denise Thomas
Another one that they manipulate, yeah

Brad Baldridge
But they're also manipulating by saying, 'Oh, here's kids with high test scores. Let's go get them.' And, again, so fair or not, sometimes test scores are what the college likes about you. And

Denise Thomas
Right

Brad Baldridge
Like, 'Okay, these kids are gonna bring up our average, these are the ones that get the better scholarship.'

Denise Thomas
Correct. Same is true for when you see the ratio of number of applicants to number of seats that they actually can fill. Some of these higher status schools will have 5%, 7%, 10% admission rate. Well, why is it that they have 200,000 applicants and only 1500 seats? Aha, because they have purchased the list of students name, address, and email from ACT.org and College Board. They send emails, postcards and letters to these kids saying, 'Ah, you're so wonderful, apply to our school, here's a coupon code, and you can apply for free, we'll waive the application fee.' For what kids not going to throw their name in the hat just for grants?

Brad Baldridge
Uh-hmm

Denise Thomas
This is how they manipulate some of these opportunities. So it's important that parents understand that college rankings mean absolutely nothing as far as the educational quality of their, of what they're getting for their dollars. And the amount of money their kid will get when they're employed doesn't work the way we think it does. Matter of fact, there was a survey with I think it was something like 6000 employers across the US, across just a ridiculous number of fields, surveyed the hiring area and asked, 'Okay, so how important is it, the college ranking, that your applicants have? Nada, nothing, don't care.

Brad Baldridge
Yes, for sure. So, alright, so when you say start early, I guess you mentioned while making sure your students are doing their extracurriculars and that type of thing. Are there other things that families should be doing...

Denise Thomas
Absolutely

Brad Baldridge
...early, so to speak? And then define early for these other things that we might be doing.

Denise Thomas
Well, I like to say, how early can, people ask, 'Well, how early should we start applying for scholarships, how early should we be worried about XYZ or doing whatever? Truth is, the earlier the better? The second you ask that question is when you should be doing something, because that's the first time you thought about it. Private scholarships begin as early as kindergarten. As weird as that is, and that's college scholarships, not scholarships to some local, paid high school or whatever.

Brad Baldridge
And what's a private scholarship?

Denise Thomas
Private scholarships are scholarships that are offered not by the school your child attends, but by pretty much anybody else. It could be corporations, it could be individuals or alumni from a particular school. It could be nonprofits, basically, anyone can offer scholarships, any business. And those scholarships range anywhere from 250 bucks, it's about the lowest I've ever seen, to 20,000 or even 50,000 for the rare ones. The good news is that anyone can win. But you've got to start somewhere and waiting until 'Oh now we have a $40,000 gap' as we mentioned earlier is a little late to fill that gap. But in starting early, it's not just applying for scholarships. It's understanding how to study, let's get those grades up right? Because GPA matters to the colleges when they're offering scholarships. Test scores matter, ACT, SAT, the PSAT exam. The PSAT exam is taken in the junior year of high school. It's a one shot exam to be eligible for the National Merit Scholarship. Now, I have heard counselors say, 'Ah, don't bother worrying about that, don't study for it, only geniuses win that scholarship, only valedictorians.' Really? No, it is one of the easiest, in my opinion to win. And here's why. A lot of families have heard, 'Well, we need local scholarships because there's fewer applicants.' True. And although National Merit is considered a national scholarship, you're only competing against the students in your own state. You have just made it 1 out of 50 chance rather than whatever. All of these exams, PSAT, ACT, SAT, they are not an IQ test. It's a multiple choice test. So when a parent or teen tells me, 'Oh, I don't test well, Johnny doesn't test well.' Really, you've got a 3.8 GPA? I call BS. There's no way. This is a multiple choice exam, these exams, and the number of kids with perfect scores increases every year. Why? Because they're learning the test. They're learning the strategies. And they're taking the test multiple times. I used to hear and still do occasionally hear a high school counselor say, 'Don't take it more than a couple of times, it looks bad.' For who?

Brad Baldridge
Right?

Denise Thomas
Only 10% of the colleges and universities request all of the exam scores you've ever

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Denise Thomas
But if the bottom line, is the bottom line for you, if you're after the money, which I am, who cares how many times you take it? The key is this though, Brad, don't just take it to be taking it. If for example, if your child has an English exam on Friday, gets a C, God help him. But the teacher says, 'Hey, Johnny, you want to retake that test on Monday?' Is Johnny gonna play video games with his friends all weekend long? Or is he gonna open that book and study his butt off to retake that test? That's the difference. You can study for these exams.

Brad Baldridge
Right? Even though I'm not a test expert, but I think a lot of people need to understand that there's different aspects that test, one is your test taking ability. Do you know when to guess, do you know how fast you need to go? Do you realize that the math gets harder as you go along? And then there's the quick fixes of well, you just gotta brush up on your cover rules, and you got to understand triangles better or something like that. And then there's the, well, you just didn't pay attention in school. So you you kind of need to learn math. I mean, A to Z, right? I mean, there's different levels of

Denise Thomas
Yeah, exactly.

Brad Baldridge
And you could exactly go to tutoring and learn all of Geometry and all of Algebra and that type of thing. So that you score better in math. But many kids already know that, they just don't know how to do the math section as well as they could have, if they knew when to guess and how to guess and when to read the answers before the questions. Or I mean, there's all kinds of different techniques, and not every techniques work for everyone. And then of course, there's the whole test optional now, which throws another wrinkle into it, but I think right, you know, again, the all these areas, and that's where I think starting early is okay, well learning all about that is one small piece of the puzzle, and the sooner you understand it the better.

Denise Thomas
Well, I'll give you another example. There was a what to call it a study done years ago, utilizing the PSAT exam. And what this did, it was an entire state. And they had your control group versus your test group here. The PSAT exam in their freshman year for practice, took it again in their sophomore year for practice, and then took it in junior year when it counts for the National Merit, as opposed to quote everybody else who only takes it in their junior year. The results were astounding. The students who had taken it for practice had gotten a score that was 15 points higher than those who are taking a cold for the first time. That is a significant increase for the PSAT exam. And this was just taking it for practice, they weren't even studying for it. That state now requires their sophomores to take this exam for practice. And here's the other catch. After this study came out, the College Board who was the one who writes the PSAT and the SAT exam came out with a PSAT 8, 9, and a PSAT 10 exam. So something quote to practice for the eighth or ninth graders and or the 10th graders. But here's the problem. The study was done using the original exam that only juniors take, that 11th grade PSAT. The 8, 9, and the 10 PSAT are easier. They're dumbed down, they're intended for eighth and ninth graders. They're intended for 10th graders and what those children have learned in school. Just as the PSAT exam expected for 11th graders is a little easier than the SAT exam, intended more or less for 12th graders. So if you're going to have your children, take those exams early to practice, take the real one, take the actual PSAT, have them have the experience, not just practicing at home, but the experience of going to a school they've never been to, to a classroom they've never been to, and take this exam, and learn not only the test, and how it's run, but be able to start ignoring all those extraneous sounds that are going to go on around them during these exams. You see, when kids take these tests early, and in my opinion, more often than what is being advised. They not only learn the test, they learn to test well enough to, when the teacher at the front of the room says 'Go,' these students who have been practicing, don't have to spend the time reading the instructions, they jump straight to the questions. Now, why is that important? Because everyone else is taking this extra time. And your kid doesn't have to take that extra time. Those instructions, those directions never change, it's always the same. And the other thing is in taking these exams multiple times in that environment, by the time it counts, two things have taken place. Number one, this isn't new to them. This is old hat. They're not stressed. Like everyone else? This is a high stakes exam to them. It's a once and done because their teachers, their parents, their counselors said, 'Only take it once or twice.' Your child has taken it so many times. It's no big deal.

Brad Baldridge
Right?

Denise Thomas
So they don't have that stress. But in addition, they have taken it in that environment enough to not be thrown by other kids tapping their pencil on the table, or even kicking the back of their chair or rustling, getting their coat on or off or blowing their nose or rain on a tin roof. All of these things are important parts of the strategy for getting those higher scores. And why is that important? Because those higher scores and your GPA are what colleges are looking for. It increases their rankings, they are more apt to give larger discounts and scholarships to entice your child to come to their school.

Brad Baldridge
Right. All right, well, that was a got a lot of great information. If people want to learn more about what you do and how you do it, can you, how do people get a hold of you, you have a website, can you tell us some of that stuff, please?

Denise Thomas
Awesome, be happy to, I can be reached at getaheadoftheclass.com. That's get ahead of the class dot com. That's my homepage. And there is a really cool spreadsheet or rather checklist that most families are going to want. It's 12 Scholarship Secrets. These are tips from prestigious scholarship judges. It's a list of what not to do when submitting scholarship and college applications. So before you hit that submit button, check the checklist.

Brad Baldridge
Great, I appreciate it. All right. That's a lot of good information. And hopefully people will reach out and I'm sure we're gonna stay in touch. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.

Denise Thomas
Thank you, Brad, for having me on.

Brad Baldridge
All right, that was a great episode, where we learned a ton about paying for college without using debt, and scholarships and other great strategies. Obviously, these strategies that we've talked about aren't right for everyone. And some people ultimately will end up paying for some or all of college. But if you're the type of family that is willing to do the hard work and really work at it, a debt-free degree is certainly within the possibility for many families. We appreciate any sort of reviews that you can give us at Apple, iTunes, or wherever you're getting your podcasts. That's all we have for this week. We'll see you next week.

Presenter
Thank you for listening to the Taming the High Cost of College podcast. Now it's time for you to take action. Head to tamingthehighcostofcollege.com for show notes, bonus content, and to leave feedback for Brad. The next step on your college journey starts now.

Brad Baldrige is a registered representative Cambridge Investment Research and an investment advisor representative of Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, a registered investment advisor. Securities are offered through Cambridge Investment Research Incorporated, a broker dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC. Brad owns two companies, Baldridge Wealth Management and Baldrige College Solutions. The Baldridge companies are not affiliated with Cambridge Investment Research.

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