THCC Episode 133 – College Planning Strategies and Timelines

Brad Baldridge
Welcome to Taming the High Cost of College. In this episode, we're going to talk about some practical tips on how to pay for college.

Presenter
You have kids, they grow up and before you know it, 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
'Right, welcome back to Taming the High Cost of College. I'm your host, Brad Baldridge. This is Episode 133, when you're looking for show notes, today, we have Todd Weaver. He's the president of Strategies for College. Todd and I are going to talk a little bit about some of the frustrations we see and some of the strategies we recommend for families to get started in order to pay the lowest cost they possibly can for college. Again, we recommend things like getting started early and other obvious things. But we also explain what does that mean as far as what is actually 'early.' We'll get into some of the details as well. Todd also has some free resources on his website where he's got some free video learning courses. So I encourage you to go check that out as well. You can get links to all his information at tamingthehighcostofcollege.com/133. Again, that's for the Episode 133. If you're enjoying these podcasts, and you're learning a lot, please share them with your friends and family. Again, most people don't know this type of planning exists. That's our biggest challenge. So if you can help us get the word out, let other people know that they're not alone, that there are resources available, I would appreciate it. Alright, that's all let's jump into the interview.

Brad Baldridge
All right, today I'm sitting down with Todd Weaver. He's the president of Strategies for College. We interviewed Todd many years ago, and we thought we'd bring him back. Today we want to talk about some practical tips that families can use. So welcome, Todd.

Todd Weaver
Thank you, Brad. It's good to be here.

Brad Baldridge
Yes. So tell us a little bit more about Strategy for College and who you are and what you do.

Todd Weaver
I'd be happy to. Strategies for College is a company that's been helping families on college affordability, visibility, and in finding the right social fit for over 30 years. We started in 1990. And I've been working since then to help up students line things up on the money and the admission in the right fit for that time frame there. I joined the group about 16 years ago, after having spent some time working in a financial aid office myself. So I I saw how things were done on the inside at college and wanted to help people understand how it works from their side of the of the house.

Brad Baldridge
Right? Absolutely. So, I guess you and I are both have quite a lot of experience in dealing with the college money side of things, as well as some of the basics on admission and all that type of thing. So our goal today is just give people some quick actionable tips, you know, around various problems and issues that arise. So I guess to start with, let's talk a little bit about one of the biggest challenges that you and I were talking about, which is people not really understanding the timeline. So I think there's a problem out there where, again, I what I've seen and get very frustrated with is when people, they come senior year of high school saying, 'We are working on this college, we are struggling to figure things out.' What's your recommendations as far as when's the really the better time to start? I mean, senior year, we would both agree, it's probably too late to start, we should be finishing at that point, not starting. But what kind of timelines do you typically encourage if you get to pick, so to speak?

Todd Weaver
Well, that's a great question. And I think it can vary from participant to participant. You have the parental side of the conversation is typically where I start the conversation on money. And I think that should really happen ideally before the onset of sophomore year in high school. And the main reason behind that is because January 1st of a student's sophomore year in high school is when the clock starts ticking. And by that I mean that's the tax year that the colleges will see when applying for financial aid two years later, when their student is a senior. So if a family has to prepare anything to make themselves, best suited for the college financial aid consideration, they want to have it done have a clean slate before December 31st of sophomore year of high school. Students on the other hand, typically love working with students who are started to get engaged after they take their PSAT in the fall of junior year, that's a common timeframe that a lot of students tend to start to kick in the whole process here, or at least started thinking about college. And the great thing about that is it gives them a good six to eight months of really thoughtful research and opportunities to visit, gather their thoughts on why they're going to college in the first place. Because the heavy workload really does kick in at the same time senior year of high school starts, that's typically when the application season, the writing of college essays occurs, and more college visits that they didn't quite get to do as juniors. So that could be a busy busy time for folks.

Brad Baldridge
Right. But I always tell people is, there's a lot of deadlines in the senior year around when you can apply and financial aid and all that stuff. So the calendar, and the timeline is very much set by the colleges.

Todd Weaver
That is correct.

Brad Baldridge
The junior year, there really aren't a lot of deadlines, per se, but junior year and even sophomore year, is the time where parents can prepare for those first deadlines that are coming up in your senior year. So you've got all of sophomore and junior year to do things like college visits, and test did planning and test prep and figuring out the finances and all those types of things. But there's no deadline per se, nobody's gonna say, 'Well, are you on track? Have you done this, this should be done by here or there.' It's, you kind of have to self impose deadlines of trying to figure out the family budget, and what can we afford for college, if you

Todd Weaver
I would tend to agree with that.

Brad Baldridge
Right. And if you don't do it sophomore year or junior year, well, then you're gonna be doing all that stuff while you're trying to meet the college's deadlines. So you can spread it out, and it make your life a little simpler, as far as you'll get, I... Another analogy I use is we pay for college with time, with money, and with stress. And if we don't start early enough, then the stress goes up. And often the costs go up, because we didn't put the time in.

Todd Weaver
Right. That's something I would agree with.

Brad Baldridge
So let's get into some practical tips. We need to start early. So, what does that mean? As far as I am the parent of a junior right now, and we happen to be in the fall. So I'm looking ahead to the entire junior year, I've got fall and spring to work with, what types of things should we be doing? Or what can we do to make things better?

Todd Weaver
Well, I think one of the great things to try to do, and I know we're all short on time, because our families are typically extremely busy with a lot of activities. And sometimes it's difficult to get the teen in the house to want to hang around mom and dad at this stage in their life. But, if you can, the best thing to start doing I think in the fall of junior year is go walk around some campuses, go visit a couple of schools. There's not a lot of pressure at this timeframe for the students, and gives them a chance to just start to get their head in the right place and think about the concept of going to college.

Brad Baldridge
Right

Todd Weaver
I think that can be a really good opportunity just to get the mindset going for the student and get them talking about their thinking about college.

Brad Baldridge
Right, and what I like about the early visit is you can do it local, if you want. And I typically encourage that as go to colleges that are near you that might be on the list. And if there isn't anything near you on the list, then go to a college that, you know you're not going to go to just to practice.

Todd Weaver
That's a great idea.

Brad Baldridge
Just to get your feet wet. And again, a lot of parents have gone to college. So they have a pretty good understanding of what it's all about. I would say that typical 17 year old, their experience with colleges, whatever they've seen on the various shows that they may have watched that is based on a college or god forbid, something like Animal House. But the challenge I think for a lot of young kids is they're trying to figure out what college really means and so they just get out there and start with a frame of reference. I think it helps them if they start doing video tours and other things where they can say, 'Oh, this campus looks a lot like that campus that I was on.' So I don't think videos in lot of cases are bad, but they're not like being there. Especially if you don't have a frame of reference.

Todd Weaver
Right.

Brad Baldridge
Alright, so we can get out there and start doing our visits. I guess the other thing would be starting to think about the money. So when we say that, what kind of things can we be doing?

Todd Weaver
Well, that's a great question. I think for a lot of families, particularly at the time we're recording this, we're 18-19 months into the pandemic times, and I think many families had some financial challenges over the past year, year and a half. And if you happen to have a high school scene you're and you're listening to this podcast, you're, you're thinking about the money. And this might be a time to figure out how do I tell the schools that my 2020 taxes which I have to show them, for my student end up to college in 2022, are not reflective of what the financial or tax year 2021 was really like? We had a job loss or had to change something up, or there was some conflicts that led to changes in income and assets. And these are conversations parents could certainly be having even parents or juniors, with the financial aid officers, just to get a feel for what's the potential need-based or merit-based aid might look like for their student. It's challenging at this time of the year, though, nobody's going to give you a guarantee of anything from the college side. But the financial aid officers are there to help. And they're the people that when your student goes to visit a campus, it'd be let the student walk around for an hour by themselves while you go in with your tax returns and talk to the financial aid officer and say, 'Hey, can you give me an early read on this? What's it going to look like?'

Brad Baldridge
Right? Absolutely, I think and what we're we're driving at here is that the way financial aid works, it looks back in your history quite a ways now. It used to be prior year, now they have this concept called prior prior year, which makes it much easier to do the paperwork. But unfortunately, though, you're also making the tax return a year and a half old by the time you're using it. And so the challenge there as well, this tax return doesn't really match my life anymore. And that's not new to colleges, they, for years and years, they've been adjusting things based on new circumstances. So you just need to talk with the college and work with financial aid. And they can often make adjustments on your applications based on the new reality. But then they'll typically going to ask for some documentation and some verification and what the new reality is, whether it's a change in pay because of a job or of business closure or a divorce, or there's lots of things that can happen and in that interim year, or year and a half or between when the taxes were created, and when you actually go off to school.

Todd Weaver
And I think another thing, Brad, is a lot of families assume that they may not be eligible for financial aid or assistance.

Brad Baldridge
Yes.

Todd Weaver
And I think that's a real problem because families may not realize how many more expensive sticker price colleges might actually have a lot of money to hand out for families with moderate to middle income, and even some higher income levels. Until they actually run the numbers, I think that's one of the most essential things parents could be doing is discover whether or not you will qualify for anything before your student has created a list or at least before you start traveling all over the place visiting these schools, that may end up being unaffordable

Brad Baldridge
Right

Todd Weaver
I think it's helpful to understand what is your own state school cost? Are you at a stage in your life with a high school junior, senior where it makes sense to save more in a five to nine college savings account or another vehicle, or continue plugging along as you have been? These are all the big picture questions on the finance side that many families should have some conversations with their student, with their CPA with their financial advisor, with a college financial advisor, financial aid officers at some of these schools. There's so many people out there able and willing to help. All you need to do is reach out and schedule some sessions with these folks to start to get a feel for what the actual numbers are going to look like. I think too often families that I work with, wait far too long in this process to get that conversation going.

Brad Baldridge
Right? Yeah, I mean, that's one of the first things that both in my course, and when I work with families directly, one of the first things you need to figure out is, what is the price of your local state school, that's often the price that is kind of a guaranteed known price. Now, it's not free, it's often 10, 15, 20, 25,000 net cost for a family, depending on your state and that type of thing. But again, all of the other competing colleges know that you have that option. I mean, it's not a secret. In your neck of the woods, Boston University knows what you U of Massachusetts costs. And they know if they're going to be competing with that type of school, they know where they're going to be and they know where they need to get. So, I mean, I think families just need to be aware, in general, many of the private schools know that, let's say the state school, is 25,000. So, state school 25,000, private schools 75,000, that's a tough sell.

Todd Weaver
And they know it, right.

Brad Baldridge
And they don't even try in some, most of the time. So what they do is they offer some form of merit aid or need based aid, or scholarships or other ways to reduce the cost. So now it might be your state school is 25. And this private school over here is also 25. Or maybe it's 35. Or maybe it's 45, again, depending on your particular situation. And then, of course, a fantastic situation is your local state school's 25. And the private schools, you like are 15, which happens, but that's certainly not a sure thing. But that's what we're talking about here, is you really need to get out there and understand what those prices are, or at least what the possibilities are. And unfortunately, a little bit convoluted and complicated as far as how need-based aid and merit-based aid works. And it's either you figure it out, and how it applies to your family, or you don't. Now, I don't know how often I've heard something like this of, 'We're not going to qualify for a because my brother-in-law didn't qualify for aid.'

Todd Weaver
Right.

Brad Baldridge
Like, oh, well, a.) did your brother-in-law do it right? b.) are you just like your brother-in-law? I mean

Todd Weaver
Right

Brad Baldridge
You need, in order for that to be a valid comparison, you have to understand that you need to be going to similar schools, with students with similar academics, and similar financial profiles. And most of the time, it's not an apples to apples comparison. So it's not as valid. So you really need to figure it out for yourself.

Todd Weaver
I think that's a great point that people need to realize every family is different, every situation is different, the colleges will treat a family that happens to have a lot of consumer debt, perhaps a little differently than a family that doesn't, even though they may have the same house, live on the same street, same type of cars, same salaries, those two families may be looked at, in a very different way by a college that both households might be having students apply to. I think you're absolutely right, each family has to look at this without the influence of peers and brother-in-law and cousins and other people telling them, 'Oh, you'll never get anything.' Well, you they don't know that.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Todd Weaver
You need to verify it by actually looking at your numbers and what the colleges are going to offer your student.

Brad Baldridge
Right. And now some of the colleges, and may not some, all of the colleges are required to have a net price calculator on their website, which theoretically, if you put all your information into them will tell you an estimate of what colleges may cost. The challenge, I think is some colleges take the net price calculator seriously, and they do a good job. But occasionally, especially a state school, where they don't have a lot of resources, you'll go to a net price calculator. And it'll be obviously out of date, it'll ask things like, 'Well, what was your income in 2014?

Todd Weaver
Right?

Brad Baldridge
It's like, okay, obviously, 2014, is that relevant? They should be asking what was your income, and if you have a 2020 student or a 2022 student, they should be asking about 2020 income, not 2014. That's a signal that they haven't worked on that calculator for at least six years.

Todd Weaver
That's true.

Brad Baldridge
So that one maybe not so reliable anymore. So it is a tool you need to be aware of. You can also, at my website, we have an EFC calculator that helps you figure out need based aid. So yeah, there's a lot of different challenges around understanding the price. Now, ideally, we'd love to hear from families in the junior year, even the sophomore year. Again, I've had to tell people I've never ever had anyone tell me they started this too early.

Todd Weaver
Right?

Brad Baldridge
Not once. I'd have had hundreds of people tell me they started too late. And so what does that mean? Well, get to work your junior year, if you can, at all, and even consider sophomore year. And again, sometimes your student's not mature enough to do visits or that type of thing. But there's things that parents can do that students aren't involved with, like figuring out if you're gonna qualify for aid or that type of thing. Generally, that's parents doing it your students not involved so you can do it whether your students ready or not.

Todd Weaver
Right.

Brad Baldridge
Well, let's turn the tight now there's probably a number of people listening right now that are saying, 'Oh, yes, but I understand what you're saying. But it's already too late for me. I already have a senior. Now what? What are some things that people that feel like they're behind the game can do to catch up or, you know, if someone came to you as a senior would you work with them still or what happens there?

Todd Weaver
Yeah. Ironically, we've had several families with seniors come in, in the past month or two saying we are feeling very overwhelmed and lost in the cycle or high school guidance, we thought was going to be perhaps a little more helpful. But unfortunately, they've been busy with other things like getting students back in school, from a pandemic. And the sense I've received from a lot of families is their students are still coming out of that fog, of being in and out of school last year remote learning things of that nature, and colleges not even being open to go physically visit. And that's now coming back into play here, this opportunity. So I, I do understand where the current crop of seniors is coming from, they've just had a real challenge. The past year, obviously do the quote unquote, 'traditional college search.' But for seniors coming to the table at this stage, I think you have to talk to the parties here, the student and the parents in a way that says, look, let's, let's choose our battles, because we're in a situation now where if you did the full, deep dive on the college search, to get the right amount of education, you need to make a good decision here, this could be similar to drinking from a firehose, there's a lot to do. And it can be done, it's just going to take a lot of effort from both a college coach, if you were to work with one independently here, or students working on their own, or with their guidance counselor, they've got a lot of work to put together. And I think you and I've talked about this before, I think it's, it's important to say, 'Okay, so let's cut to the chase here. We have to put a state school or two on the list for financial and potentially academic likelihood.' And then make sure if you're looking at other schools, they're appropriate choices, we don't have time to research 30, 40, 50 schools like you might have had, if he started as a junior, it's now a much narrower list and focused on getting an appropriate option together for a student. And the nice thing is, we're having this conversation in October-November timeframe, a lot of early deadlines come up very soon, but colleges also have a lot of regular deadlines that are after the first of the year. So there still are plenty of opportunities to put together a good college shirt and application plan that's going to work for your student. So it's not the end of the world, but you're getting pretty close to the edge.

Brad Baldridge
Right? Exactly. I think both you and I, when we start working with someone that where we're starting really late, one of the things we try and do is essentially some damage control in that. Alright, where are you so far, and oh, this is my school list, and we'll very quickly try and estimate guestimate the schools on the list? Because I've had people come to me at the end of the senior year with this problem, they say something like, 'Well, we applied to these seven schools, the first five we weren't, we're not even accepted at, this one we were wait listed at, and the one that's left is really, really expensive. What can we do?' It's like, well, if you're at the end of the senior year, what you can do is find a school that takes a really late application, which often is not the types of schools that some families are interested in, you can write the big check and just take it on the chin, so to speak, and then maybe transfer the next year, or you can take a gap year of some sort and delay college for a year, though, you're really have kind of painted yourself in a corner. So that's kind of the first the first things that you and I would do is, 'Okay, are we, is that what we're doing here? By basing on the school list, are we, do we have any schools that while we call maybe a financial safety school, a school where we know the price will be palatable, especially if price is important.' And again, if you know if the parent is saying any school, any price, we don't care, which is rare, but still happens occasionally, then that's not the battle we're struggling with then. And then we're battling with some other struggles. So what types of things would families need to do as quick as possible once we get going in the senior year?

Todd Weaver
Well, I think one of the first questions to ask is, is your student mindset around this appropriately? I think like you said earlier in this conversation, if you haven't been to a lot of places yet, get out and do a local visit, just get somewhere, get on campus and get your student thinking about what colleges. It could be a city, rural, suburban, 20,000 students, 2000 students doesn't really matter at this stage. But just get out there and take a look at something. Get the conversation going.

Brad Baldridge
Right, right. And you're looking for a way to eliminate a swath of schools potentially.

Todd Weaver
Right

Brad Baldridge
Because there are thousands of schools. You'd love for the student to say, 'I don't like it in the big cities,' or 'I love it in the big cities,' because all of a sudden now, that cuts the list in half instantly, it's like, roughly half the schools are in big cities, and the other half aren't. So if you knew that, or if they would say, 'I want a big school or a small school,' or 'I need a school that has this unique major,' or whatever, it might be just some ways to start narrowing the list, assuming you're still trying to build the list. What about the financial side of things?

Todd Weaver
I think, for financial, I think a lot of people get really nervous when they hear that the forums open on October 1, and they're getting all of these emails and comments to hurry up and file, hurry up and file. And October 1, to remind everyone is not a deadline, it's simply when the forums open. And I think there's a lot of noise out there that scares people to file things before they take a thorough look at their numbers and realize, 'Oops, I should have paid down my credit card debt with some of my cash to give me less of an asset to be considered in the financial aid cycle here.' Or, 'Maybe I could talk to my boss about a year end bonus that I usually get December, see if they can push it out to January next year, don't have to report it this year.' Little things like that, that may or may not be part of a flexible option for a family can help.

Brad Baldridge
Right.

Todd Weaver
But the other thing, it's a typical mistake when they rush it.

Brad Baldridge
Sure. And another quick tip on that regard of is the amount of money that a student has, ideally is zero. And, again, most of the time, it's relatively true to begin with. Most students, maybe they've had some summer work or something, if they have a bank account, with 3000, 5000, 10,000, they give that to Mom and Dad, and that their bank accounts are zero and then mom and dad can save it for college. And then of course, if now the student feels broke, and mom didn't give some, mom or dad gave some of that money back if the students saying, 'I need to pay for a prom, and you have all my money.' Ideally, right? You say, 'Well, yeah, we owe you that 10,000. So here's a couple $100 to go buy your prom stuff.'

Todd Weaver
Right.

Brad Baldridge
But ideally, again, we don't want big dollars in the student's name. And again, as far as need based aid is concerned. Now some families, they can ask where we, kind of the crash course, if you're not going to get need-based aid, then it doesn't really matter what you do. But you'd have to understand, will I get need based aid? And if I do, how can I make it better? is one of the things that you work through pretty quickly, where you can.

Todd Weaver
Absolutely, the more advanced work you can do, the better comfort level you're going to have when it comes time to actually file forms and start getting a discussion going on the financial aid offering in the new year.

Brad Baldridge
Right? Yeah, so let's change gears one more time and talk a little bit about college testing. Because I think that you get I don't know if we have any solid tips here because it's really is up in the air. But kind of the backstory, of course is COVID came along and made testing difficult for many of the students. Mostly the students that are off to college right now, they really had a challenge around getting their testing done. And a lot of the colleges realized that if they required a test, and they weren't flexible on that, half the students just couldn't get it done or more. And therefore they were limiting their customers. And colleges are a business. So they said, 'Well, I guess we're gonna have to do something about the testing problem.' And a vast majority of the colleges waive testing for their incoming class. Some of them said we're gonna waive it for students starting in 2021. Some of them said, 'We're gonna waive it for 2021 and 2022.' Many of them didn't make it real clear. But now if we've got a junior right now, they're looking to start in 2023. So that's I guess, a challenge, right? We need to build the test plan in our junior year. And it's not clear whether colleges are going to require it or not many of most colleges aren't talking much about what's going to happen in 2023, that I'm aware of. What have you seen?

Todd Weaver
I would say that I'm hearing the same thing. I believe they're focused on '22. And not really looking ahead yet at the new year. But I think a lot of what I see and hear is colleges that decided to provide test optional offerings, at the beginning of the pandemic, have said we're going to do this on a two or three-year trial. So in 2023, we'll reassess things or in 2022, we'll reassess things, but I think it's over 75% now. Four-year colleges do not require test scores to be sent in. It depends on where your student is looking. If you're in California and you're planning on applying to the UC System, they've actually been mandated by law to become test blind, they're not allowed to look at test scores even if you send them in. So that's a school system, largest in the country that hasn't considered test scores, and hopefully never will, again, for the SAT, or maybe the ACT as well. In my understanding, California is going to try to build their own test. Different side of the coin, if you're applying to school in Florida, or Georgia, those two states have systems with their, their state, their higher ed department and some of their scholarship programs that require test scores and the rules. So they, Florida, I don't believe ever got rid of test scores at the state level last year, they certainly didn't, for this coming year and '22. And Georgia did do test optional at the last minute, last year. And this, this current batch of seniors applying to schools in Georgia are back on the clock for testing. So different types of schools, public private, I think it's important for families and students to research the admission requirements on each and every webpage of the schools that their student is considering before they decide whether or not they need to test. If you have a senior now and you haven't tested yet, you're getting to the stage where it's going to be pretty difficult to get a test score in time to apply. There are a couple more national test dates coming up in October and November, which would lead someone to think, 'Well, if you apply regular decision in January at a school, you might be able to set a test score in for that.' But I think for the juniors, class of 2023, they should probably think about how testing may affect their admission process a year from now, and give some consideration to reaching out to the colleges, college websites, at least on the admission pages and saying, 'Hey, what's your test optional policy for the class of 2023? Because I might need to take a test in the spring of '22 in order to be considered for admission.'

Brad Baldridge
Right. Exactly. And I think that's the challenge in that college is, and not just colleges, the whole world, has been very short sighted. Because COVID keeps changing and the rules keep changing. And I think in general, the colleges are struggling with what are the rules going to be for the next few weeks, and they're not able to really think ahead to what are the rules going to be a two years from now. Unfortunately, that does have an impact, where again, juniors right now are saying, 'Should I be test and test prep and doing those types of things or not? Can I rely on test optional?' My gut reaction is I think you should assume you're going to test. And especially if your student has strong test taking abilities already. I mean, you already know that my student tends to excel at the standardized tests, when they took one at the end eighth grade, they did well, when they took, you've got that kid, you probably were going to want to test if you can, in case you need it might be appropriate. And if you're on the other end of that spectrum, if you have someone that just fears and hates test, well, I think you're going to have an uphill battle because the student is going to say things like, 'Well, it's test optional. Now I don't have to go through this pain and agony.'

Todd Weaver
Right.

Brad Baldridge
And that may be true. But I don't know about it entirely. So I would recommend that you talk early and often with the colleges you're considering. And I think there's two questions you need to ask. One is what is your test policy for admission? And what is your test policy for scholarships, and state aid and other things? So that would give this college the opportunity to say, 'Well, we can admit you without tests, but you live in Florida, and we're in Florida, the state programs still require test. So we can't award your state aid, because you don't have a test score?' Oh, that's good to know

Todd Weaver
Right.

Brad Baldridge
And it's going to be an ongoing moving target. So not only ask now, ask while you're visiting, ask again, when you apply, again, because I think it's a moving target. And you may not get solid answers early on, because again, they're just saying, 'Well, 'we haven't devised our plan yet for 2023. We're working on that.'

Todd Weaver
Right

Brad Baldridge
Okay, well, what do I do with that bit of information?

Todd Weaver
I think, worst case scenario, if you don't get an opportunity to take a test, there are hundreds, if not a thousand or so, colleges out there that are test optional and have been for many, many years. So for students who are looking at those schools, there could be less stress, and going back to what you said earlier, for meeting with high school seniors who are just getting started in this process. It makes a lot of sense to start building a list with colleges you know are tests optional, because that alleviates one more stress point that you don't have to deal with if you can talk to those students who are just getting started here and say, 'Look, there's some schools you just probably shouldn't apply to, and but there are plenty of other great options to look at. And here they are.' And that can really help streamline some of the challenges that students who are just now starting this processes high school seniors might be facing.

Brad Baldridge
Right? Absolutely. Alright, so let's wrap things up. But I think the moral of the story is, jump in, get to work, it's not going to go away, and procastination's not gonna make it any better. But so, broadly speaking, we can also find things that will help us with, you know, here's an obvious one. You maybe should listen to a good podcast about college planning. If you can find one, I recommend mine.

Todd Weaver
Absolutely. I do too.

Brad Baldridge
Maybe that's a little self serving, but we could also

Todd Weaver
Not sure.

Brad Baldridge
Right? Hire someone to help. You and I work with families, many others work with families in various aspects, who can come in and do triage and and help us out. What else might we do? You have some things available on your website, I believe we'll talk about that.

Todd Weaver
Sure. So our website is strategiesforcollegecom. And we have a really great free learning center that we've set up there that includes several videos and just give students and parents a strong overview on how to get started and perhaps what it might look like for them. We also have a couple of book recommendations. And one of our colleagues, Beth Walker has written Never Pay Retail for College, a few years old, but still rings very true today. And it's great information on right school at the right price. But I think that's a great way to get started. I, I agree with you that I think you want to, as a parent, reach out to a few different people that you know are experts in the field and just get some advice on where to begin if you're just starting out with a senior but if you have a junior, you've got a little more time to be more thoughtful on how to plan this all out and and help your students get educated so they can make a great choice on a game.

Brad Baldridge
Right. Absolutely. And I think that's, a lot of people don't realize is there's, again, there are many ways to deal with college planning. You can learn it yourself and do it, you can hire someone else to help you with it, you can find something down the middle, perhaps where you do a little of both. But I think a lot of families, once they realize what they're up against, if they know that we exist, and they... And we can help. I think that's the challenge is most families don't know who who could help with these problems. And what kind of services are available out there, where when your pipes are leaking in your basement is flooding, you know who to call. But when you're struggling with college, sometimes you might call the high school or the colleges themselves, but there are other opportunities out there. And that's why we're putting things out on a podcast and that kind of stuff is we just want to get the word out there. There's lots of ways to deal with this problem, then every year, this problem gets a little more complex. Alright, well, then we're gonna wrap it up here. Again, if all the information that we just talked about, will have links to Todd's website and the learning center and that type of thing in the show notes. So tamingthehighcostofcollege/133 for this episode, and we can get all that information. I appreciate your insights here today, Todd, and we will talk again soon, I'm sure.

Todd Weaver
Thank you, Brad. It's great chatting with you.

Brad Baldridge
All right, that was a great interview with Todd. Obviously, we have a lot that we can talk about when it comes to paying for college. If you have any specific questions or you feel like you didn't quite get the answers that you need, please visit our websites or go ahead and give us a call or reach out to us however you'd like. We're here to help. And 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 Baldridge is a registered representative of Cambridge Investment Research and an investment advisor representative of Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, our 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 Baldridge College Solutions. The Baldrige companies are not affiliated with Cambridge Investment Research.

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