S3:E5 Brad Baldridge with Taming the High Cost of College joins Interviews with Dads

All right, 100% Dad podcast interviews with dads. We got Brad Baldridge, uh, taming the high cost of college. And, uh, there's a lot to be said on college. We've done some in-depth research on dads, and, uh, most dads have a kid, so that's what we figured out. Uh, and some of those kids want to go to college, uh, and some of those parents want their kids to go to college. And Brad has some information there. All right, so Brad, tell us a little bit about yourself, what you have going on.

I've been in the financial industry for a long time, and about 15 years ago I started focusing on college because a lot of my clients were struggling with college, and I realized that there's a big challenge around college, and it was getting worse because the prices kept going up. So forth and so on. So professionally, that's something I've, uh, been focusing on for the last 15 years or so. And then personally, I'm eating my own cooking. My own son just started his freshman year in college, and I've got a high school senior and a high school freshman as well. So we're in the thick of it personally as well.

What school is he going to?

He's going to, uh, Case Western Reserve in Cleveland.

Okay, up there in Ohio. Yes. So you're— you said clients. So are your clients students or your clients the parents? Parents. Okay. What do you do for— I guess what businesses is, uh, are we talking about there?

Right. So I focus on what we call late-stage college planning, which is you've got a high school student and you've got to figure it all out. So, you know, typically you've got to It would be great if you had a sophomore or even a freshman, but most of the time it's you've got a junior or senior because for whatever reason people don't get started as early as they should, in my opinion. But we take you from wherever you are, of course. I mean, you didn't know what you didn't know and walk you through, you know, need-based aid, merit aid, visiting schools, saving and investing, all the different things that you might be able to do. Around college and then, uh, you know, come up with a realistic plan that will work out for parents. You know, how do you be fair if you've got multiple kids? You know, all kinds of things. And there's things that make it more complicated, as you know, divorce and separation make it complicated. If you've got an athlete, it's more complicated. If you've got an academic rock star that wants to maybe go to California or maybe go to the, you know, East Coast or West Coast or maybe Texas, you know, all of a sudden there's a lot more logistics around visiting schools, you know. So there's, there's the kind of the core that everybody does, and then there's the kind of the expanded version of college.

Okay, so when it comes to college, I generally go down two paths, um, you know. A, is college even a factor anymore? Is it even worth it? Is, is you know, is there value in it for the track that you want to go down in life? And, uh, I think more increasingly now, I think because we're having the, the thought process and the discussion, there's a lot more nos to that, that college is not the path for us, versus 20 years ago when it was almost mandated, you know, college, college is the only way. For a long time was the same. Um, and then once we've made that decision, if college is the path of then what is the actual value and what path are we going to go? You know, obviously out-of-state tuitions are crazy. I mean, people do it, but they're, they're what I guess you probably know better than me. Are they normally double the cost of in-state tuition?

Well, that's the list price. So we need to get into that a little bit too, where sticker price is not what you pay. It's like walking into the car dealer and saying, you know, that's negotiable. And they say, no, some of the cars are 50% off. Well, which one? Well, we can't tell you that yet. We're going to tell you that at the end. Tell us which ones you want to buy and then we'll tell you what the prices are.

Interesting.

Kind of after the fact. Um, so you can go—

so, so out of state doesn't have to be double what in-state is, but sticker price it seems to be that way. Correct. Community college is certainly a less expensive option. I assume there's more online colleges.

Oh yeah, for sure, right? So I think education in general is, is ripe for reform, but there's a couple things that are making it slow. One is colleges themselves are big, big slow-working institutions where everything happens by committee, and there's tenure, and there's all kinds of reasons that a lot of colleges just aren't going to move very fast. On the other side, the corporate world has said you have to have a 4-year degree in order to advance. A lot of times they don't expect you to learn anything from that degree.

They just say— is that still true?

It's changing, especially in the last year because of COVID There are a lot of employers are having a tough time finding enough candidates. So now they are actually opening it up more and saying, you know, we should look at people that have just experience. There's no reason to limit the pool when we're having such a tough time. But up until a few years ago, it was just easy for them. Because, again, if you're a high school graduate, that doesn't mean a lot these days, you may not know how to read and still can graduate from high school. So it was easy for the college, for the employers to say, well, you have to have a 4-year degree. And it demonstrated then that you had the wherewithal to get it done somehow.

The lazy approach to hiring.

Exactly. And that's in general true across the board, right? It used to be you could go do apprenticeships, you know, at the local car dealers and at the, you know, heating and air conditioning, all these places. Now, a lot of the times there's a 2-year degree or some sort of certificate that you can go get the basics done. And if you're an employer, why wouldn't you say, well, go get the basics done first, prove you're interested. It doesn't, you know, it's to their advantage, right?

So now, sure, I feel there's still quite a bit of employers, especially when you get into the trades, that will hire you as a laborer and kind of bring you along the steps in the process and let you learn. Yes, you know, and maybe you're still doing the certifications on the side at the trade school, but exactly.

So, but there's some sort of combination now where And again, it depends on the industry, it depends on the skillset, depends on your, you know, how strong the unions in your area are, et cetera, et cetera. So there's a lot of—

Oh yeah, I'm from Florida, we don't do unions.

Right, exactly.

You're up in Ohio, there's probably a bunch of them.

Right, so I mean, there's a lot of factors involved there, but yes, I mean that, so I think there's more paths and for a long time, 4-year college was the only path that didn't carry some stigma with it. Um, I think that's starting to change now where people are realizing that, you know, a 4-year degree isn't the right answer. I mean, there's a—

so you're talking about kids, you're talking associates versus bachelor, right?

But shows us— bachelor, exactly, right? I mean, if you say I'm going to the local community college to learn a trade, that in many circles is, well, what went wrong? It's like, well, no, that's what I want to do, right? I mean, that's That's the reality where it's 4 years or bust, right? And again, that's changing now. But for a long time, it was all the high schools would brag that 87% of our graduates went on to college or 94% or 100% or whatever, depending on the, you know, a lot of private schools especially consider themselves college prep. And that's, you know, they don't really want you to come if you're not going to go to college. They, you know, they're pre-screening and saying, we're college prep, and if you're not thinking you're going to college long term— and again, a lot of parents that want their kid to have college, um, or at least the college experience, that's the other catch-22, right?

I hate that phrase. So, and my mom uses it because she wanted my brother, uh, who's younger than me, he just graduated University of Maryland, she wanted to have that big college experience. And I was fighting that argument the whole time. Not that my voice was heard, because it doesn't matter, right? But the big university experience, I just—

my gosh, it's not always the big university. Again, it's the small university, it's the private school.

So I usually hear when they're talking about the experience, I usually hear it about it's the state college, it's the cool one, it's where all the parties are, it's where the basketball program is, so you can go have fun. It's where the drinking and the beer pong is and the girls and, you know, and the fraternities.

And I hear that as well, but I do hear someone lots of times say, you know, I was shy and meek when I was a kid, and I went to this small private school, and, you know, they took the time to give me some attention, and I blossomed there, and now I want the same for my shy, meek kid.

Um, so Stick them in a sales career. That'll, that'll get rid of the shyness, right?

But again, so college I think is a challenge. I think it's right for many, it's not right for all, and that's where the differentiation needs to be.

Yeah, it sounds like you found a way to tame the cost. You know, I've never— you're the first person I've ever heard to sit there and say, yeah, well, there's, there's ways to do out of state. And have it, you know, I don't know, negotiable. Or maybe there's certain degree tracks that if they're not offered in your state, you can get away with, uh, you know, getting in-state tuition because it's only offered there or something like that. Um, I guess we'll dig into that here in a second. Um, but the value, you know, the ROI on college has just been, I, I think, way out of proportion. Kids are coming, I mean, it's been almost a tragedy of how many people are getting heavily burdened with huge student loans and then going out to get jobs that barely cover it. Obviously the high performers, it's not a scenario, I think, you know, in the worlds of Harvard and the Ivy Leagues, they're probably all turning out fine 'cause those degrees probably do have a very strong ROI, but, you know, most people that I talk to just in day-to-day, they are not even in a career track or a career field that their degree was relevant to. They just have the paper.

Absolutely, exactly.

And so what was the point, right?

Well, again, up until recently it was to get in the interview. Yeah, right, that's right.

I mean, but now we're saying that— now we're saying that's not the case anymore. So then what's the value, right?

Well, then you need the experience, or—

so experience of what?

Well, again, if you're looking for the mid-level position at the corporation and they're saying, we're having a tough time finding someone with a 4-year degree to take this position, maybe we shouldn't open it up to people that have experience in this particular field that could be a good manager, but maybe they just have relevant experience. You still got to have the relevant experience. I mean, they're there's plenty of jobs out there that they're either— you're going to have the degree and experience, or at least more or better experience, right? If you're a— I don't know how much you've done in hiring, but that's the bottom line, right? Is there's a lot of young people out there that say, you know, essentially, you know, I got this degree, the world owes me a job. And the employers are like, okay, well, what are you going to do for us? And they say, what do you mean? I have a college degree. You got to pay me $50,000 a year or more. Because that's the way the world works. It's like, well, what are you going to do for us? You know, how are you going to add value?

Well, you know, that, that, that's how we hired. Now we were a little bit more blue collar. I mean, you know, either sales, you performed or you didn't, or you were on a route truck and, uh, you know, you didn't get the job done, you weren't going to last very long. You weren't good at repairing machines, yeah, you're gone. You can't get the route done in time, Um, yeah, so zero care about college experience in that world. Uh, and even assistance and, and things like that. Gosh, I never checked for a piece of paper, right? And how many people— let me ask you this, because I've heard, uh, I feel like it was a few weeks ago someone said if you didn't graduate from high school, you know, put that— you know, basically lie— put that on your, uh, you know, whatever resume anyway, because nobody checks to see if you graduated high school. So if you didn't and that's holding you back from getting employment, just tell a little fib there. That way it doesn't hold you back 'cause no one's gonna verify. So does anybody ever verify college degrees?

I can't answer that for certain. I think they would do to some extent. I know, and again, there's a lot of—

Not that I'm advocating lying 'cause I genuinely am not on board with that. I'm just curious if anybody, if someone had told me they graduated from FSU, I'm not gonna call FSU and check, but you know, it's not also, you know, it'd be a little different if maybe I was hiring them to, in a Big 3 accounting firm and they're gonna be handling $6 billion worth of business.

Right. Well, and again, I think some businesses that are doing, you know, drug screening and that kind of stuff are in fact doing additional credit checks and that type of thing. I don't know if part of that process verifies degrees or not, to be honest with you.

All right, so you have kids, you're putting them in school. Um, is that because they want— they genuinely want to go to school in a specific career path, um, or is it because you still feel there's value there and, and they're still kind of figuring things out as far as what they want to do for a career?

Right. Well, my son wants to study chemical engineering, and Probably a good path to stay in college for that one. Exactly. Um, and my second son is looking at physical therapy. Okay, again, you're— you know, there is no path to those types of jobs without a degree these days. 50 years ago, you probably could have started sweeping the floor at Dow Chemical and worked your way into an engineering position. You know, if you're really bright and have the aptitude, you know, they might have, you know, some— at some point along the way, in some emergency, they're like, well, we need someone that can fix that machine. And you said— you step up and say, I'll go fix it, you know. And all of a sudden they say, oh, this guy's got some skills. And they would just kind of give you more and more responsibility. I mean, you have heard of those people that, you know, they're an engineering manager at a firm and they never got an engineering degree.

Interesting.

At a GE or that type of thing. That path is not realistic anymore.

I would think not.

Those types of guys are typically retiring by now, um, because that's how you did it 50 years ago, like I said. So there's a lot of careers where there's a, a, uh, a degree that's very associated with it, right? If you go to school for elementary ed, you're probably going to become an elementary ed teacher. The only way to become an elementary ed teacher is to get the degree. They're just linked. That's— and nurse and nursing kind of are all linked together, right?

So yeah, all the elementary ed people are gonna get mad at me for saying this, but I went to WVU, uh, West Virginia University, and, um, you know, everyone— it's a— this is a broad generalization, but it was, um, uh, oddly true. Everyone came in their freshman year, they wanted to be in the pharmacy program, the engineering program, you know, the doctorate medical pro, whatever it was. WVU back in those days, '05, '06, was the number one party school in the country. They would fail some core classes because they were partying too hard. And I guess once you failed some certain core classes, you weren't able to retake them and stay in that track. You were out of that track for good. And, uh, you want to take a wild guess on what the fallback degree was?

Well, yeah, elementary ed is a common—

elementary, right? I mean, like, 9 times out of 10.

Yeah, well, that— I think there's a— that's the other challenge I think that a lot of families struggle with is, you know, we've been relatively lucky. And, you know, my son was math and science his whole, you know, academic career. Engineering is a great fit for him. It was a pretty clear path that, you know, engineering was probably decided as a sophomore in high school, and which kind of engineering was decided after he had a couple chemistry classes. And, you know, so he had a pretty clear path.

So is there something specific he wants to do with that? Like, is there a particular industry he wants to jump into?

He hasn't figured that part out yet.

Okay.

Um, but he, uh, you know, he had a clear path. There's many families where he's like, well, my student— there's two situations. One is where students have many talents You know, I'm a— I play the trumpet, I'm doing great. I'm also really strong at math, but I, I'm part of the debate team, and maybe I could be a lawyer. And, you know, I just can't decide. It all seems like such great opportunities. I, I don't want to pick one, or I'm afraid I'll pick the wrong one kind of challenge.

Where—

and then there's the kids where it's like, well, all I really enjoy so far is video games. Math didn't excite me. Science didn't excite me. English didn't excite me, you know. So I don't know what to study. And in both those situations, when you're undecided, but you know, that's that situation where maybe you're going to switch careers or switch majors. And then if you went to an engineering school where that, that's all they offered is engineering and you're not interested in engineering anymore, well, now you're changing schools and it So you, again, that planning around undecided is an extra layer of complexity.

Again, yeah, I would think if you're undecided, you probably shouldn't go to an engineering-only school. That'd be a bone— that'd be a boneheaded move.

Exactly. Um, but it happens where, and again, or you thought you were, and again, some people are very focused and they turn out to be wrong. Um, and that happens as well. Like again, you don't make it through the core courses or something like that. So yeah, it's a, it's an ongoing challenge. But, you know, I help families figure out how to pay for it. And that's the reality of it is many families, college is going to happen whether they do it well or they do it poorly.

So, so my kind of, my kind of blows up. Fair enough. My advice on a lot of that has been, you know, this is getting a little bit more broad and I don't get as deep as I think you get. So we should go there. Has been there is zero wrong and there's probably a lot more advantage to going to the local community college for 2 years first to take those basics, get the A, then transfer to the big school that you want to go to where you get more specific degree track classes. And so you have that degree that says I graduated from University of Florida or Florida State or whatever it was, because nobody cares where you went to the first 2 years. You know, there might be some— honestly, I don't think many people—

well, let me correct that for a second. The place that you go for the second 2 years cares where you went for the first 2 years.

I think some people do, um, you know, I think some employers are going to sit there and say, wow, Florida State's— that's a lot cooler, better than, you know, the Jamaican Westland College of the Highlands or whatever.

Oh, what I'm saying is you're saying, well, I'm going to go to this community college for 2 years and then I'm going to go to a bigger university. When you transfer to the bigger university, they might say, well, that was the wrong math class, we're not taking that one. That was the wrong this, that was the wrong that.

Well, I assume they would— I would assume they would have pathways.

Start over.

I would say they would have pathways if you're in, like, I mean, we're in Florida, so if I'm in Florida, we go to the West Community College around here, I think is St. John's Community College. You go there 2 years, but in that 2-year class session, you say, hey, I want to go to University of Florida in 2 years, you know, what do they accept? And I assume they put you on a path, right?

And that's why I wanted to clarify it, is, okay, you have to lay that path out. It isn't an automatic, well, just go here and then figure it out, because you might be open for—

oh no, there's strategy to it and there's thought, right?

Exactly.

And it saves you, I assume, a small fortune.

Not necessarily.

All right, teach me this, because you're the first person I've heard saying that. Normally people agree with me.

Right, it saves you room and board and a few thousand in tuition.

I think a lot of thousands into— I feel like Florida State's like— well, and you're saying sticker price doesn't count, so we got to get into that. But I feel like University of Florida, Florida State, they're like $20,000, $30,000 a year, uh, whereas community college is like $3,000, $4,000 a year, right?

But tuition at Florida State is $12,000.

Still a big difference.

$6,000. Well, and again if you're going to graduate as a nurse and make $75,000 coming out of college, does it matter if you owed $25,000?

Right.

I mean, you— again, people will tell me things like, you know, so here's two scenarios, right? And this is why you need to think it through, right? You could theoretically go and get a lower-level nursing degree, which allows you to get a job in the hospitals or nursing homes and that kind of thing. And you can get— you can knock that out in a year and then you can be gainfully employed and start making $15, $20, $25 an hour or whatever.

—And then— —So you're not talking college, you're talking almost trade school for nurses, right? —Exactly.

So they go to the community college and take the lowest level nursing certificate or 2-year degree or whatever it might be. And then start working your way up from there. And that is a viable path. And it might take you, say, 8 years to get all the way to a full 4-year RN degree. You'll live like a college student for 8 years. You'll not— you'll make reasonable money, you know, so forth and so on., but it'll take 8 years. Or you sign on for some loans, you go straight to the 4-year degree, you get it done, you continue to live like a college student, but now you're making, you know, $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 a year as a nurse, and you pay off those loans. You got to live like the poor college kids, still have 3 roommates and still live on ramen and mac and cheese, and it'll get you to the same place. But you'll have 4 years experience in the working world. And have $50,000 in your 401 and etc., etc. You know, again, and both of those paths are viable, but if you do the apples to apples comparison, you're probably better off to get the full 4-year degree and make, you know, make $40 an hour instead of $20. Okay. Out of the gate or so, how do we get whatever the numbers are?

How do we have— that would be important. So how do we get off that sticker price that you keep saying is maybe not as relevant as, uh, we once thought it was, right?

So if you go to my website, I've got the net cost of college. There's a resources tab there, click on that, and then click on Florida. And then once you're there, you can see that there's the net price of college by price, or by income. So the total cost at the typical state school average is $22,000 in Florida, it looks like. Now, this data is a couple years old, so it's a little, you know, a little bit more, but not hugely more. But at lower incomes, you notice the net price again is about $6,000. Now, what happens is you're— if at lower incomes you qualify for Pell Grants and state aid and some of those things. So it brings your net cost down to $6,000 or $4,000 or whatever the number is. Now the challenge of course is your family income is probably 50, you know, under $30,000. So what does that mean? Well, that means that $4,000 is pretty painful if your income's under 30. Um, but the students could borrow that money and make it work.

Just don't go to University of Miami. Uh, if you make between $0 and $30,000, it'll only cost you $42,000. So it'll cost you your entire family's income plus $12,000, uh, to go there every year. That's private school, a little different. Okay, so, so in these prices, I— so I see the breakdown here, um, and I'll add in a little clip of this to the podcast, to the video side of it on YouTube. Um, so like University of Florida, $21,000 school. Uh, where am I at? If you're between 0 and 30, it's— wow, $2,000. Wow, that's the cheapest one by far.

Um, right now University of Florida is your flagship and it's competitive, so you got to be a strong— relatively strong academically.

I was about to sit there and say, so you can't— that just doesn't mean you're getting in. This is if you get in.

If you get in, you get a decent price.

So are they— are you— so I want to make sure I get these numbers right. Are you adjusting that considering the grants and things that you have to apply for and you receive to go against that to get to that number? Or do you sit there and say, hey, this is my income, and they say, this is how much you have to pay, here are some grants you can also use to pay that $2,000? Oh, this is net of grants.

So this is the—

okay. This includes— this is after you do a bunch of work and get qualified for stuff and— okay, exactly right. Yeah, right.

So this is the average net cost of people in that bracket as reported from the school. Okay. So most families aren't average either. They're either going to be above average or below average. And that's the challenge of college planning. That's what I help families figure out is, are these numbers realistic for my situation? Because, okay, again, As mentioned, you know, you got to have the academic chops to get into some of these schools before it even matters whether or not you can get these prices.

Is this total cost— tuition, room and board, food, everything— or is this just tuition?

These costs, tuition and fees, room and board, beer and pizza— the typical cost of a typical—

not freshman year, there's no beer.

That's right, root beer. Didn't I say that?

Yeah, yeah, man. Back in my day, they had penny pitchers at the bar.

Wow, penny pitchers are swell.

Horrible, horrible. Uh, all right, that's a cool little tool. But I mean, so those numbers adjusted for, uh, income level require work to get there, the kind of— within the kind of knowledge, I guess, that you have. Correct.

But another interesting thing is, you know, if you looked at Florida A&M at $21,000, if you're at 110 plus and averaging about $15,000 at 110 plus in Florida, if you go look at the private schools at 110 plus, you know, they're St. Thomas University, their list price is almost $50,000, but their net price at $110,000 is still only $22,000.

Yeah, man, University of Miami is crazy high.

Now, University of Miami, yes, is— their target market is people that can pay, it looks like. Yeah, it is, um, relatively selective as well compared to some of these. Um, and again, these are average numbers. At some of these schools, there's basketball players that pay zero, and there's some people that might pay full price. So understanding the different— you know, there's need-based aid, there's merit aid, there's athletics, there's different reasons that different people pay different prices, and it's a pretty convoluted system. So if you're gonna get involved. That's kind of the parent's job, is to figure out the financial side of things, and that's, you know, where I help. Hopefully the student's going to figure out what they want to be when they grow up. They're going to deal with doing any testing that needs to be done and test prep. Hopefully parents don't take the test for the kids. You know, students are going to apply to the colleges and that type of thing. The parents are going to work on the financial side. Will we qualify for need-based aid, merit aid? Those types of things.

So what do you think, what do you think, you know, kind of comes first in the stage? I guess you're probably running a few of these things together, but are we sitting there saying, listen, we don't have a lot of extra cash, we're, we're maybe not quite paycheck to paycheck but doing a little okay, middle class, but we definitely don't have college savings or investments, or, you know, we kind of live on what we make for the most part? You know, is it— we need to, we need to kind of sort— hey, talk to the kid, say, hey, you know, the big school is probably not a, a realistic scenario. All the University of Florida could have been if they can get into it. Do we need to be sorting schools by what they cost and then kind of figuring out what grants and scholarships and I don't know what other strategies are? We'll have to get into that a little bit and then see how we pay for it. Or do we start with the, you know, what grants and scholarships are available and then kind of do college selection based on what you can apply for and what you're eligible for?

It's more of an iterative process. You're going to do them both in parallel.

Okay. So I would just hate to get a kid's hope up on like a really cool, nice school. We visit the campus, it's so pretty, and then we realize, hey, yeah, we're pulling the rug out from under you on that one. That's not an option. Yeah, you have to do that, but, uh, right, exactly.

So you can do some preliminary pricing and just kind of come up with some ideas of, again, looking at these averages as an example and saying, well, we can use that to start with. You also can, uh, do what net price calculators and figure that out. So every college out there is supposed to have a net price calculator on their website, which they take your financial data and sometimes your academic data and project what they might cost. Now the challenge is the colleges were mandated to have these net price calculators. Some work really well, some are, you know, they'll— it'll— you'll go on there, they'll say, what was your income in 2013? It'd be like, 2013? They haven't updated this calculator in 9 years, to give you an idea how seriously they took it. Um, so, but there's various techniques around figuring out what it might cost. And if that's gonna— if that's a really big concern and you're worried about, again, pulling the rug, so to speak, well then you need to do that first. But for a lot of families, you have no idea what, you know, is it public, is it private, is it near, is it far? I encourage most families just get out there and visit a couple schools because you're going to ask your student, what are you looking for in a college? And they'll say, I, I don't know, I've never even seen one. You know, you're asking me to buy a car and I've never even ridden in one, let alone driven one. They have no idea what college is about. So again, for some families, it might be going to the local tech college and comparing it to the local state school. And state— and I thought—

so I didn't get it. Yeah, I didn't quite get it clear. Do you have any problem? Because we kind of moved on to a nursing example after that. Do you have any issues with going to the community college for 2 years as a cost-saving tool.

Uh, but you have to do it with intention by, by working with both the place you're starting and the place you're going.

Okay, with the— yeah, what's the goal?

That they work together, because, you know, again, my, my wife actually teaches at a college and she spends a lot of time reviewing transfer students or has in her past anyway, and they take the wrong courses. And it's like, well, no, I'm sorry, that biology isn't gonna cover for this biology 'cause that biology you learned this and this biology you learned that. And that's what you need to know for the next class.

So you— Are there benefits to employees of colleges for their kids going to college? Yes, there are. So are your kids going to the school?

My kids can go tuition-free to where my wife works.

Wait, but did he? No. Oh, of course not.

They don't have an engineering school. Oh yeah, I mean, he's— he said on chemical engineering, it's just not going to happen. Now we have— we get benefits at other schools too, so there's something called a tuition exchange which allows us to transfer those benefits. So interesting.

Yeah, okay, so let's talk, let's talk practical tactical about, uh, how we get the cost of college down, right? Well, scholarships, right?

So, right, so there's need-based and merit aid. And again, if you're, if you're in the $110,000+ category where the net cost is going to be You know, again, in Florida, the state school net price was what, $20,000, average $15,000. So Florida is a pretty generous, low-cost location actually, because they start at 22, but yet a lot of people, even with high incomes, are getting their, their income, getting their school lower. So I think Scott, there's some scholarship programs.

So we do. So Florida, in Florida, we have, uh, it's funded by the lottery. We have something called Bright Futures, and as long as you have decent grades in high school and graduate and you go to, and you go to a, I think, a public Florida college and you maintain your GPA at a certain level, a lot of your tuition is covered. I know my wife qualified for that. Every student qualifies for that. It's purely a benefit of being a resident of the state, funded by the lottery program, and, uh, you know, having good grades, right?

No, exactly. And so I don't, I don't know how much that factors into your graph.

Yeah, right.

And that is factored in there, of course. Um, but there's many states that don't have those programs. So when you look at the $110,000 plus, you know, the school costs $26,000 and the average person at 110+ pays $25,500. And why is that? Well, because there's one basketball player that went for free that wrecked the average. But if you don't have a reason that you're not paying full price, you're probably paying full price.

You think they would run those, those numbers and like ex nihilo the fully scholarship people, because that, that does drastically alter— either you got it free or you didn't. And the people who didn't, what was the average cost?

Right, well, again, that's just— but, and again, there's various scholarships, various programs that could be academic, that could be, you know, etc., etc. So it may not be a full ride, it may just be a couple thousand off, like Florida, right? I mean, so like here in Wisconsin, there is a scholarship for the salutatorian and valedictorian, typically. Okay, go to a local state school, so you got to be the top kid in your class at the high school or the top 2 or 3 if it's a large high school. And then you get a $2,700 scholarship or something like that.

Add up every year once. Okay.

So your freshman year. So that, you know, that's, you know, again, if you happen to qualify, you're certainly going to take it. And what happens as well is if you don't go to a Wisconsin school and you can't use it, then it trickles down to whoever's next in line at the high school. So you could be fourth in line, and if the people ahead of you chose private schools or went elsewhere, which happens quite often— understanding how merit aid works is another important thing, right? So as an example, you have a strong kid that can get accepted to a top school, say Notre Dame or Rice or something like that. You know, they're going to have some pretty strong test scores and that type of thing. But they could go to, quote unquote, a lesser school and get higher scholarships potentially. And then they could go to even lesser schools and be the rock star and get a full ride. Because a typical college has a few full rides for— and again, they make a big deal out of who they award it to and how they award it. And it might be separate applications and separate essays, you know, so I've had situations quite often where we're saying, well, we could go to Notre Dame, we're gonna have to pay X, or we won the full ride scholarship at this school over here, but it's no Notre Dame, but it's free. And now you have to make that call.

And I mean, that depends. If the family can write the check, go Notre Dame.

If you can't, go to the full ride. Well, obviously, if you can't write the check, you, you do that..

But even if I think there's some people that would take the loans out to go to just for the name of Notre Dame.

Oh yeah, that's true too. And again, neither of us are advocating for that, right? I always tell people there's a difference if you're going to give up the lake home in order to pay crazy amounts of money for college, that's one thing. If you're going to decimate your retirement or bury your student in loans to pay for college, that's a different thing. Yeah, right. So it has to be a relative, you know, challenge, so to speak, as far as where the money is going to come from. And again, a lot of parents have worked hard and made decent money. They feel education is one of the most important things they can spend their money on. So more power to them, right? I mean, it's either this or we get nicer cars and bigger vacations. Well, you know, at a certain level, we all waste our money. You could, you know, you see a BMW on the road and you say, well, gee, that was a waste of money. Except for the people that like BMWs and say, oh, that's a cool car, I wish I had one.

Nope, I get it. And those people are not going to be watching this entire podcast because who cares? Who cares how to save money on tuition?

So, um, well, and again, there's, you know, what's the difference between a family that earns $150,000 a year and $200,000 a year? Not much. Exactly. One family, they walk into Sizzler's and order whatever they want. The next family, they walk into a slightly better steakhouse and order whatever they want. Does Sizzler's still exist?

That was a dated reference, I think.

Well, yeah, I'm old. I'm sorry.

Uh, hey, just sidetracked real quick. I can cut this out.

What part of Wisconsin? I'm suburb of Milwaukee.

Okay, we drove up through there. We were down in, uh, we were in Chicago. We were outside Chicago. We drove through Milwaukee to get up to Green Bay, I think. Is that right? Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah, we didn't stay in Milwaukee though. Sorry. Went to Green Bay because the Packers are there. Uh, I went to Green Bay because that's where we got a campground. We actually went outside of Green Bay, a little bit to the west of it. Um, I forget which town. Um, I did not realize Green Bay was as small as it was. Yeah, it's very— yeah, I was looking for the big buildings and there are none.

Exactly. Well, there's the stadium.

Yeah, we went to it, did the tour of the stadium.

Right.

But again, that's like, what, 4, 4 stories, 5 maybe, right?

Yeah, right, exactly. There's nothing— there's nothing bigger than that. Mills and big industrial type things.

There's no 7,500-story, uh, skyscrapers. Oh no, not even because the entire town's, uh, population could fit in the one. So I did not realize that. Normal, uh, middle-income family, less than middle income, uh, we're getting whatever states— do most states offer some sort of subsidy for in-state tuition like Florida does, or is that very unique?

Most states offer some sort of need-based program. Okay. Which is often targeted to low income. Again, the under $25,000 of income, under $50,000 of income. And in your experience, California is unique in that their cutoff is very high at like $150,000 of income. But again, that's the highest in California.

Yeah, I've been to California. I'm like, this would be a great place to Then I started looking at real estate. I'm like, never mind. I am what we call poor in California. Oh, the— we had a friend we met sell a, uh, a house that was built in 1940s or 1950s. Uh, it was about 1,300 square foot, uh, no updates since whenever it was built. Uh, they sold it for $1.6 million. 1300 square foot and old. So outside, all right, so there is, most states are gonna have some sort of need-based way to, either they're writing you a check or they're lowering the cost of tuition. And in your experience, are those, to get your kid in college when you don't really have a way to pay for it, are those people having to take out loans with those need-based scenarios? Or is that need-based stuff, able to help you cash flow them or cover the cost entirely?

No. Again, so if you look at the net costs on these charts, that is the kind of the— again, the average cost. Now, that does not include any of the loans that you might be eligible for. Okay. So a typical student, typical freshman, is going to qualify for a $5,500 loan in their own name right out of the gate. So they don't have, you know, again, most students don't have any credit. They don't have any— sure— income. So the government will lend them $5,500, called a direct loan.

The US taxpayer guarantees much bigger numbers than that. I've, I've at least read news articles on it. Right.

Well, and again, that's kind of a myth because that's how much a typical student can borrow in their own name. After that, mom and dad can borrow more money. So if your kid got accepted to Harvard, and he got no aid, mom and dad could borrow the full $83,000 or whatever it costs now. Okay. And what's interesting is mom and dad may not have much income. They don't have to prove that they can pay it back. They just have to have reasonable credit and prove that they haven't had a lot of lates and bankruptcies in the last 7 years. So seems like a smart way to give people money. Well, exactly. So that's, you know, that's the way the system works. So this idea that a student is buried in $100,000 of debt, well, there was an adult that facilitated that, most likely, because the only way for that to happen is a parent cosigns a loan, or in a rare instance, it might be a student that graduates and then goes on to grad school and then borrows even more money for grad school. In grad school, there's not a lot of aid other than easy access to loans. So that's the other horror story that's been out there a lot.

Oh, I, I fully put the blame on parents. I mean, the kids are, you know, you know, in a sense they should know better. Parents should have prepared them better by the age of 18, but, uh, you know, they didn't. Okay, so, um, and scholarship-wise, we're, you know, outside of athletic scholarships and, you know, top-tier educational scholarships. Um, there are quite a bit out there, at least when I was in school, which was, you know, '05, '06. Um, they were just small, and you had to write essays and, uh, lots of stuff. But it was a lot of like just different trade organizations, different— gosh, I think it was mostly, yeah, like different organizations, and they just had these $1,000, $2,000, maybe sometimes more. Like, I got one It was like some sort of clean air organization in Indiana, you know, that worked with like the diesel and car companies, like the manufacturers. And my grandfather was a Cummins diesel guy. And so, you know, he told me about it. So I wrote an essay of some sort and I think I got like $1,500 or $2,000 of a scholarship from the clean air trade organization or whatever it was. Something I've never heard of. I still don't remember it to this day. Right. But I know there's a lot of that. You know, we were in the vending business, the big vending organization that everyone belonged to. You know, they had scholarships you could apply for. And I'm sure that's just— there's tons and tons of them, right?

If you go to my website, we've got the Scholarship Guide for Busy Parents. Okay, that's some videos that kind of teach you about it again. So scholarships are confusing because a lot of people don't give you the whole story, right? That you hear when you're at the high school event somewhere, someone says, oh, that kid over there, he got a $20,000 scholarship. But was that from the college? Was that Outside the college, was it need-based, was it merit-based? You know, you'll get the details. You just say, oh, he got a scholarship. True. And there's many colleges out there where all you have to do is apply and you're probably going to get a scholarship because they give a scholarship to everyone, or nearly everyone. Understanding that, you know, there's scholarships from the colleges themselves, that's one bucket, and then there's the scholarships from everywhere else, which might be considered outside scholarships or private scholarships, different names. And there, now we're talking— how do you find them? Kind of a hierarchy. Well, you'd start with where, where you're going to college and your local high school would be two key places to look. So a lot of colleges, on top of the aid that they normally offer, they might also have relationships with corporations or the alumni association and that type of stuff. There might be extra scholarships where you literally have to do more. You have to apply and pursue more, do more work than just apply for the college.

And that, that workload, I'm assuming, is going to be on the student going to school. Mom and dad can really only do some— I mean, maybe help find some of them, but, you know. Yes, exactly.

And essays and some of the application stuff, ideally, is the student, right? But if your idea of getting scholarships is you kind of abdicate it to the kids, that doesn't work either. You know, if your idea of scholarships is, hey, you're in charge of scholarships, good luck, and then you you nag them every once in a while. That's not gonna work, right? Yeah. Where I've seen some success, and I just interviewed, uh, in every aspect of parenting, that's the thing, right? Um, you know, Christina Ellis wrote the book literally on how she won scholarships, and I interviewed her. And who? Christina Ellis. She wrote the book, uh, Confessions of a Scholarship Winner. It's been out there for 10-ish years now, I think, or so. Anyway, I interviewed her for my podcast and She mentioned that her mom helped. Now, again, she didn't write the essay. Sometimes her help was sitting next to her at the library and read a magazine, but just being there for moral support while she was working hard on an essay and just being available for questions, and then buying the ice cream when it was, you know, after the 4 hours of hard work. And where I see success, you know, I had one family, they applied to 41 scholarships, they won 7 for $39,000, I think it was. Great. Right. But how long does it take to do 41 scholarships? Full-time job, right? Is that something you knock out in one Sunday afternoon? It was many Sunday afternoons. Sure. The parents were involved, right? They helped keep them organized. They figured out what the deadlines were. They— a lot of it's online now, but it, you know, there's still a little bit of, well, we got to send the, you know, send the right stuff to the right places at the right times, or upload this here and upload that there, and get a copy of a transcript and get it over here, and a lot of detail work where they could, you know, provide some support. You know, scholarships get easier after you applied to 5 or 6. Now you've got a couple essays that you can tweak for, you know, again, you want to use it. That's sort of the same essay either, right? So there's some strategy involved of if you're trying to get an essay from the Boy Scouts, your tone and your essays would be a lot different than if you're trying to get something from a snowboard company or a skateboard company where you can be a little more edgy, so to speak. And probably need to be in order to win. So there's all kinds of, you know, thoughts and strategies. There's literally books out there that you can read on strategy, as well as, you know, there's websites, that type of thing. The challenge is figuring out where your student's unique. There's a scholarship about, you know, where mom and dad work and play is another great example. You mentioned vending industry. Well, that was your parents that were involved in the vending industry that allowed you to apply. It wasn't because you were involved, probably, although maybe because you work with your parents, you maybe were slightly. But, you know, a lot of professional organizations, the professional bar, the— here in our town, the Realtor Association has a couple scholarships for children of members of the Realtors Association. So all of a sudden it goes down to anybody in the area to you've got to be a child of a realtor. And of course it's only kids that are juniors and seniors going off to college. So now it gets to be a a pretty short list of who's qualified and your odds of winning are much better.

So it takes a lot of work to find them and to apply for them, and the parents can't be passive in it. Outside of scholarships, what else is there?

Well, then of course there's the loans, which we've talked about, right? The student can borrow money, the parents can borrow money.

I'm less thrilled with that idea. Right. Well, but it is a reality, right?

Then there's current income. Again, mom and dad can, you know, contribute what they're currently earning. The student can work, and then there's savings. So many families will have a student work, you know, my son works summers and that kind of stuff and saves some of that money for college, and he'll continue to work summers while in college. So they're saving, investing, and, uh, income. There's scholarships, there's loans.

So the strangest, the strangest thing I've seen about that is parents who don't want their kids to work during college because they want them to focus on college. Meanwhile, the kid's going to go out partying. But it's strange because that generation that's saying that, I feel like were the ones that went to school in the '70s and '80s and worked 60 hours a week and went to school and paid their own way through, and they were able to do it. And then they don't want that, I guess, for their kids for some reason.

I haven't gotten quite the logic behind it, but I think because they worked hard and they felt it was hard and they don't want it to be that hard for their kids. I mean, we always want what's better for our kids, right? And that's the reality, right? Of—

see, I see a tremendous amount of value in work and some pressure, um, and challenges and embracing those things. And I don't want, uh— I'm not a fan of like, hey, you know, we could put our kid on the back of a yacht and coast through life forever, but that's just not a meaningful life. I just— I think there's intrinsic value at a, at a cellular level in working and accomplishment. But right, that's just me.

And if you think back to the kind of the history, right, of, you know, there's certainly immigrant families have this type of story, but even, you know, people that have been here for many generations, you know, like my great-grandfather worked a small farm and busted his butt and so forth and so on, but he was able to get one of his kids through college, and then they did well did reasonably well, and they got all their kids through college. And then that generation, you know, one of them became a doctor or a lawyer, and, you know, so forth and so on. But, you know, so you always— you know, the goal is your generation is going to do better. The challenge is we're at some generations now where if you are the doctor or lawyer and you are doing reasonably well, the odds of your students being that capable— there's a chance that they just can't do it. You beat dad, right? If your dad— if you happen to be Tom Brady, what are the odds of your kids doing better than you? Right? I mean, it just isn't going to happen now again, but they'll be comfortable, obviously, because Dad can afford that. Right? So you see that next generation of decline, right? If you look at a typical family business as an example, Grandpa started it. The parents had a good head start because Grandpa worked hard and gave them a good foundation of some sort of business. And they were able to make—

they got to see that hard work. Right.

They saw the hard work and they were willing to work hard and they got the business to explode. But then the generation after that has always had it comfortable. Didn't really see the hard work that grandpa put in. And they're the ones that are just going to, you know, again, enjoy the benefits of the business. You know, I've seen like there's a situation where if grandpa worked hard and bought a 100-unit apartment complex worth millions and dad was running it and the kids were working in it and doing little labor and making good money doing almost nothing. You know, so they don't know what hard work is, of course. And now their kids are going to go to college. And it's, you know, it's just a weird dynamic. But I mean, we digress.

There's phrases— hard times make hard men, soft times make soft men. Because we all want to give our kids the things we didn't have. But I think a lot of people forget to give their kids the things they did have— those hard times, those challenges, those experiencing failure. You can't just— I disagree with the fact that you should make it super easy. I think they should be able to go feel like dad's always there kind of as a, as a fallback. I mean, you're not going to be homeless on the streets, but you know, I also don't want you living in my basement, um, those kind of things. But I think you should go out and experience the, the world, uh, for what it is and not be super cushioned.

I agree, but there is definitely a shift going on around the various generations and how hard they're willing to work and how much they're willing to commit to the company too, as an example. And rightly so, perhaps, because it used to be you work for a company for 25 years and they give you a nice pension and a gold watch, and you took care of each other. Now, you know, you're going to change careers, change employers, change everything. It's not a two-way street, and therefore people aren't as committed.

And fair. All right, so, uh, we talked scholarships, we talked— what other paths were there?

So scholarships, loans, saving and investing. And the last thing I think is really reduction in other expenses.

So, so, so adjusting the family budget so we can find room to pay for the school. Correct.

So I think one of the big ones would be tax breaks, various ways that you can, you know, pay less taxes so you have more money for college.

Now, is that in direct relation to tuition, how tuition's affecting your tax bill, or are we talking full accounting for decent income people and making sure they're getting full value there outside of any college adjustments?

Both. Okay. So as an example, there's a tax credit available if you earn between— if you're married, earn between $160,000 and $180,000, it phases out. And it's a pretty generous tax credit of $2,500 per student. So I had a family where they were earning about $180,000. They were going to obviously phase out. They weren't going to get the credit and they had 2 kids in college. So we actually were able to increase their 401 contributions to bring their income down to $160,000, which then allowed them to get an extra $5,000 in credits. So they got, you know, $7,000-ish in normal savings because you put money in a retirement plan. So it's pretax plus a $500 or $5,000 credit. So they got about $12,000 for putting $20,000 into their 401. So they still had their money. And then they're like, well, but we just put all our college money into the 401. So how are we going to pay for college? Then we took a loan out of that same 401 where the extra money went. And we paid for college anyway. Is the moral of the story spend your retirement on college? No. The moral of the story is if you, you know, work the system, maybe you can find some, find some ways to cut some corners and save some money. There's literally hundreds of different things you could do. It's figuring out the 5 or 10 that are right for you.

So a whole separate discussion when we get into that kind of stuff, because I'd be a little bit more nervous about borrowing our 401 when, when you're making 180 and coming up with $20,000 is a struggle and having to borrow on your 401, that would make me a little bit nervous about that scenario. But no, I like that. Okay. So yeah, I wouldn't have thought about that off the top of my head. You know, that's the job of the accountant, in my opinion. I guess a lot of people don't have accountants, but—

Well, yeah, it is the job of the accountant, theoretically. But the reality is most accountants don't understand college and most accountants are reactionary. Tell me what you did last year and I'll figure out the damage.

They better be better than that.

They're not. I mean, that's—

I've experienced that. I get it. Right.

I mean, that's the reality. So for many, and they don't understand college, even if they did. So most financial advisors and most accountants maybe understand a little bit of how to put stuff on the form, but they really don't understand need-based aid and merit aid and all the tax breaks and really hooking it all together and put it— and that's why the specialty is born, right? And that's—

yeah. So I know we're running short on time. All right. So we've talked college selection, we've talked loans, we've talked scholarship, we've talked need-based, merit-based, you know, in-state resources.

Are we missing anything? No. Well, again, I think the timing of it all, I think it's important for parents to understand. Oh gosh. Yeah. Geez. There's a, there's a lot of deadlines your senior year of high school. So you need to apply for college typically early in the senior year. Follow the senior year, you're going to apply for both financial aid and the colleges themselves. Then you're going to get offers back from the colleges between January and March that will say, this is our top-line price, but here's our net price, right? So you qualify for this grant and this grant and this loan and work-study and whatever else, right? So they kind of put a very formal offer together with all the pieces in it by April, and then May 1st you commit to a college. So you— this typical system is you pick the 3, 5, 10 colleges you apply to in the fall, you get pricing late spring, and then May 1st you pick one. And those are the deadlines that you have to live with. But there's— parents need to realize that there may be— there's things they should be doing junior year and even sophomore year so that they can be ready for those deadlines. You know, you need to visit the colleges, you need to figure out if you're going to do testing and test prep. You know, it took my son 3 tries to get the test scores he needed to go to the college he wanted to go to. And luckily he got it done before COVID hit, which is— makes us look like a genius, but we were just lucky. Um, because a lot of his class, they didn't— he was all done by February of his junior year. A lot of kids haven't started by February their junior year, and they really suffered through that because COVID shut down all the test locations, so it was nearly impossible to get tests done. So you do testing visits, school research, start your scholarship plan, whether it's need-based aid, merit aid. And then I encourage families, you know, one of my goals is to help families figure out what it's actually going to cost before you apply instead of waiting till the end, so that you can say, well, here's some schools, and at least a few of them are likely to be a reasonable cost. You know, maybe there's a few where we don't know. It's like, well, if you go to this school and you happen to win the XYZ scholarship it'll be a great path. But if you don't win it, it'll be very expensive, and then maybe we'll have to take it off the list.

Like, like so many things in life, being proactive instead of reactive helps, you know, take control of the situation. And then, you know, to dig into that deeper, obviously starting earlier if you have toddlers is a lot better than waiting till the sophomore, junior year of high school when all of a sudden we get surprised by their schooling after high school. Um, exactly right. I've always been a fan of the 529 plan. I don't know if you feel there's something better or if that's a good—

uh, yeah, I mean, 529 plans are, are reasonable. Um, there's other choices, so they have good and they have bad. You know, I don't really want to get into those that too deep because of regulations, etc.

Oh really? I figured we don't have a few minutes, right?

I start talking about that, I gotta have the guy come on and talk about, well, you know, Investments are this and investments are that and, you know, may cause your arms to fall off or whatever, right? So, so yeah, so that's, I guess, kind of the process around, uh, early stage, right? Which is you've got a toddler or even fifth grader, you're just— it's too early to know for certain they're even going to college or what college might look like when you get there. No, but even if you think you're going to end up paying $10,000 or $20,000 or $30,000 a year times 3 kids, build that into your budget a little bit. You know, don't buy the biggest house you can afford and don't spend every— because what I see a lot is people roll into college earning decent money, right? Let's say you earn $150,000. Remember that $150,000 versus $200,000, right? The person that earns $200,000 has learned to spend every penny. The person earning $150,000 has learned to spend every penny. They look at the guy that makes $200,000, say, well, geez, you should have $50,000 a year to pay for college, you make so much more than me. But they don't because they even learned how to spend it. And it's painful at every level until you're, you know, if you're making a half million or a million, then maybe not so much. But $150,000, $250,000, you know, it doesn't matter that much. Again, because you've—

we hammer, we hammer that a lot on our platform of, you know, in the personal finance space of budgeting, every month should have some sort of profit to it. We're not spending every dime. So that way when we do get raises and things like that, it's just not constantly going up and Right. You know, so the goal is to build net worth.

Yep, absolutely. I call it the bigger garage theory for all the dads out there. I don't care how big your garage is, it's always full because you don't even think about economizing or throwing something out or until it's full. And then once it's full, it's the same with your income, right? If you learn how to spend every penny, your life will grow. I mean, if you get a raise and you learn how to spend it before you learn how to save it, that's what's going to happen. Yeah, go back the other way.

I had warehouses, and by the time we sold our businesses, um, I had to get 10 pianos out of our warehouses. Mind you, I don't play piano. I've never played piano, and our business had nothing to do with pianos, right? I just had 10 grand pianos all up in the rafters of the pallet racks and all, because yeah, you have space, you fill it. My goodness, I'm bad at that. Yes. But it was a deal, you know, piano company going out of business, buy up their inventory so you can resell one day in the future.

And how'd that turn out for you?

Uh, we did pretty good. So it was just a lot of space, uh, but you know, we had it, you know, because especially we could go vertical, we had the high ceilings, we put them up on pallet racks and whatnot. And then of course, so getting back to the 529, um, uh, you know, obviously that is investing, but you know, when you're talking, you have 15 years, you know, until we have to get in that, and you can split it up between kids I'm very certain. And then if your kids don't go to college, I think you can still extract it. You just have to pay taxes on it. Correct.

Taxes on the growth. Right, there's taxes and penalties on the growth if you don't spend it for what's called a qualified expense. Are there penalties? There are. Okay. Now they can be avoided, you know, so as an example, people say, well, what if I pile up and pile the money into the 529 and then my kid gets a full ride and I don't need it? Oh, you can deduct that. You can take out up to what the scholarships are worth, avoid the penalties. You're still gonna have to pay tax. Yeah, but you can also switch beneficiaries and move it to siblings or grandkids or nieces and nephews or— so there's a lot of—

I thought it was just siblings.

That's good to know. So yeah, you can go upstream and downstream. You remember the old game, uh, Six Ways to, uh, Kevin Bacon? No. You can do some crazy stuff where you could, you know, change it from— oh, that's good to know.

So if I leave it in there, so if none of my kids go to school, um, I can leave it in there for grandkids and just let it grow for another 20, 30 years?

Yep. Oh, cool. And they don't need it.

That's my new strategy. There you go, right?

And that, and that's a realistic— of course those numbers are going to be superb by then, doing reasonably well, right? If you're worth $1.2 million or $3.4 million or something and you've got $40,000 left over in a 529, you just let it ride it's not hurting much. If you really needed to, you could take it out and pay the penalties in that dire circumstance. But there's a good chance it's just going to roll to your kids and then roll to your grandkids. Oh, cool.

And then you can use that stuff for trade schools and all. Yeah. You know, I don't know what else there is as far as nursing schools, any sort of higher education.

I believe generally it's any college that is involved in the financial aid system, which is just about all the schools. The exceptions would be a few like beauty schools and a few truck driving schools. Some of those that aren't part of the system, but everything else works.

And then if you feel the need to serve, uh, serve the country, not serve dinner at, um, Red Lobster, they pay for, you know, after a 4-year term, you have the— they pay for school, right? Completely. Yeah. Oh yeah.

So that would be another path, right? The military path. Um, you can—

I got a buddy who's— I got a buddy who's a PA, so he went after college. He didn't join before college, so he went after college, and he's now in the PA. But they pay him a salary and he gets to go to school and learn for free. And is that it? Yeah, and learning on the job. I mean, that's a great win-win for a path to a doctorate.

Oh, absolutely, right. And right, so for, you know, the strong academic, there's opportunities to where you can, you know, become the dentist or doctor or lawyer or different things. And then serve your time as a commissioned officer in the military. You can get involved in ROTC that might pay ahead of time, but you can also, you know, enlist and do other things and use your benefits to pay for college after you've been in the military. And then if they're the real rock stars, if you want to, you can go to the academies. So the academies are free. You got to get appointed by a congressman or senator. Um, for real, they have a shot at going. So there's limited appointments, and then you also have to apply and be accepted. So I don't remember the exact numbers. I think 2,000 or 3,000 can get appointed and only 1,500 will make it or something.

Oh, I did not know that.

Um, and that process starts very early as well, both physical training, physical testing, and all that stuff. And then obviously contacting your congressman ahead of time so that you can get their, their nod, right? Because they can only appoint a couple people, so people in their district, and they're going to vet and try and pick people that belong there.

So, so I know you got to go soon, so in that process, if, if a congressman appoints someone and they go to the school and they do not perform well, is that almost a bad mark on that congressman or on their future appointees, or is it kind of irrelevant? That's just one of these things you have to do as far as the technicalities. You have to just have to go through that route of your local congressman. Right.

I don't know they're worried about the black mark, but they don't want to waste the spot on someone that's not qualified. So they're going to ask to see your grades, and they don't want to recommend someone that as soon as the admissions people see it, go, well, this kid's not even in the running. Why, why would you send this kid here?

No, I get that. But you know, if they just fall apart once they're there, I—

well, I don't think— yeah, I don't think the congressman vets it that closely, to be honest with you. I think they're just going to do a preliminary check and say, well, If you're 100 pounds overweight, you don't belong there, and I shouldn't have recommended you. I wasted my spot because I could have given it to somebody that actually had a shot, right?

So are some congressmen more influential than others, or is it kind of like an equal level of, uh, as long as you are recommended? I bet—

I have no idea for certain. I mean, what goes on behind the scenes, no, it's anybody's guess, in my opinion, of course. But But I think in general, I mean, again, that's how they limit it to not getting a gazillion applications. Sure. You know, they— so again, that's the system they use. And like I said, I think most congressmen or women, you know, want to use the slots they have and they want to give them to qualified candidates. And to be honest with you, I don't know how often or how, how competitive that is. Do they get 25 requests and have to pick 2? Or do they get 3 requests and have to pick 2? I don't know. And it probably varies by where you are and, you know, etc. So who knows?

It's been an interesting discussion. I know you got to go, so we'll go ahead and wrap this up. If you have any final remarks, I'll just go and let you know I'm looking out the window. It's sunny and 75 degrees. I'm in shorts, and I'm probably going to go outside and enjoy the weather. How is it there?

Sure, rub it in. It's gray and we have very little snow on the ground, which then makes winter really depressing. But it is cold. It's the 25-ish and cold and gray and not as bad as I thought it would be though, right? But with all that whole big storm is all to the south of us, so at least we're not dealing with that mess. That's good.

I didn't know there was a storm, right? Uh, so we were up there in November and it was gray and there was no snow on the ground. Uh, it's really gray up there. Yeah, the whole region— Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan. You know, that fall, uh, late fall time of year is when we were up there, and it's not a lot, not a lot of sun peeking through the clouds, right?

Yeah. And then again, that's, you know, late fall, winter. It's pretty nice in the summer. All you Florida people come up here for the summer because it's way too hot in Florida.

You know where it's great? Uh, I don't know if you've been— the Pacific Northwest is a fantastic place to be in the summer. Um, we did that all last summer, like not a single day above 72. It was nice, cool, no bugs, a fantastic summer, not being eaten by alligators. Well, I appreciate coming on. Any closing remarks?

I think that should do it. Again, just get out there and get to work and do something and do it sooner than later.

I bet we can, we can find these resources on tamingthehighcostofcollege.com, right?

And I also have a podcast, and I think that's a great way for, you know, people that are podcast listeners while you're driving the kids to and fro or whatever it is that's going on, you can learn a little bit about college. They probably won't listen, they'll put in their earbuds, but at least you can learn.

That's important. Parents, you know, as always, are the guiding reins, I guess. Uh, well, Brad, I appreciate you. Thank you for coming on, and have a good day.

All right, thank you.

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