Ep 170: Is College Worth It? How to Decrease the Cost of College and Increase the ROI of Your Education! With Kuni Beasley

My first doctorate's in Greek and Hebrew. Nobody's asked me to be their rabbi. My second one's in urban and public administration. Nobody's asked me to be their mayor. Educationally, I'm an abject failure. My success is I managed to get all those degrees, go to college for 22 years and pay for one semester.

Welcome to the Next Level Income show where it's our goal to take your income, your investments and your life to the next level. I'm your host, Chris Larsen. If you haven't yet, get a copy of our book for free at our website, Next Level Income.com. that's www.nextlevelincome.com. just click on the book link and I'll even send you a copy if you put your address in. On today's show, we have Dr. Cooney Beasley. For over 40 years, Dr. Beasley has been helping students reach their college goals. Since 2011, Dr. Beasley, his team have helped students earn over $300 million in scholarships and grants with students admitted to the top institutions in the country to include the Ivy League that we're going to tell you who they are today. The service academies including west point, Annapolis, Navy, etc. Also top tier colleges like MIT, Stanford and Duke. His SAT and ACT prep program has been used in public and private schools in over 20 states. Dr. Beasley was also the dean of the new College preparatory academy of 22 sites across the country, from Springfield, Massachusetts all the way to Palm Springs, California. Dr. Beasley has a BS from Texas Christian University, an MBA from Oklahoma City University, a Doctor of Ministry from Tyndale seminary, and a PhD from the University of Texas at Arlington. He went to college 22 years and get this, he only paid for one semester. We're going to tell you how on today's show. Cooney, welcome to the show.

Greetings, Chris, Great to be here.

Yeah, it's great to talk to you again. I'm really excited because, you know, we're going to be talking today about a topic that I know a lot of people are not only interested in, but there's a lot of people that are confused these days by college. And I'm hoping that this conversation can help shed the light not only on, you know, the, the decision of college and, you know, does it even make sense anymore, which we'll kind of tackle a little bit, but also what resources are out there today and, and I'm excited for you to, to share a little bit about what you do, but perhaps you could also share with the audience a Little bit more about your background and what you've been up to for the past four decades.

Well, let's see. Educationally I've got my bachelor's degree from Texas Christian University recently. That's kind of had a bummer, bummer experience. Losing the national championship game, losing a football game this last weekend, got my master grade from Oklahoma City University. I did that in 50 weeks. Some kind of record that while I was on active duty in the army, went to school at night, doubled I went, I did this with seven other guys all getting ready to leave active service. And so we needed to pack an MBA in there to be more attractive in the civilian world. My first doctorate is in Greek and Hebrew from Tyndale Seminary and then my PhD is from university of Texas at Arlington and Urban and Public Administration. I, I actually did both of those simultaneously. Okay. I started my PhD and then when I got to the dissertation phase, I went to seminary because I got tired of arguing with preachers and pastors. So I did the seminary. I was finishing up my dissertation, finished seminary and then finished up my dissertation. Incredible. Well, and you know, some people go home and watch tv. I went to class.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, always, always learning. And that's, you know, that's what's, that's what's kind of wild about the world today is we didn't have, we didn't have this forum when, when you and I were in college the first time that we have now. And there's so many ways that people can continue their, their education, share a little bit of, you know, so you, you obviously have a very, not not only highly educated background, but also a diverse background, you know, military service as.

Well as I was, I served in Germany. I commanded the artillery unit in Germany. I had 200 troops and 18 Hiroshima sized nukes. I've actually assembled an atomic bomb with my hands.

Oh, wow.

I was very young too. I was 23 years old when I was a commander, so, so I had a lot of responsibility when I was very young. And I was, I stayed in the army for about seven and a half years active duty and the rest was in the reserves. Retired out of the reserves. And I was in charge of officer advanced training while I was station in the States. Developed a lot of training techniques. Actually got a medal for developing a training technique that saved a lot of money. And so I really got into how to develop way train people to do difficult tasks. And ironically, although I got my master's degree in business, I held two civilian corporate jobs and both those Jobs. I was hired in the army not because I had an mba. I was brought in. My first job out was at the Federal Reserve bank where I was brought in as a training specialist. That lasted about a year. I moved up to operate to management systems and then moved to operations analysis. Ended up developing the strategic planning for the Federal Reserve and then went from there. Tex Petroleum developed their international management program, cross cultural learning, things like that. And then I kind of, you have to some at some life you got to pursue your real passion.

Yeah.

And you're not going to believe what my real passion was.

All right, let's hear it.

I believed I could coach high school football.

Oh wow.

So I took an 82 pay cut, went to a private high school and coached. It's my ring, the 1994 3A state championship. Oh, that's first year's coach.

That's awesome.

And so you know that that's really what my passion was. And anyway, through that process I taught at a little private school. And then when I left that private school I was going to go coach again. And things didn't happen for me to coach again. And the parents at the private school wanted me to work specifically with their kids. So I started my own school. I rented a Sunday school room at the first beverage in Duncanville, Texas and started school with seven kids. And next year we had three schools. The next year after that we had 11 schools. And eventually I had 22 schools across the country done 22 college prep academies from Springfield, Massachusetts to Hot Springs, Arkansas to Palm Springs, California, about 600 students. These were boutique schools, smaller schools. We were, we were completely on the Internet long before everybody else adopted it. We ran satellite schools off the Internet. The, the, we didn't have quote unquote instructors or teachers. We had mentors and coaches. We used some advanced program programmed learning and then we started accelerating. We had kids who graduated early, went to college early. I had 19 year olds go to med school and an 18 year old for the California bar acid. Oh, that's a lot of ambitious kids. But then we also worked on the other side. We had kids who had issues, we had kids who had learning disabilities, Tourette's, ADD hd. And we, the program that we had worked for those kids and those kids were able to get into college, get scholarships to college. And then, but about 12 years ago it got to be too big. I mean I spent 182 days on the road in 2010 and I said I got to figure out a way to downsize.

Yeah.

So we down over Three years. We downsized. A lot of those schools split off on their own. And so we began to focus primarily on college prep. That way, you didn't come to my school to get it. You could go to whatever school you wanted to. We began to market it with high school, public school, private school kids, homeschool kids. And that's where we've been so far. We've been working with kids directly to get them to prepare package and position them for college success. And we, yeah, prepare package. That's, that's got our alliteration. We haven't. And so, you know, so what. What we're doing is depending on your ambitions are we can provide a strategy for you to meet those ambitions. If you're looking to go to Ivy Leagues, if you're looking to go to a service academy, you want to go to a high profile school. You want to go. Are you looking for scholarships? And we're batting about 96% full scholarships. Since 2011, we've done over 300 million in college funding. When I say college, I mean stuff you don't have to pay back. These are not loans. And, and we've had kids. It's relatively common that we'll have four or five kids every year that'll get over a million dollars in scholarship offers. The top one we had was three years ago at 1.72 million in Scott or 16 full scholarships.

Wow. That's like a full. That's like a full lifetime earning for a lot of people. That's incredible.

Yeah, yeah. So you. But you know, they don't get to keep all that money. That's just what they're offering.

Yeah.

And they'll take one of the, they'll take one of the offers.

Right, Right.

But it looks really good on your resume. If you say I got over a million dollars in scholarship offers compared to the guy you're competing against who says I got a corporate dollars in loans. So they're gonna, he's gonna job hop until he's gonna pay off those loans. So.

Yeah, it's a resume builder.

Yeah. Big resume builder.

Yeah, I love it. Well, Dr. Beasley, you know, I think one of the first off really enjoyed the first time we, we got on the phone and had a conversation. But I think, you know, the true test of, of whether somebody is capable or an expert in their field is can they do it in multiple different disciplines. And you know, that's what I love you. You're how you can use these techniques across, you know, different classes of people, different ages of People in different industries, you know, from the military, and now we're talking about college. We could, we could go down any one of those paths. But I want to back up a little bit because, you know, when, when, when we went to college, the equation was a little different. You know, I went to school, so I, I started at Virginia Tech in 1996. I wish, I wish I knew you back then. I'm sure my mom. But I had, I had a small pot of money from when my father passed away. Actually, my mother had set aside, so I had a small pot of money. My mom said, hey, this is, this is what she got. And I grew up in Maryland, and what we found was there was a reciprocity program. So I got to do a biomechanical engineering program at Virginia Tech and got in state tuition. I got some academic scholarships, and then I worked for the school. So I was able to get out of school with a, with an MBA as well as my undergrad for less than $25,000, all room, board, and everything. What's the average cost for one year in a public institution today?

30 to 40,000.

30 to 40,000. So you're looking at well over 100,000, potentially even $200,000 for a college education today. I guess my first question is, does it even make sense for most kids to go to college these days?

Well, depends on what to do. Okay, you know, good answer. Steven Jobs didn't need college education. And I do have people who bring that up. Well, he didn't go to college. Okay. Do you have an Apple computer in your garage?

Right.

I said, don't talk to me about that until you got the computer built in the garage. Okay? You're going to have, you know, your Bill Gates. You're going to have those exceptional people who are going to be able to do that. But then Elon Musk has a master's degree in engineering, okay?

So you can't really smart and educate.

And, and then, then you have the guy from, from Dirty Jobs, okay, Mike Rowe, his degrees in philosophy. And so you know, it really. I mean, my, my bachelor. I'll tell you, my bachelor's degree is in criminal justice. I've never busted anybody. I've never written a ticket. I'm moving right now, but normally it's on the wall behind me. Okay. I had my master's in business because I needed to, to be viable in the civilian sector.

Yeah.

And my first doctorate's in Greek and Hebrew. Nobody's asked me to be their rabbi. My second one's in urban and public administration, nobody's asked me to be their mayor. So educationally I'm an abject failure. My success is I managed to get all those degrees, go, go to college for 22 years and pay for one semester.

There you go. That's, I love that. I love that. Yeah. So I guess, and my point in asking that is that, you know, I think, you know, this is one of the things I talk about in our, we have a, a tool for, for parents to help financially educate their kids. The last is to teach your kids the, the true value and cost of college. And it's, and I think just being able to understand, hey, what's the ROI of a specific degree with the options that are out there? And there's two pieces to that equation, right? There's, you know, what, what are the earn, what are the earnings? And you know, can you actually determine, you know, do you have the, the financial noose to determine, you know, what a, what a return on investment is? And then if you can drive that investment down, you know, from your out of pocket costs, then you change that equation drastically when, when you look at different things. So I, you know, one of the, you know, one of the things I know Virginia Tech does is, is they help kids, you know, determine that ROI and figure out, hey, hey, does it make sense? And I think I had had a conversation with a good friend two weeks ago. It was actually the, the day following our first conversation. And his boys were there at the meeting he brought them to and you know, we were talking about his kids. He goes, actually, my, my younger son, he's going to trade school. He's going to learn to go work in the H Vac field. And I said, well, geez, my friend just bought a H Vac business and he's killing it. He said, yeah. He goes, you know, he's going to come out doing very well. Do you help, do you help children? Do you help kids? Parents go through that process of looking at all the options that are out there.

About 20, 20% of my clientele base doesn't go to college. Okay. And my nuclear family, girl, boy, boy, girl, both girls got full scholarships to college. Both boys went in the army.

How about that?

Okay. And so, you know, I mean, I'm working with the kid right now and to figure out whether he wants to go officer path in the Coast Guard or enlist on the Coast Guard and then work on his officer stuff there. And we've got, you know, just it, I mean, if, let's take the, let's Take the numbers. Your, your 30 year old plumber who's been in business 8 to 10 years, makes more than a family practice doctor does.

Impressive. Impressive.

Your forklift operator is going to make even more. Okay.

Really?

Yeah, I've done, you know, what's an.

Average forklift operator make?

Well. Las Vegas, 124,000.

How about that? Wow. Who knew? Who knew? Forklift making six figures. I had no clue.

And it just, there's just, I mean I, I do, I follow the stuff that Mike Rowe does because yeah, I mean he, he offers a scholarship. 1. In fact, I think one of my, well, see, I didn't come to grand Nephews got one of his scholarships to go to trade school. That's, I mean the trades are there. You know, not everybody needs a college degree. Now some people get a college degree because they want one or their job might require it. Now we work a lot of adults who go to school. In fact I just got an application in the day before yesterday. A person wanting to go back to school and get their, get their diploma. We do work with a lot of that. I have, I do a lot of grad school, I do med school, law school. Get them into grad school. So it, you know, it all depends on what your ambitions are. You know, if you're an engineer, you probably need to go to college. If you're going to be a teacher, you need to go to college. But you know, sometimes, you know, college isn't the best thing for you. There's, there's other things you can do. I, you know, tend to tell a lot of people that you may want to do a stint in the military. I mean, I had a kid, it's about two years ago, I wanted to go into aircraft mechanics. And he was talking about how he was going to be able to pay for at a community college. And I said, okay, you're going to have to find a job that's going to pay to cover your head and everything and your rent. And he was married at that time. And then you're gonna have to pay for school. I said, why don't you go into the Air Force? They're going to teach you because that they're, they'll tell you, teach you aircraft mechanics and they're going to pay you and give you a place to live and take care of your wife.

Yeah.

You know, and then a lot of people don't. And plus you're going to have four years of college that you're going to use when you get out or give that to Your kids.

Yeah.

Transferable.

I love that. And I think that's, that's a terrific point that you make, Dr. Beasley, is that, you know, coming into college with a, with you know, just a very, a very narrow view which is, hey, this is what higher education is about. It could take many different things. It could be an apprenticeship like we were just talking about with my friend's son. It could be, it could be college where you get an advanced degree. It could be the military. It could be a combination where I'm sure you must have kids go to like junior college or community, like we call it community college. And I grew up at, you know, junior colleges.

But there's, there's actually a difference between the two.

Well, please enlighten me because I don't.

Want both the umbrella of two year colleges.

Okay, gotcha.

Your community colleges will have transfer stuff to go to a four year college, plus they have a lot of vocational stuff. Okay, gotcha. Whereas your junior college is specifically set up to people to transfer to a senior college.

Gotcha. Gotcha. And that can, I imagine that can seriously decrease the cost.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Four year degree.

Yeah. We call that a two plus two strategy. Yeah. Where you go to. Well, my wife did that, did two plus two. And she transferred to Harvard and she.

Now let me get this straight, if I recall correctly, your wife got, got a full ride to Harvard, is that right?

Full scholarship.

Love it, love it. So there you go.

I, I paid 596 for her first semester at college.

And that's, and that's, that's, that's a three digit number, folks. That's 596. Today's show is sponsored by Money Insights and their investment optimizer strategy. In my book, I share how I use the same strategy starting over a decade ago to invest my money in two places at one time. This strategy has been used by the wealthiest for generations for estate planning, minimizing taxes, preserving wealth and increasing stability for their investments. Now you can do the same thing. In addition, you can build a plan to build an emergency fund, pay for college, fund a business plan for retirement, and ultimately optimize your total financial picture. To find out more information, check us out at the banking link at Next level Income.

I mean there's ways of doing this. And at that time, because I had three people in college at the same time, my college bill was $72,000 a year. So the FAFSA said I should pay for 36 of that and then 30, the other 36 was need based. So we Got grants and stuff for that. Plus Harvard is a very, very generous with financial aid. I mean, right, right now. Well, if you go into Harvard and your adjusted gross income is below 80,000, they'll pay for everything. And that scales up to 150 where they'll cover tuition up to 50, then it's scaled from there on up. Very few people pay full rate at Harvard.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, so we talked about like, is college worth it? There's a lot of different options that are out there that should be considered. You know, the, the, the potential roi. Please walk us through kind of in a nutshell what your, your process looks like at Beasley College Prep.

Well, we start them out in initial interview. We want to find out what the ambitions are. We need to find out, you know, what their finances are, what, what certain things they can qualify for. We want to get the metrics of the student gpa, test scores, class rank, things like that. A lot of people don't realize that 80 to 85% of the colleges in the country will admit you and scholarship you on your metrics alone. I mean, University of Alabama, 3.5 GPA and a 32 ACT. You're going to get $112,000 automatic. Just send your stuff in the application. There's several colleges like that. Okay. And so what we do is, is when we start the ball rolling, those are low hanging fruit. We get them, the kids who, those get some scholarships in their back pocket. They got a half a million dollars of scholarships in their back pocket and they're in a good negotiating position. But you know, we will look at their metrics and then based on that, if they're pretty much qualified, then we tell them this is the range of colleges that you're qualified. Now here's another range of colleges that if you do this more, you're going to be able to take a shot at these. And then if you got the highest one now some, a lot of people will come in and you know, they have ambitions and they'll say, well I want, you know, the student came in, says I want to go to an Ivy League. I go, okay, name them. Which one? She couldn't name them. Oh, Harvard, Yale, couldn't name them. And I said, well, you know, we've got to focus in on the colleges. And then once, see, I have to spend the first two or three sessions deprogramming parents and deprogramming students. Now she ended up going to Georgetown. Okay. Which is good. Yeah. Oh yeah, because you know, because in her mind, she thought, there's Ivy League and then there's Podunk. Okay. And you know, Ivy League. Well, can I pull this on you, Chris?

Yeah, go for it.

Can you name the Ivy League colleges? These are correct answers. These are incorrect.

Oh, boy. Okay, let's hear.

Yeah, I don't want to embarrass you in front of your audience.

Oh, no, no, that's okay. I like, I like to be challenged, so. And I'm not. I'm probably not going to get them, right? So we got Harvard, we got Princeton. Is Cornell Ivy League? Oh, okay. Princeton, Brown. Oh, let's see here. Run a little late in the day. Give me, give me one more second. I gotta. Let's see here. It's another one in. Another one in New Jersey. I'm trying to think of. We just went up that way too, so. All right, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna stop there. Penn State's not in there, is it? Yeah. Okay. There we go. I figured, I guess one more. I'll stop. I'll stop there.

Okay, we're gonna, we're gonna do this. Okay.

Yeah.

Here's your bccd.

BCCD then.

Happy, take out the A.

All right.

Okay. Brown, Cornell, Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Penn, Yale.

Wait, so Penn is.

No, not. You said Penn State.

Oh, it's Penn. University of Pennsylvania. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah.

Okay. All right, so. But then I'm going to ask you, what is the Ivy League?

Yeah, that's. I can't give you a good definition of that. I looked it up when we were up there. I was talking to my son.

But.

Yeah, what's the history behind that?

It's an athletic association. Think it's an exclusive club of good colleges. Well, they've got good colleges there, sure, but it's an athletic association. Okay. When you, when you look at these, you know, top 10, top 20 lists of colleges, you may see two or three or four Ivy Leagues in there, but you're going to see a Chicago, a Stanford, a Berkeley, an mit, a Duke. Those are all good schools that are comparable to the Ivy Leagues. And, but, and you know, having a wife that went to one, I mean, I can understand it, but it's not necessarily a guarantee for success. I mean, there's just. See, I subscribe to more than 12 research sources and I pull in a lot of data and have to use this data to help people make decisions. I mean, for example, what is, what do you think is the. Is the highest paying exit industry? College?

Highest paying exit industry? I would Guess today maybe like software engineering.

Yeah. Never guess it. The maritime industry.

Really?

If you look at the top 20 earning colleges, after 10 years.

Yeah.

You're going to have three Ivy Leagues and four maritime colleges. SUNY Maritime, Massachusetts Maritime, the merchant academy, which is a service academy that doesn't require military service. I had just had a student graduate from there and he started out between 160 and $200,000. Walking out of college, that's that, that is the highest paying exit industry.

And what was he, what was his, what was his job title?

He's going in as a third officer.

Third officer. Okay. Yeah. So he's coming out of maritime industry and he's coming.

Now he can go into the military if he wants to, but he's gonna, he's gonna serve in the merchant marine.

Yeah.

And, and then the, the academies, just like West Point, it's free.

Yeah.

And you get paid while you're there. It's free education. It's like their superintendent says, your education is the gift of the American people. And yeah, you. So again, people don't work with good data. They don't have access to good data. The advising that they're getting, it's not top. Because, I mean, most of your high school counselors right now, they don't have the training. They're not trained in this kind of stuff.

Yeah.

Most of them didn't get scholarship college and most of them are still paying off their student loans.

Yeah.

Okay. So all they know is what they know. And it's not their job to get you into college. It's their job to get you out the door in May. Right. Really?

I like that. Yeah.

And you have to understand the limitations.

You make such a great point. You know, we often talk about, you know, I spent, I spent nearly two decades in the health care space and medical device industry. And you know, the health care industry is really sick care. So it's like, it's, it's, it's broken in a lot of ways. But we have phenomenal surgeons, we have phenomenal, you know, the ability to care for patients. We just, the incentives aren't always aligned properly. The patient incentives, those sorts of things. Same thing in the financial world. And it's no surprise to me and I'm sure most of our listeners, that it's the same thing in the educational world. You know, when you look at that. So it's. I love. Yeah. Data, Data drives, you know, the wrong assumptions mean the wrong answers. Right. So if you got the right data and the right assumptions, then you can make better choices.

Yeah, it's like I say I have to spend some time programming people. Yeah, these people come in that they think the world's flat and they got maps that say the world's flat and satellite photographs. You know, I have a friend who.

Thinks the world's flat. So I have to put you guys together.

Yeah, well, but you know, the thing that protect probably with your audience is you want to be, reduce your out of pocket costs. And I work with a lot of high profile. I mean, I've worked with a Heisman trophy winner, I've worked with NFL and NBA players. I got some really high ticket people to come to me. Just because they have a lot of money doesn't mean they want to give it to a college. I mean, one of the things I tell people, I says, you know, if we get your kid funded for college and you don't take it out of your pocket, and I tell the kid, you know, this means you're getting the imac and the iPad and the summer in Norway and your parents are going to be much more you're giving that money to you than giving it to the college. So you want to reduce that. You want to, you want to find a way that, you know, maybe the kid can earn their way through college. And that's going to mean much, much more when it comes time for them to go out on their own. I mean, employers like students who work their way through college or earn their way through grade, through scholarships. That's important because it means that this person is ambitious.

Absolutely. It's important. And it also illustrates just like, just like your degrees, your military service, your experience, you know, whether it's, whether it's, you know, some people with athletics. I used to love to hire military and former professional or high level athletes because you know that they have experience outside of what they get in the classroom. There's a lot of things that, that illustrate that. So, Dr. Beasley, maybe you could share a couple tips for, for parents that are going through this process. And then I want you to talk about how they can get in touch with your company.

Okay. Number one, start early.

What's early? Like my kid, my older son is 13. Is that too early or is that about right?

No, no, you need to start when you picked out your spouse.

Oh boy. Okay. I think I did an okay job. If you was here, I'd introduce you.

Okay. Now, now what we do is we want to start generally about the sixth grade. Okay. Now we, we, we don't give them college courses in sixth Grade but you start building the portfolio.

Yeah.

The resume, the educational experiences. We want to get to high profile enhancement experiences such as the, the Johns Hopkins center for Talented Youth. Getting getting start to start their volunteer stuff then prime to, to look at national level awards, work on their grades. Now we have a lot of students. We, we have a, a build up program that we work with kids, their vocabulary up, their math up, things like that. And as you begin, as they begin to move through junior high you want them to, to see if they can start taking higher courses. And starting the freshman year we really do hardcore building resume. President's Volunteer Service Award, the Congressional Award, the President's physical. We want to get them national level recognition because school going to stand out. Sophomore year we start the testing process. We have them taking PSA 10 and the PSAT. I mean I had a student who as a sophomore took the PSAT 10. Now in, in PSAT, it's also the National, National Merit Scholarship qualifying test in nmsqt. Okay. A lot of people don't take a lot of emphasis on that. But if you get a National Merit Scholarship, these colleges will descend on you and offer everything. Tuition, fees, room and boards, dancing girls, everything. Okay.

Wow.

They will because they want you. Because you know the University of Oklahoma used to buy sale National Merit Scholars so that the, the president could say the highest percentage of National Merit Scholars choose the University of Oklahoma. Well, because they buy them. Okay. Hey, I got a kid there right now who's on a National Merit Scholarship. They bought him. Okay.

Yeah.

And so, but, but what you're wanting to do is see they also have this thing called national recognition which is for African Americans, Hispanics, indigenous, even people who live in the, in small towns. Okay. I have a girl who got national Hispanic last year under thing as a sophomore and this year as a junior she got national small town. Now we start rattling off. The 22 colleges are going to be a huge scholarship. Alabama number one gives you a full ride plus they'll pick up room and board. Mississippi State University of Mississippi, Kentucky. Okay, you start these because these colleges want to take these recognized students. It adds to their profile. Okay. And, and adds to their diversity quotient. And, but so no, no. Besides nobody trains their people to beat this test so they can get that recognition. Well, we do. Okay, we're done. I've got a whole program that we're doing. And plus the PSA this year is turning digital. So we've had to go through this entire process to get our kids ready for competition. Because I Tell them I said, you know, you're going into competition. Now what is your competition? Are they doing what you're doing or are they doing what you should be doing?

Right.

Got to get them in the competition. So we get this up and then we do a lot of them. Because the only variable you're going to have after sophomore year to really change things is going to be the test score. Now all this stuff about test optional, all this does is, has made the high profile a lot of money because a lot more people are applying and they're paying the application fee. I mean one college, I think they're, their revenue jumped 7 million just from application fees.

Wow.

How about that as well? You got people applying on a wing and a prior they would not normally do that, but they think, well it's test optional. I don't need to test my, send my test scores in, send it in. And so you know your Princeton's, your Harvard's double the applicants. So their acceptance percentage goes down, makes them look just a mathematical trick. And so you have to be aware of that. You know that test scores are important. I mean the college has the common data set. This is where the data from all the colleges go in. And I'm with a company that provides me information on that. If you take the test and your test score is within the middle band of 50% or higher, you have a half again better chance of being admitted than somebody without test score course. So when people say it's not important, no, you got a 50 better chance. But again they want to, oh, I don't have to do the work. Well, yeah. What's that reflect? It's your lack of work ethic, not wanting to try, then colleges don't want you. If you're showing that you have that you're ambitious, you're willing to take the test. They also have a thing called a grit score. G R I T. Oh really?

Wow. We talk about grit all the time.

Yeah, yeah, it's a grit score. Okay, now this is not as now than it was during COVID Okay, now you'll have people who back during COVID who made application, didn't send in their scores. Well, each has what's called a CEB code, College education, you know, CEB code, six digit code. Right now you have somebody that sends this thing in. Now what they'll do is they'll run the code. This is from your, from your school and it'll tell you how many juniors and seniors took the test. Well, if a lot of juniors and seniors took the test and you. It means you got low grit. Okay. People took the test. There was. Now, if there was a low number and they knew it, well, it was probably difficult for them to take the test. So we'll. We'll understand the grit, the grit score. But a lot of people took the test. You didn't send it in. So either A, you blew it off, or B, you got a low test score. So you have a grit index there that people don't realize college is used.

Yeah. They're not dummies. They know. Yeah.

And so there's just, you know, getting the inside pipe on this gives people a great advantage because. Understand how to play the game. And if you understand how to play the game better.

Yeah, yeah. So you start early. You know, the right test, you know, the right schools to go into. What else. What else should people be aware of?

Well, that, that they need to take the test. SAT and act. And you know what's going to get you into college? Your grades. Okay. Your recognition, leadership. And then, then your experiences. Employment, things like that. Your activities. And then your test scores. Now, you know, and there's. There's five areas that you get money for college. Now, we have. We actually use money. M O N E Y.

Now, I know people's. People's ears perked up. All right, Merit.

All right, Merit. Okay. Okay. A lot of people think you. Only minorities and poor people get scholarships. No, merit is pure merit. Okay? Athletic, academic activity, artistic. We have just graduated from UCLA and she was on a theater costuming scholarship. Full scholarship. Ucla.

Interesting.

Yeah. So there are scholarships that are artistic. All kinds of. That's merit. That means you rate something and the college is willing to give you money to come to their college. That's merit money. It doesn't have paid back. Okay, Next you have opportunity money. This means you're working for an employer who's going to give you money. You're getting an ROTC scholarship, by the way. I consider the best scholarship to get because it's portable.

All right?

And colleges will aggressively pursue you because Uncle Sam pays retail. There's. Colleges throw in room and board and all kinds of stuff just because you're bringing an ROTC scholarship to them. Okay, but the things like rotc, work study, or just, you know, what are the, you know, private school. What are the opportunities you're gonna have to do something to get them. Okay? N is need based. Okay? Need based does not mean needy. Need based means there's a difference between what the FAFSA says you should pay and what it actually costs. And that's the need. There's different ways of filling that need. You can get grants and there's all kinds of different ways. So I mean when I had three people in college, we got $36,000 in need based aid and they said I should pay 36,000 also. I assure you I didn't pay that 36,000. Okay. Anyway, so that's need based. Then you have what's called entitlement money. I mean you took advantage of entitlement money. Reciprocity is a form of entitlement money. In, in state tuition is entitlement, but also certain states that if you're deaf or blind or disabled or a foster kid or something, you, you get tuition. You get tuition. Wave GI bill is an entitlement. You, you have other types of, you know, certain grants that you get because you're, you live in a certain state. These are entitlements. And finally is why your own money, Everybody will accept your cash, check or money order. Okay. Yeah, but you want to reduce that and there are ways. I work with parents who say we just want to pay for it. Our kid is not the greatest scholar, but he's a good enough student. We'll pay for it. So we find the least expensive route. So we, you know, I have a, I have a list of what's called the secret hidden colleges. And there are colleges that are in number one. There are colleges that are free and there are colleges that are incredibly low cost and they are good college. Well, give me an example. Institute. It's located on Long Island. Web.

W E B B Web Institute.

Webb Institute, arguably, arguably the most exclusive college in the country.

Wow.

They only take 28 students a year. And if you get in, it's free.

How about that?

Yeah, you double major. Naval architecture and marine engineering. That's it. And they go into the most lucrative industry from their time. Yeah, it was like going, coming from Webb is like coming from West Point in the Army. Okay.

Yeah.

And everybody in the industry knows Webb Institute. And I have two students there. It's hard to get into. They got in. There's for example, hard work. You is a college of the Ozarks. If you go there, it's free. They work you, you work for the college, Barclay College, which is a religious college and it's free. You get in there, they have low cost colleges, Delta State and Mississippi. No out, no out of state tuition. You could go there for about 15,000 a year. Same Minot State, you know, you've got these regional colleges that want to attract people. They, they drop the out of state stuff and they bring these people in and they become low cost.

Yeah. Dr. Beasley, this is.

You've.

You, you've, you've piqued my interest. I know a lot of people out there. I'd love to continue this discussion. Um, and we'll probably have you back on to do exactly that. I, You've, you've also kind of encouraged me because I'm like, oh, geez, I feel like I'm behind the eight ball now. I thought I was getting ahead of it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna reach out to you. How can other people get in touch with your company and, and learn about these tips and figure out how they can take advantage and like we said, affect both ends of that equation so that they can get the best ROI and the best opportunities not only for them, but also for their children and going forward.

Yeah. Well, then check me at my website, Beasley College Prep. You know, BeasleyCollegePrep.com depending on the number of people who, who contact us, we'll give a free initial consult to them. If I get a flurry of 100 people, then we'll do a webinar.

Very good.

But, you know, we'll give some free console and get them started, get them pointed in the right direction and see what we can do to help them out.

Awesome. Dr. Beasley, this has been fun. This has been great. We're going to put that link in the show notes. That's www.beasleycollegeprep.com. if you're listening to the podcast, you can also find it in the show notes. Dr. Beasley, thanks again for your time. Good luck with and look forward to catching up with you again soon.

Thank you, Chris.

Hey, Chris, here again. I hope you found this episode valuable. Now I have one more thing to gift you. We have a page for, for my coaching clients where you can get a free copy of my book as well as much more from previous guests on the show. Just check out nextlevelincome.com coaching to get a free copy of my book, audiobook and much more. I'll send you a copy of my book and cover all the shipping costs as a thank you for listening to the podcast. Also, please like share and take just 90 seconds to give us a rating on Apple podcasts.