College Financial Planning: Getting Your Finances Ready to Fund Education
We help clients in planning how best to pay for college, in both the early stages of thinking about college or when the students are in high school. Maura and Matt have extensive experience with their own families as well as with clients.
We help you find:
- The best ways for you to save for college
- Insight into the different methodologies colleges use to give financial aid
- Sources of funding for tuition
- Ways to sort through the financial aid confusion
- Guidance on loan strategy
How to Apply for Financial Aid
The challenge of financing college is a big one. You need to navigate the seemingly endless maze of college paperwork. Financial aid forms are complex, confusing, and difficult to complete – much like tax returns. We offer expert guidance that helps get you through the process.
Every college-bound family should complete the FAFSA paperwork, regardless of income or financial position. You cannot obtain a grant, scholarship, or student loan without submitting the right application to the right agency.
To help you separate fact from fiction, here is the required paperwork:
• The FAFSA Application Form – The FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) application form contains over 100 financial questions and is required by every college in the country to apply for grant and scholarship money. It is free to file.
• The CSS PROFILE Application Form – The CSS PROFILE application is required by hundreds of private universities to apply for their own institutional funds. (It is often called the “IM,” for institutional methodology.) It’s an online form containing more than 40 pages of questions and instructions. This has a cost to file.
• Student Aid Report Form – The eight-page Student Aid Report (SAR) is a form that summarizes the information you submitted on your FAFSA and gives each family their Expected Family Contribution to college costs.
• The Verification (Audit) Form – Many colleges require an audit of the financial information that you provided and will send you this form to be filled out for verification. Often called IDOC.
