How To Determine Financial Fit of a College?

Wed, September 20, 2023 11:30 AM

When your student is applying to colleges, it’s important to consider the financial fit of each college. Financial fit sounds like this: Is the college in your family’s budget? If not, will you or your student be forced to take out loans to cover the remaining funding gap?

I believe there are three key strategies to determine if a college is a good financial fit for your family.

Have the College Money Talk. Sit down as a family and talk about how you are going to pay for college and who is going to participate. It is better to have this conversation up front than to have to say no to your student in the spring of your senior year. The easiest way for students to help out is by applying to colleges that are going to give them scholarships to award them for all of their hard work or finding outside private scholarships.

Run the Net Price Calculator for each of your students’ prospective colleges. Located on each college’s website, this Net Price Calculator (NPC) is a projection of what it might cost to go to that college. However, these NPCs vary on their accuracy for each school, so proceed with caution when trusting what they claim you will pay. You may get a nasty surprise when the final Financial Aid Award Letter arrives in the spring.

Finally, run your FREE College Money Report™ located on my College and Beyond website. This fantastic report will give you and your student critical details every family needs to know before entering the college funding maze. It will calculate your Federal and Institutional SAI amounts based on the financial and factual details you have input, it will tell you if your student is eligible to receive grants or scholarships at their selected colleges, and it will calculate how much your family is expected to pay out of pocket each year. You can also set up your FREE MyCAP Account by going to https://mycap.collegeaidpro.com and if you decide to do an upgrade – use code DANB15 to get a 15% discount. You will be glad you ran this report.

By doing your homework upfront, you can make sure your student applies to the right colleges, at the right price!

Need some help running your numbers? Schedule a FREE 15-minute Discovery Zoom Meeting with me TODAY by clicking BELOW.