<p>I am the first person going to college in my family, so we're going into the financial aid process completely blind. My parents want to get a financial aid consultant to help us through the process and show us the tricks that many use to get more money (i.e. hiding assets).</p>
<p>Does anyone know of a good place to look for one?</p>
<p>My daughter was the first to attend college in our family as well.
I found <a href="http://www.finaid.org%5B/url%5D">www.finaid.org</a> to be very helpful in explaining the types of aid.
Need based aid, is actually based more on income than assets so there really isn't much point in trying to "hide" assets, even if it was ethical which it isn't.</p>