My wife and I recently attended a free workshop for a financial planner who was offering services to assist with getting us and our HS Senior daughter through the upcoming college admission process: FAFSA, finding scholarship money, negotiating for the best financial aid, etc etc. This particular company is affiliated with CPN (College Planning Network).
Has anyone here used a similar service, and what has your experience been / would you recommend it?
Thanks.
College financial planner? What is the fee?
I doubt you will get any info that you cnt get on your own.
We have a terrific financial aid section on this forum. Post your questions there first! Folks will show you where to find answers.
That’s not a financial planner. A certified financial planner (CFP) has a fiduciary responsibility to help you figure out short- and long-term plans for managing your total money picture. I just did that, my son’s last 3 years of college and how to finance was part of it but not all of it, and it was well worth it.
What you are describing, however, is a college admissions consultant. Totally not worth it. You’ll get better information for free on this forum and one book, Paying for College Without Going Broke, which will give you everything you described.
I agree with both thumper1 and Snowdog – avoid paying the admissions consultant and raise any questions you might have here on CC. By the way, I am a CFP and I pay attention to CC.
I did an hour consult with a CPA specializing in college financial issues. I didn’t learn a ton of stuff, but I had been educating myself for quite a while before the meeting. I will say this: she had a database of high school students (no names, just year of graduation) from various local schools, their stats, their EFCs, and the colleges that gave them aid and how much. If we had been earlier in the process and needed to compare which schools would give the most merit aid, that could have been very valuable. She also applied her knowledge to a couple quirks in our particular situation that I found helpful, to keep me from having to run certain scenarios by hand. Because I had mostly educated myself, I only paid for an hour of her time and I left with more piece of mind that I was on the right track.
REALLY?! What high schools are collecting financial info (EFCs and aid packages) and selling them to consultants? Even de-identified, this would be unacceptable practice, in my opinion. This sort of info is not available unless a high school is curating it … and selling it. Slimy, IMHO.
@kelsmom - I didn’t read it that way…I assumed it was information she got from previous clients…
But if you are right, then yes, that would be wrong. (Of course, our high school wouldn’t even know that information!)
@kelsmom These were the CPA’s own former clients, not entire high school classes. She has the financials because in most cases she is the one filling out the FAFSA and Profile (most of her clients do package deals). She’s using her data to advise the next batch of clients and not handing it out left and right. I got to see that DDs award is near the top in her experience so not much point in appealing, and I got some names of schools that might give her sister merit aid when she applies in another year. I did not have free access to her database.
What I remember of it (other than the school names in my notes) was not at all personally identifiable.
Whew … that makes me feel better. I was worried that there was some real shady stuff going on out there. Not much surprises me anymore, but that one did. 
If your kid’s school uses Naviance, most of the admissions data would be there.
I wouldn’t hold a lot of stock in financial data from a self selecting group who could afford this “planner”.
I agree with all of the above. A bit of poking around here will get you everything you need for free. Don’t be afraid to ask any question, and ask as early as possible in the process.
Edited to add that it’s possible that it actually WAS a financial planner running the seminar as an admissions advisor. It’s one way they drum up commissions, by advising people to transfer assets into fee-based retirement vehicles, etc to maximize financial aid. Not automatically slimy, but not necessarily the best thing for 99% of the population IMHO.
The planner is only going to show you the kids that got merit aid, not that kids with similar stats got none or where she wasn’t able to help. Unless she has a very extensive client list, not sure how helpful this will be.
And…if you are thinking the financial college planner will get your kiddo more merit or need based aid than he or she would otherwise get…think again. They don’t have a magic wand.
With regard to the planner referred to upstream…I agree. Not likely that the planner is including all the info about where kids did NOT get aid.
Also, what kid of aid is he talking about?
Read the links in the first post to this thread:
And read this one too:
Then head over to the financial aid and scholarship section of this site and ask questions. You might get the answers you are looking for…for,free.
For any given school, a financial planner is not usually going to be able to get you more money than you would have otherwise gotten. What they can do is steer you towards schools that may be comparable, but at a lower price, (perhaps because one school counts all of home equity in their formula and one doesn’t, or your scores fit more with the merit aid profile of another school, etc.) They can also make sure you fill out the various forms correctly.
And yes, my CPA also talked about schools where kids do not get aid. A good advisor will warn you that, in their experience, a certain school is probably not going to give a kid like yours a grant or scholarship. However, it’s always up to the family where to send in applications.
As far as type of aid we talked about, most families that can afford to have a this type of advice are wealthier and looking for merit aid. Institutional need-based aid comes up, but generally not stuff like Pell grants.
There is a lot you can learn about financial aid here on CC. If you pay someone to teach you this stuff, it can be expensive. But there is also a lot of “you get what you pay for” advice here. You can’t always tell who really knows their stuff, or maybe there is a personal situation you don’t want to post about in detail.
Your kid’s senior year college application experience usually only happens once. What you hope to get from a personal advisor is someone who has been through the process with lots of kids over time who can give you the benefits of that experience. What you don’t want is some random insurance agent with a product to sell that supposedly hides your wealth from colleges.
Yes…be VERY sure this “financial planner” isn’t also selling you any kind of insurance. If he is…he is not looking out for your financial well being…he is looking out for his own.
I was having trouble with the Fafsa & Profile, so I met with my accountant. My parents had died within the year of son applying, leaving him money, and I wanted to do things right. If they had passed a few years before, I may have paid for a consult with a financial adviser.
A college consultant is a different entity.
Respectfully disagree with most posts. I work part time as a college consultant, and I refer my families to a friend of mine who worked in a well known college financial aid office for a number of years, and now works as a financial aid consultant. All families that have used her are very happy with the service she provided, and she’s pretty darn inexpensive. She typically offers a 1-2 hour consultation, and runs numbers with the family, explaining how everything works. Most families don’t need anything more, but some will come back if they’re filing an appeal She helped us with our first appeal. I don’t know that she helps people fill out the FAFSA or CSS Profile, but she’ll answer questions, for sure.
CC is good, but sometimes, you don’t want to share specific information on a public forum. Having an individual who knows your situation can be golden.
I’m hoping that the answer is that it’s worthwhile (and worth the $$), but I won’t know for sure for a while. I just hired one last week.
In my case, our financials are complicated and changing and there are decisions to be made as to where to pull funds from, which are not simple and straightforward, because they’ll affect the next year’s numbers. My regular financial advisors do not fully understand the intricacies of financial aid and they have been of very limited assistance. I’ve got a S who’s a sophomore in college and a D who will be applying for college in the fall. The idea is that the college financial planner will be able to not only help me fill out the forms (which is not the hardest part), but (a) help me figure out how exactly to pay my contribution each year, (b) how to minimize the EFC contribution calculation, and (c ) how and when to negotiate with financial aid offices to explain how our current finances are dramatically different from last year’s and try to maximize their offers. He seemed competent and knowledgeable during our initial phone conversation and our in-person meeting. He already gave an insight to one area that was particularly confusing to me. Even if he doesn’t give any other major insights, it’s a great relief to have someone knowledgeable backing me up in my analysis.
I wish I could just pick and choose his services, but he only offers a package deal. Take or leave what services you want. He describes his computer program as “Naviance on steroids.” It not only gives indications as to whether a student is a likely admit at a given school, but it tells the average percentage of need met and the typical composition of aid at the various schools (i.e., grants versus loans and work-study). It also describes the amount of merit available at each school. Although all of that information is publicly available, and I know how to access it, it would require a LOT of painstaking, time-intensive work. It’s nice to have it all available at a touch of a button. Inputs changed? No need to re-run the separate analyses at each individual college, their program will run it for you.
Another possible benefit is that he is an independent voice who can work with our D during the college choice process, hopefully guiding her to take some of the emotion out of college selection. He says that they will identify schools that have the programs and other features she’s looking for, and then compare anticipated net costs.
He’s going to run some numbers on Monday and will call me for any additional inputs he needs. He hopes to have a detailed financial strategy ready for me by the end of the week.
We shall see! (Crossing my fingers!)
Could I ask what dollar range the consultants charge? I don’t think I’m going to do this (parent of a junior) but I’m curious. I filled out my own FAFSA a million years ago, but that was a million years ago. I don’t know if we have those here, and our high school does not do this wonderful thing called Naviance. Our CPA is terrific, however, and I may approach him for a discussion.
We went to a (non college) financial planner several years ago when my husband retired, and I’m not so sure we got our money’s worth. We disagreed with a lot of what he had to say, and how he said it rubbed me the wrong way (long story) and we ultimately decided not to follow his advice. The Monte Carlo scenarios were interesting, however. We are still going strong, some of which I’m sure is the luck of the draw. All in all, I wish I had the money we paid him back.