You’d Be Surprised at How Many Families Make This Mistake When it Comes to Financial Aid!

“We were told we make too much money to qualify for financial aid. Should we bother applying?”

Here’s the answer, once and for all:

YES!!

Got it?

Many families assume they make too much money to qualify for financial aid, but there are many factors that determine eligibility – not just income. In fact, according to a recent study, 53% of all eligible families never apply for aid!

The main reason preventing them from applying is this misconceived notion that they make too much money. I’ve had single moms two steps above the poverty line approach me at the end of a workshop, concerned that their income was too high! Here’s the big idea in this article: even families making healthy, six figure incomes will qualify for aid at most schools.

EVERY family with a high school senior bound for college should complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The data you enter into FAFSA dictates how much money you are expected to contribute to school. This number is calculated pursuant to the Department of Education regulations.

Filling out a FAFSA is painful. You must be extremely careful – the opportunity for mistakes and pitfalls abound! According to an industry study, approximately 78% plus of all FAFSA’s contain mistakes. One of the more common gaffes that severely limits or eliminates deserved aid: listing assets that do not need to be included.

In February, the Miami Herald printed a letter from a Miami Beach woman whose son was admitted to an elite, private school. The family’s income was approximately $50,000. However, after she completed her forms, she learned that she was expected to contribute more than $30,000 per year.

By way of contrast, we recently devised a plan for a client with striking similarities. Had he done the forms the same way as the Miami Beach woman, his expected contribution for college would have been more than $147,000. After we “fixed” his problem, his magic number was $3,400 per year.

Did we hide assets in a strange offshore account? Nope. Are we magicians or weird psychics? C’mon. Did we manipulate things in an illegal, unethical or immoral manner? Of course not!

All we did was follow the guidelines promulgated by the Department of Education. These guidelines read like a phone book. There are between 67-78 different factors that bear on how much aid your family will receive.

Unless you are a specialist in this area, you couldn’t possibly understand these rules of the game. An easy analogy is tax preparation – sure, you can do your own taxes, but how likely are you to take advantage of every benefit due to you compared to if you retained an experienced CPA? Of course, if you’re the do-it-yourself type: you like to fix your own car, sprinklers, etc. you might not like this idea, but you have to admit that you cannot possibly be as competent as an expert.

OK, I’m off my high horse. I just broke some bad news; now, here’s some WORSE news! Unfortunately, the FAFSA is not the only financial aid form required.

Many private colleges require you to submit an additional form, the CSS/PROFILE. Also, many private schools require their own institutional aid forms. These forms are even more hateful, more onerous than the FAFSA. My partner, “College Pete,” likens filling out the Profile to a root canal without Novacaine. How’s that for a graphic image?

He’s got good reasons for saying this. Here’s what he’s talking about:

You must be even more careful completing the profile, particularly the sections earmarked for the student to complete. Some common questions for the student to answer: “How much money do your parents have to pay for your college education?”

Whoa, Nelly! How many high-schoolers can answer this question? Do your children know your bank balance?

If the student gives one answer on his form, and you give another figure on your form, there’s trouble in River City.

If the private forms and FAFSA are even slightly inconsistent, your financial aid application could be delayed or flat out rejected! And you can’t say something like, “my kid was on drugs when he filled out the form – please let me change the answer!” Admissions departments are kind of funny about stuff like that.

Here’s the bottom line. You must approach the college financial aid forms very carefully. Be careful whom you speak with – high school guidance counselors are typically too busy to develop any expertise in this area (the average guidance counselor handles something like 471 students in Florida). You CPA, money manager or other trusted advisor may give you advice that might make sense for their purposes, but may actually reduce the amount of aid that you’ll qualify for!

Do not wait until the last minute to plan how you will pay for college. Sophomore Year (yes, Sophomore Year!) is the ideal time to get serious about the planning process. Speak to a knowledgeable college financial aid expert sooner, rather than later.

Summer is here. What better way to enjoy the summer than go on a camp. Students of all ages, from seven to eighteen or nineteen, love going to camps.  They learn to live away from their families, staying with their people of their age group. They also learn to be independent. This in turn helps in developing their personality. There separate camps for boys and girls, and also coed camps. In a real life situation, a person has to interact with men and women. So, it is a good exposure to send children to coed camps.

Camps have to be chosen according to individual tastes. Some might like academic camps, while some may be interested in fine arts. Still others might be interested in sports. Different camps cater to individual needs according to their age and interests.  When it is a coed camp, some points must be taken into consideration. First, the policies formed by the camp. The type of projects that would they would take up and whether they would work in groups in the various projects. The living quarters should be clean. The amount of interaction between the boys and girls and the length of stay should be taken into account. Care should be given to the security arrangements and the supervision that they get. The number of counselors in ratio to the number of students, hours of curfew and the number of visits allowed by outside persons, should also be known. The safety factor should be given importance. There should trained people knowing first aid and CPR. There should also be hospital nearby.

After all these factors are considered, the type of camp according to individual interest should be chosen. Camp life makes a person more mature and helps them learn to handle difficult situations. 

There are different kinds of camps to choose from. There are Academic camps which lay emphasis on educational development. One such camp is Seacamp Association, Inc. Florida.  Sports camps are also popular. One such is ‘Trapeze School New York – Bean Town’, Massachusetts. The participants can learn juggling, fly on the trapeze and other tricks from the circus that comes to town. There are also sports camps giving them coaching in soccer and basketball. There is also one at Pennsylvania, “Sixers”. There is traditional vamp at California called, ‘Camp Ocean Pines’. There is camp for Performing and Fine Arts located at ‘Long Lake Camp for Arts, New York. There is another camp for Performing and Fine Arts at Berkley.

There are also tours for teens with travel such as the iD Tech camps, where there is study abroad program with film making in Spain. This involves staying with a host family. They are exposed to the Spanish language and culture. There are also adventure camps; one such is Sea Trek BVI, British Virgin Islands. There are also cyber camps, where they are taught about computers, computer gaming, web Page Designing. They are located in California, Illinois, Oregon, and Washington.

Some of the camps are Camp Walt Whitman for boys and girls. This is a coed camp in New Hampshire. There is ‘Camp Friendship’ in Central Virginia. They have coed traditional camps and also adventure camps. They have more than fifty activities.

Coed camps are healthy and prepare on to handle real life situations, in addition to enjoyment and socializing. Children and teenagers should be ready to go to camps, especially coed camps. So, why don’t you start now and join a camp today.

First aid kits are a standard feature on school buses continent-wide. While that basic white box with the Red Cross on the front is a familiar and welcome symbol, seeing a first aid kit in place is not enough to guarantee that a school bus is well-equipped.

A recent accident in Florida brought home the fact that the simple presence of a first aid kit is no indication of its contents and their usefulness. In this particular case, people rushing to help a young bicyclist hit by a school bus found that the bus’s first aid kit contained rotten gauze that disintegrated in their hands.

This situation raises questions about school bus safety checks and the effectiveness of inspections that merely verify the bus has a sealed kit on board. With no expiry date and no way to tell how long any particular kit has been in place, officials can’t judge the soundness of a first aid kit. In light of this, some school boards are already taking steps.

Tracking kits is one way to ensure that they don’t outstay their shelf life. Officials can monitor when a kit is installed on a bus and also make record of the disposal of expired kits. Another way to ensure the safety and effectiveness of first aid kits is to conduct random checks of their contents – making sure all the necessary features are inside and opening some of the individual packages to make sure they’re in good shape.

In Florida it was the gauze that went bad, a serious concern, since school bus kits generally contain several gauze pads and bandages. There are other items contained in the kit that could also degrade with the passage of time, including adhesive strips or tape, eye pads, CPR face shields and ointments.

As school and transport safety officials have begun to realize, having well-stocked first aid kits on school buses is not enough. The best stocked kit in the world isn’t any good if the contents have outlived their usefulness – only organized first aid kit tracking and more thorough inspections can ensure a safe and effective kit.