College Ready Debt Free Degree

Well, good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for joining. This is Shellee Howard, and I am the founder and owner of College Ready. And tonight I have the opportunity to speak with you about something very important to me, as I'm sure it is to you. So without further ado, feel free to turn off all of the distractions. The phones, the TV, everything, the puppies. Hopefully my puppy behaves. Anyway, I look forward to sharing with you some things that have taken me well over 11 years to master, and I'm going to try to do that in a brief hour. So if I don't get through all of it tonight, feel free to reach out and— so if you have any questions, feel free to put them in the chat and I will check and hopefully answer them before we get off the call. So as we look at college and the state of college and the current situation, I want to be mindful too— I know everybody has a lot of questions regarding testing, test optional, um, things that are really important to you. So I am happy to offer a free strategy session. That's a whole nother topic. Today I want to dive into college debt and more importantly, return on investment. So as you think about return on investment, you're like, is that even possible for college? Absolutely it is. So I want to go ahead and get started. I have a lot of exciting stuff to share with you. And I look forward to doing that. So here we go. All right. You are in the right place if you would like to learn how to send your student to college without going into debt. So if any of you would rather, you know, go a different route, I'm not going to talk about loans. Not a big believer in them. But I do know people who can help you in that area. All right, today's agenda: how to avoid becoming overwhelmed with the application process, what you and your student need to do so your student qualifies for financial aid, how your student can find and earn the best scholarships. Yes, I am going to talk about scholarships.

There are good, bad, and ugly ones.

So let's go ahead and do that. If you stay to the end, I will be sharing how you can get a best-selling book that I wrote, How to Send Your Student to College Without Losing Your Mind or Your Money, because ultimately that would be success. This is about your student's future. Please, please try to get rid of any distractions. Stay focused. I'm going to go really fast and every slide is going to be important.

So first, who am I?

I want to share why I am the person to listen to. So I pressed the wrong button. Sorry. So as you think about college and debt, I want you to think about my story. So here are my two oldest children. And this is at my son's graduation from Harvard. We were there celebrating him. He got through Harvard in 4 years completely debt-free. And it is possible because I used that money that I had set aside for some things that were a lot more fun to pay for. My daughter next to him, she will be graduating debt-free from nursing school this semester. So these two obviously are proven success, but also I have two more. I have a son who is a senior in high school and a daughter who is a junior in high school. I feel your pain. I absolutely understand what these kids are going through, and it is so overwhelming for them. So I have, um, gone back to school, and I have my master's degree now. I've been college consulting for a little over 11 years, This year alone, we got our students $2.5 million in free money. So if that sounds exciting, let's go ahead and get started.

All right.

Imagine what it would be like to see your student graduate from college knowing they're completely debt-free. To rest easy knowing you and your student are prepared for the application process ahead of you. See your student earn scholarships regardless of how much money you make.

I can't tell you how many people say it's not possible.

And I'm here to tell you, absolutely it is possible. Let's dig in. So secret number 1, here we go. Overcoming the overwhelm. This is on top of mind for my seniors for sure. But everybody's feeling it a little bit right now. So here are some strategies I recommend putting in place immediately. First, planning is the key. We start working with our students as young as 8th grade, and we work with them all the way through master's, PhD, and everything in between. We work with transfer students, we work with students whenever they find us. Why is this important? Having a plan is the only way You can go debt-free. Very, very, very rare for a student to not get into financial trouble. Um, it's, it's really a challenge to expect a 17-year-old to do this on their own. Remember, the FAFSA and the CSS Profile has a strategy. It is very important you know this strategy to get the money you deserve. Scholarships are an option, but be very careful. You need a strategy in order to have time well spent. Tracking the completion of important documents is critical. If you miss an email, if you miss something in the mail— they do still use snail mail— there's no going back. There's no You know, can I have another day? So really, these are the very beginning of doing return on investment. So who needs to complete the FAFSA? Very simply, everyone. More than $185 billion in aid is available. What does the FAFSA do for you? It gives your student the opportunity to have work-study. Perkins Loans, which are better loans, state grants, state loans, grants at most colleges, and scholarships. So if you want any kind of free money, you must complete the FAFSA. So important. What is the FAFSA? Sounds like a scary kind of acronym that could lead to many different things. So let me dig into that. The application used for the federal student aid programs offered by the U.S. Department of Education. The FAFSA is federal student aid that covers many expenses. Most people don't realize that it covers tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, transportation, computer, and dependent care. The FAFSA will determine eligibility for state, school, and private aid, as well as many scholarships. Completing and submitting the FAFSA is free. So why all— why is this so critical? Well, if you don't understand it, you're fearful of it. If you're fearful of it, you don't want to do it. So because I want you to do it, it's really important that you understand why. So as we go a little bit deeper into the FAFSA, think of this. Here's some more information. The FAFSA determines the amount you or your family will be expected to contribute to college, your expected family contribution. I'll get into this in a bit. The FAFSA is managed by the Office of Federal State Aid, part of the Department of Higher Education. All federal grant and loan awards are determined by the FAFSA. Anyone who fills out the FAFSA will at least be considered for a Pell Grant. Again, you don't complete the FAFSA, don't expect money. What does this mean for your family planning and savings? Family finances will matter beginning in the sophomore year of high school. The base year is the second half of 10th grade and the first half of 11th grade. If you are past that, I'm sorry, but there's still hope. There are some other strategies you can use. So for ultimate strategy, just know, get your financial house in order by then. Secret number 2, graduating debt-free. I call this the American dream because who wouldn't want to graduate debt-free? When seeking financial knowledge, first look at your expected family contribution. I know this seems so intuitive, but I can't tell you how many seniors have called me this week and say, I'm prepared, but I, I just need essays. And then I'll ask them, have you considered what schools you want? Do you know what your return on investment will be?

And they're like, what?

Huh? I don't understand any of that. Know before you apply. The scary thing is let your student apply and then figure out your finances later. To use your retirement is not a college plan. What is the EFC calculator? This tool will estimate how much your student's family will be expected to contribute For school that year, it is on every college financial page on their website, everyone. It's mandated by the government. So if you want to know how much brought— how much money you're going to have to pay at the college of your child's dream, uh, I would recommend going and completing the EFC calculator. You don't have to give anybody any private information, and it's completely out there for you to know before you apply. What you will need to complete your expected family contribution: date of birth for parents and student, income for current year, complete 1040 and last year's tax returns, recent statements from any and all investment accounts, current statements for any permanent cash value life insurance, copy of pay stub and last year's W-2, child support if you have any, home equity current value and name that loan and title is held under, other real estate equity if any, business equity, and trust equity. Guess what? They want to know everything.

And if you think this is bad, wait until you see the CSS profile.

So how is the EFC calculated on the FAFSA? First, 22% to 47% of the parent's income plus 5.64% of the parent's assets plus 50% of the student's income over $6,420 plus 20% of student's assets. This is why the majority of students will not receive need-based aid. Please remember, this is not the only reason to complete the FAFSA.

Please remember, that's the—

not the only reason to complete the FAFSA. You will need to consider all of these options to have a debt-free degree. Plan a strategy. Do not go about this and hope. You cannot just wait and see if you want free. Pick the best college for your student. Having a good plan, reach comfort and safety schools with a strategy on negotiation, very critical to free. Academic strategy, how will your student stand out? A testing strategy, very critical this year in the wake of all of the test optional Tess Blynd. Passion service projects. I cannot wait to share with you two of my seniors this year who will be sharing how they launched their passion project. Extracurricular and leadership. You cannot just do one or two. Free is not easy, but it is possible. So without further ado, I'm going to first explain, um, who I'm going to share the screen with. And so I want to welcome two of my students. If Grace and Janann could please— there they are. I would like to introduce Grace and Janann. They are two of our high school seniors, and they have done a phenomenal job at doing the passion project. So welcome, ladies. Can you please Share with us a little bit about what you've been up to.

Yes, thank you. So as you said, my name is Janan, and I'm a senior at University High School.

And I'm Grace. I'm a senior at Woodbridge High School. So we are both the co-founders of Aspire to Inspire. And that basically has 3 main parts to it as a part of the passion project. So the first part is the resource platform for many different areas. One of them is high school, college, and career, um, guiding students to be able to take the most out of high school and then prepare for their careers. And we also have information on there about accessing the news and lifestyle and basic things that students would need to know as they're going through high school and later in life. The second part of our project is the We Care Project, and this is specifically working with disadvantaged students. So we are partnered with 2 organizations. The first is Thomas House, and they support families facing financial difficulties by giving them a temporary housing shelter. And so we worked with the students there over the summer and still keeping in contact with just giving them activities, talking to them about what's going on in their life, stuff like that. And then the other organization is Stand Up for Kids, and it's a group of foster kids. And we basically put on game nights for 4 times a week of just fun games over Zoom and really helping keep the kids engaged during the COVID season. And the third project, which part of it that we're talking about tonight, is the Virtual Homework Help. So this is what we are just launching, and it is a tutoring platform where students will donate a portion of their income to Thomas House. We are also going to be providing academic mentoring, and we'll explain a little bit more on it as we go along.

Excellent. Well, thank you ladies for coming, and I just want to ask you a few more questions because I know a lot of people out there are like, how is it possible to do any community service while social distancing? So, you know, as you share this, please also let others know how they can gain access. So let's start with why should students choose you rather than other tutoring organizations?

Okay, so all of our tutors are very qualified. They've been through an interview process, and we've ensured that if they're going to teach any more advanced courses that they've received an A in that course. And so additionally, other than proving themselves academically, all of our tutors care because Everyone will be donating at least 20% of their income to Thomas House, and many students are— many of our tutors are choosing to donate 100% of their income, and that would mean that rather than like a job, it would count as community service hours for them, and they're giving more donations to Thomas House.

I love that.

That is so sweet. Sorry to interrupt.

As Grace said, we're also doing mentoring. So a lot of our tutors come from the IUSD school district. We have some others that come from different school districts, but so they've taken rigorous courses in different school districts. And so if there is a student that's looking for mentoring in a specific school with a specific course or whatever it is, like if it's a middle schooler who's going to high school next year and just want some advice, We offer free mentoring sessions that is very accessible. But so yes, that's excellent.

Alright, so what about if somebody wanted to be a tutor?

How would they join you guys?

So as Janan mentioned, there are opportunities for tutors to either do this as community service or as like a way to build up money before you go to college. So when you sign up with us, we are able to to connect with you. And as long as you're giving a minimum of $5 per session towards Thomas House, then you can choose how you want to have this on your resume. Do you want it to be a community service activity where you're donating all of your money, helping us reach towards our goal faster? Or do you want it more as a way to make some money? So if anyone wants to sign up, we are offering free 30-minute sessions for your first session. So you can try it out. You can reach out to a tutor directly. The best way to get involved would be to go to our website there, aspire2inspire.info, and we have a section that's labeled specifically for the virtual homework help. And you can either email a tutor directly or you can go to the bottom and there's a form where you can sign up either to be a tutor or to have— if you have a student who wants to be tutored. And then we are also trying to raise money for Thomas House since that is a main portion of this. And so if you would like to help our cause directly, we We have set up a GoFundMe and all of that money will be going to Thomas House directly.

Wow, I am inspired, you guys. Well done. So for everybody on here, if you can just briefly tell us what you learned from creating this passion project.

Sure. Well, I think for me personally, it was a great experience because I was able to work with my peers and reach out to new people. But also I learned that many people are willing to help and that when we have a common goal— so like our goal is to raise $500— and I was— it was amazing to be able to work with people my own age and create something so that we could reach this goal. And it was great to see different people like playing their own strengths to create something, create one play into one project. So that was really amazing for me.

Awesome.

Grace?

I think for me it was a lot of adaptability because we initially started this as just the online platform, and then we realized that we could be reaching out to so many other people, and that's how it kind of branched out into all of these different projects. And I think as Janelle was saying, having people come in and just seeing how excited they are to help as well, whether it's just online through Zoom or online tutoring, or if it's actually going in person in safely doing things with students. It's been really amazing to be able to adapt to the situation and still being able to help this situation that really needs help at this moment.

Excellent. Well, thank you, ladies. I am so excited, um, what you're doing and look forward to supporting your cause. All right, brief intermission. We're back into the FAFSA and College Ready Debt Free. So where do you find scholarships? I get this question all the time. There are 3 types of scholarships. College-given scholarships awarded by the colleges, colleges themselves. Yes, this is the biggest scholarship, hands down. Private scholarships offered by a business, organization, or foundation can be merit-based, need-based, or both. Also athletic scholarships for student athletes. If you have a scholar athlete, I suggest they memorize the NCAA rules and follow them. Wow, can they get in trouble if they get money from the wrong person. Scholarships and financial aid offers can be merit-based, need-based, or both. You can double dip. A lot of people ask me, how did your son not only get into 7 Ivy League schools, but how did he go to Harvard for free? I don't want to get into the thick of it, but he used all of these strategies. There's not one better than another, but the big money comes from the colleges and picking the right match college. So what all aid formulas care about— child assets, taxable investments, trusts, and college accounts. So we're going to get into a little bit of the thickness, but I'm going to kind of blow through this because it's pretty detailed. So parent assets are assessed at 5%. The teenager or child assets assessed more harshly for financial aid. The CSS Profile 25%, ouch, and the FAFSA 20%. It's best not to have money in the child's name if you have a chance for need-based financial aid. If you don't, there's another strategy. Students' income— the FAFSA formula will look at— students can shield up to $6,400 in income. This is pretty cool to know, right? The CSS Profile assumes the child will contribute $1,900 to $2,020, um, is very common. So just know those numbers are going to be important. They may adjust this year. Remember that the FAFSA, um, for the upcoming year opens October 1st. What about grandparent assets? I get this question all the time. To avoid jeopardizing need-based aid, grandparents should help with college costs after the second-to-last financial aid forms are filed. Grandparents can transfer 529 account ownership to par— to parents, and grandparents can contribute to a 529 set up by parents. What are the biggest influencers of financial aid? Income from tax return, parent non-retirement assets, number of children in college, and children's assets and income. Here's some strategies. If you have somebody who's a sophomore or younger, one, you can move assets out of their name. Two, help family interested in helping save for college understand the best options. Three, if divorced families, be mindful of the 51% rule. Four, avoid selling a house during the base year. And 5, avoid home equity loans. Ways to maximize financial aid: pick the right college, a strong GPA, test scores— yes, they're still important for scholarships— try avoiding extra increases in income starting in the base year, capital gains treated as income in the base year, be strategic when filling out financial aid forms. Spend child's money first, apply for aid early, always ask if a financial aid form is required to qualify for merit scholarships. Having two children in college at once will reduce a household expected family contribution and boost financial aid chances. I know that doesn't sound to make up for it, but it is helpful. All right, so here's some secrets for winning scholarships. Earning scholarships takes hard work. Your students should track deadlines, write thoughtful essays, and follow through. Second, passion equals scholarships. Those two seniors I just shared with you, they are passionate, and their essays are going to be mind-blowing, right? So extracurricular activities can indicate areas of passion— community service, and leadership— very critical to winning scholarships. Consider your background. Scholarships for students of a particular ethnic or racial background, military families, first college student families, involvement in volunteer organizations or Greek societies. Follow scholarship directions carefully. Deadline, use a spreadsheet, and directly answer the essay questions. If there is no essay, the scholarship is not good. Don't waste your time. Where to find good scholarships. See, I'm here just to give you all this information. First, most full-ride scholarships come from the college in merit or athletic awards. If you're not sure what colleges to apply to, please call me. Don't let your 17 or 18-year-old just pick based on what their friends are doing or a good sports team. I mean, you would never let your students buy you a home, right, without being involved. This is the same cost of many people's homes. So I wouldn't even let my kid go to the car lot and buy a car without me being involved. Please, please be involved. Second, take advantage of private scholarships after you focus and complete your applications. If you don't get in, the scholarship is not going to be helpful. Here are a few other places to look. College Ready Students, we also offer some in-house scholarships as well. We're always happy to share. Knowledge equals debt-free. Let's see how many college admission secrets you know. All right, on a piece of paper, cell phone notes, whatever, we're going to just do a little bit of a fun quiz here. For every yes, give yourself a point. Do you know which test your— which test your student should take? The PSAT, the PACT, the SAT, the ACT, the IB, The SAT II. When should they take these tests and how many times?

Okay.

Second, did your student start test prep? What's their plan? When should they start and who should they trust? Is your child taking dual enrollment or college classes?

How many?

Do you know what qualities your student is looking for in a university? Has your student done 200+ service hours and what kind of service is most important to colleges? Does your student have leadership positions in 5 things? Is all leadership considered the same? Does your student know the NCAA rules and what it takes to become a college athlete? How can they get a scholarship? Do you know your student's top 3 majors and which colleges are best suited for them? Does your student have internship experience? Do they know how to get an internship? Knowledge is important. Just a few more, hang in there. Do you know that your student's GPA will earn them a merit scholarship? Do you know how to put them on track to earn one? Do you know how to negotiate a better financial offer? Do you know if your student will be a National Merit Scholar? Do you know who the best people to ask for letters of recommendation are? Do you know what it takes to keep your student organized and focused? Promise, last slide. I hope you guys are keeping track. Do you know that official transcripts can be wrong? Do you know all the questions your student will be asked on every college application and how to answer them? Do you know what your expected family contribution is? Do you know how to calculate it? Do you know when and how to complete the FAFSA? Do you know what a superscore is and how to use it? Do you know what your student's test scores mean for colleges? And how you can access them. So here's a few more, but I promise that was the last slide. Please tally your numbers and we will put them in the chat box. I will then be sending a nice little gift to the person who got the most right.

All right.

So what was your score? All right, let's get into factors that affect the financial aid. Documents such as the FAFSA and the CSS Profile, your family's finances and plan, test scores, GPA, and leadership—

these are all factored in.

Your student's financial aid could be compromised if any piece of the puzzle is missing. Can you afford to leave all this up to your student? Please don't do it. The admissions process is extremely complicated. About 1 in 3 students gets help. If your student doesn't, they're going to be at a deficit for those who are getting this knowledge. Parental support is important, but you can't do everything. You don't want to sacrifice hundreds of hours of your free time for months or years. And even then, you cannot be sure you've got the full picture correct. So even after all of that work, you may have left thousands of dollars on the table. But your child only gets one chance to qualify for scholarships as an incoming freshman. I realize that this is high-stakes scenario, and it puts parents in an impossible situation. And I knew I had to do something. I really, really knew this was going to be a problem for a lot of families.

So what I did is I created College Ready Debt Free.

And what it is, is it's a complete online system that walks you through the financial pieces of college planning. It took me years to put all of this information together just for you that you and your student could work on together. So that you know when your student graduates from college, they can be completely debt-free. And today I wanted to give you a chance to access College Ready Debt Free. So College Ready Debt Free shows you how to decrease the cost of college so your student can get the education he or she deserves and graduate without debt, how and when to complete the FAFSA and CSS Profile so your student can qualify for merit and need-based aid, How to determine college affordability so you can make informed decisions about your student's future. Based on years of college consulting, I know that this information can save you thousands of dollars. Like I mentioned, over $2 million for this graduating class of 20 students, which is why College Ready is valued at $599 I want to make sure you have absolutely everything you need to make sure your student graduates debt-free, which is why as a bonus I'm going to include the high school and college resume template. I don't know if you know this, but your student needs a resume in order to give to their letters of recommendation, and some of the ones that I've seen are a bit, um, they have a little bit, to be desired. So bonus number 1 is a high school resume to get better and faster teacher recommendations. So that, that would be a value of $658. Then I want to give you the FAFSA Helper. What does the FAFSA consider and what doesn't it consider? Super important. Again, just wanted to give it to you. Bonus 3: list of 198 CSS, CSS Profile colleges. Make an informed decision about applying to these schools. CSS Profile colleges get really deep into your finances. Bet you didn't know that. Definitely want you to understand it. Bonus number 4: scholarship and aid comparison guide. Understand where the real financial aid money is coming from. So again, I want to give you more. Bonus number 5: Academic Strategy Template. Plan for and complete the major college prep milestones.

More to give.

If all this did was walk you through everything you needed to qualify for scholarships and financial aid, would it be worth it? Earn your student thousands of dollars in scholarships and keep you and your student out of debt. Would it be worth it? Save you hundreds and hundreds of hours and headaches researching financial aid and scholarship requirements for your student. Would that be worth it? You can see why this is an amazing deal. But because I want College Ready Debt Free to benefit as many motivated students and families as possible, For webinar participants only, I'm going to grant unlimited access now for just $297.

It's a one-time payment, but you get all of that.

It comes with a 30-day money-back college-ready guarantee. If this is something that you would like to do, I'm offering this for 4 days. So Right now registration opens. The FAFSA opens October 1st, so there is no more time to waste. Just imagine what it will be like to read your student's award letters for thousands of dollars in financial aid. I really want this for you and your family, to have complete peace of mind knowing you and your student are prepared for the application process ahead. But don't just take my word for it. I have hundreds of students who've gone through this program and have received thousands and thousands of dollars. Every student has this opportunity regardless of what their parents do and do not make. I'm not sure you can see by now how amazing and valuable this offer is. So here's how you can get access. You can either comment in the chat box yes, and I will contact you to set up and give you all your free gifts, or you can go to our website at college-ready-plan.com and sign up for a free strategy session. If you care about return on investment, and college is an investment, I want to tell you how that can happen for your student. So the disclaimer is this is about you and your child. At College Ready, our mission is to help students get into their best fit colleges with thousands of dollars of scholarships and grants, debt-free.

Remember, how does this apply to you?

Are you looking for a financial fit, which is free money, an academic fit, which is matched rigor, or a social fit, happy student, happy parents? All of these are important.

Can you have them all?

Yes.

Is it easy?

No.

The question is, do you want to get on board and make sure your student graduates debt-free? So you can see today for $297, you will get a total value of over $1,000 worth of information. Remember, you don't get a second chance. This is all about you and your child. As promised, I will be sharing how you can get a free copy of my book. Please email my executive assistant, Michelle, at college-ready-plan.com and say free book in the subject line, and you will get it. So thank you very, very much. I really appreciate you being on the call. And I look forward to helping you and your student get through this debt-free. Have a wonderful day.