Okay, so we did the overview. Now we want to jump in and actually go through the facts component here. So, facts is, you know, most of the things we're going to have from clients. Again, the College Money Report will pre-populate some things, so you'll have those in there. But you're going to want to, again, trust but verify. And you'll see, you know, the EFCs are automatically calculated. I've put in some information for the project family, College Affordability Project family. So, we've got that in there, as we talked about, kind of in the general overview. You can either have folks gather the documents, you know, on the checklist, if you can have them however you securely want them to load them for you. But also, there is an invitation if you want to invite them to discover your onboarding. And again, we've got some templates out there, how to invite people, help make sure that they show up prepared. So, in the facts tab, like I said, all the things you kind of expect, the parent bios, we're going to collect information, the email will probably already be populated, phone number will be populated. But birth year, what's their filing status for taxes, do they have a Schedule 1? And then household size is an important one to make sure we do have accurate. It does drive certain components of the EFC calculations. So, making sure we have the tax filing status, if both parents are, you know, what drives the location is the zip code. So, we want to make sure that the zip code is accurate. That drives for in-state, out-of-state tuition, those types of things. And also, within the system, as we'll see with schools, there are a number of what they call tuition reciprocity programs, where even down to the county level, but a lot of times it's state by state, where if you live in, you know, the state of Oregon, you can get discounted tuition rates in the state of Washington. So, those things are actually built into the system. So, again, you know, you don't have to know all those. The system will accurately tell you if there's a discount given based on a regional program. So, but that is what drives everything. And then, obviously, the country there. And while we're on that, we do have a number of the top schools that are in Canada to become a more and more popular alternative, because it is a more affordable education. So, for those of you, particularly in the northeast and up towards the Canadian border, just know that some of those schools may come up, and they are in the system. So, the next piece is income. So, income is obviously the largest driver of our EFCs. So, again, the tables are in there. You just need to make sure that these are in there accurately. Earnings, you do want to make sure that if both spouses work, you want to make sure you put the income in both, because it does give, that does impact the EFC. They give you about a little bit less EFC if you both work. So, that's an important element. So, kind of make sure things are in there as accurately as possible, because there's these little nooks and crannies of the formulas that you may not know that we've programmed in the back end. So, the AGI is what's going to drive a lot of the pieces of the puzzle. So, you know, we look at earnings, but AGI is a lot of times the big one. And you can see at this AGI level, you know, we're starting to see the EFCs. So, just to kind of show you kind of how quickly this, you know, is pretty instantaneous. So, it's going to recalculate based on income. You'll see, you know, if, you know, whenever we put something in, but I'm going to stick with kind of this 70,000 level, because I think this, you know, hopefully kind of representative. And we're going to limit EFCs up to 12,000 and below is what we're targeting to serve the underserved. So, I think if we, yeah, so you see how fast the EFCs based on the AGIs go up very quickly, because it goes from 22% at the lowest level up to 47 cents of every dollar. So, and the protection allowance is there for families. So, it's going to basically give you some income protection, and then it starts to clock. You know, for most families, that's somewhere around 25 to 30,000 of income protection. And then that clock starts. So, you can see just how quickly, you know, that really makes an impact. So, once you get over a certain level, it starts to take off. You know, the more you make, the more they take. So, that's kind of the idea. So, again, backing down to, you know, to our level where we want to be is kind of around the 70,000 household income. So, you know, having around 5,000 EFC just from the assets. And then we'll also, if there is any untaxed income, monies into retirement plans, you do want to put those in here. That can impact things. I just didn't put in enough to have it move the needle. But if you do, again, as accurate as possible. So, you'll see how it's kind of altering some of these up here. If you do put in retirement plan contributions. One of the things with the new FASFA rules is that contributions to retirement plans, which we kind of covered in the prior session, those pre-tax retirement plan contributions will benefit you. It will reduce your EFC. So, they're not, there's no add back anymore, which is really nice for families. So, again, making sure there's, if there's anything in here that qualifies under these, even under additional information, if there's credits, child support paid, if there's taxable college aid. So, if somebody does have, and they'll know if they have had taxable aid that's come through in the form of a scholarship or grant. So, make sure you put in those as accurate as possible. And that'll make sure you're giving as accurate as possible on what the projections are. So, garbage in, garbage out. So, next piece is on assets. So, you'll see also, like on every tab that we have in here, including on the income, there's always these notes to the side. So, it's going to say, you know, where are we pulling this information from? So, hopefully, we're able to have a tax return, and then we're able to have, you know, so we can read right off it, and W-2s are helpful. Getting close is good, but, you know, if we, the more accurate we can be, the better. So, again, every note, there's a line for it, and it's going to help guide you through the process, and if they go through a self-onboarding, these same prompts are there. So, you know, they're going to have the same prompts up here. What do we mean by pre-tax contributions? How do we know which ones? So, all the codes, all that stuff's all in there for us, and so, again, back over to the assets side. This is where people oftentimes make mistakes, so incorrectly reporting things is a thing. It is a challenge, so when we have each box, we try to give, again, good notes here. So, we try to separate these, so if you're working with a family, it doesn't matter on the assets if it all goes into one bucket, that's probably how they've thought about things, but if they do have them broken out, make sure that they don't double count. Make sure it's just, these are everything the family has. That's the important part of the, of this process. Make sure we're gathering everything the family has. So, this would just be cash, savings, and checking, right? So, and then net worth of investments, so you can see, like, in this particular case, you know, if I put in a million dollars, it's obviously going to jump this up, right? So, it's going to automatically calculate those, so I'm just going to say they have, you know, around 10,000, and then the key there is it's all listed out here. So, 529s, again, just to reiterate, it's all the 529s they might own for all of their children. Any non-qualified stuff and retirement stuff is pretty much all off the table. So, that's kind of the piece there, and then when we look at home equity, I put in 100,000, so, again, just to demonstrate what we're talking about here, if we jump these up, it's going to change parts of the calculation for these institutional schools, but not necessarily the others. So, you can see how the home equities can be dependent, but the federal EFC is not affected at all by home equity. We've talked about it before, but when families are looking at, particularly at private schools that may be assessing home equity, the College Aid Pro has, as up-to-date as we can, what the assessment rates are on home equity from different schools. Most all of the consensus schools have now gone to not assessing it, but the institutional schools, it's still school by school. So, having an accurate number, not overstating home equity, again, this is, we want to look as poor as possible, so, you know, having that home equity number be accurate, you know, you can go to the housing index multiplier is one way to go find what a value might be. Zillow is going to overstate things, especially in the environment we're in. The state auditor's website, say, what's your tax, what are you being taxed on? That's been defensible. So, you know, I think those are typically much less than you might find on a valuation on Zillow. So, just, again, don't overstate. Now, obviously, you know, the flipping over the net worth of other real estate, that's just equity and that other real estate, but the net worth of the business and farm, going forward, it'll be the first year with the FASTA Simplification Act that they will ask for a value of a business and even of a farm. So, we'll walk through, there's actually a chart that shows how they're going to assess that, because it's kind of a sliding scale, depending on the value of that business, how much of it is assessed. So, it's not necessarily 100% of the small business or the farm. It's going to be on a sliding scale, starting at 40% of that asset being assessed and then going up from there. So, but again, the Project Pros will be smart enough, once those new formulas take effect, we'll have all those baked into the system for us. So, it'll be an accurate description. We do ask this, obviously, over 100 employees, because up till now, if your business was not assessed, if you didn't have, if you had less than 100 employees, going forward, it's going to be assessed regardless. We do ask for non-qualified annuities and retirement programs. It's part of the system because to get kind of a full view, and we can talk through, you know, some of the components of IRAs where you can access them without penalty for use for education, but you want to be cautious because it can cause taxable income. That gets reported, obviously, when you take money out of those retirement programs and pay the taxes on them, they count as income. So, the future year, you want to be cautious to taking money out of those plans because it's going to count. And again, it's always prior, prior tax year. So, whatever you took out, let's say in 2022, that might affect your 24, 25, and on down the line, right? So, because we're looking at that prior, prior tax year. So, if you did take money out, it's there. You know, we're talking about the asset component now, but just to kind of, you know, again, kind of those are some of the things people say, well, can I access my IRA? I'm like, yes, you can, but careful. So, that's why we do ask, what do you have there? But you'll see, like, even if we put in, you know, a million bucks, it's not going to change what they think we can afford at any of these schools. So, it's just there as a way to gather the information. And as you're trying to figure out what's the budget, some people have put money into Roth IRAs with the expectation some of that may be for funding education, right? So, again, hopefully, it's helpful just, you know, to walk through the parent assets. And again, it's everything they own, and that's what's going to produce these EFCs. You can see kind of the fast calculations that are able to be done. And then the next piece is student bio. So, student bio obviously is an important element, getting as much and as detailed as we can. If they don't have everything, that's okay. But, you know, if we go through understanding what the GPA is, we can talk through, some schools have gone to what they call test optional. Other schools have gone to what's test blind, meaning that they're not requiring test scores. They're not having people submit them. So, schools now, they will award their merit scholarships just based on GPAs. So, and then for a number of schools, though, the standardized test is still important for admissions as well as for scholarship consideration. And we'll go through that in the how to find schools the most generous financial aid. And when we go through the schools tab, but the more accurate we can get, if people don't have a test score, you know, we have the unweighted GPA and the weighted GPA. And if they don't have a test score yet, what I would suggest is actually say, are they typically a good test taker? Do they have a PSAT? Are they typically, you know, in the top 25% of standardized tests? So, you know, just kind of to simulate because otherwise some scholarships may not be offered. So, that's what drives that. And just kind of high level, when we look at the school profiles, schools that have scholarships, not all of them do, which will illuminate, schools that have scholarships to have the highest probability of getting the most money, you're going to want to be in the top 25% of their incoming class. So, we know what the incoming class of last year was reported. We know the middle 50%. We'll go through that in school profiles, but that becomes an important element. And at some schools, you know, when we talk about, you'll see in some of the videos, getting one point better on standardized tests can mean thousands of dollars per year in additional scholarship money, especially at schools that are trying to recruit and get students that will raise their profile. So, class rank, it isn't as important as it used to be. Kind of the things that really are important are weighted GPA and GPA. And the way that those work, really the enrollment managers and the folks in admissions, they know every class available at your high school. So, it goes through this, you know, machine that says, hey, we need to try and levelize because some schools offer all the AP programs. Some don't. Some have what they call international baccalaureate programs. So, you know, every school may be a little different. They know what's available. They know how, the level of difficulty you took. So, that's really the key. So, but, you know, they'll know those answers, particularly high performers are going to know those things. National merit, this is one that if they are national merit, certain schools incentivize that with $1,000 to up to $5,000 scholarship just for being national merit. So, you know, if that's an element, go ahead and plug it in. And CollegeApro is smart enough to know if the school offers it and you qualify, it'll be added to your package. So, obviously graduated class is important. The high school name doesn't really drive much, but you will have that. But the major is important because as you'll see, when we get down to getting through comparing what the outcomes are, we have major specific and school specific outcomes based on their one, five, and 10 years salaries. So, you know, getting a major in there is important. Undecided is just kind of going to leave that element that won't be considered. And then also when we start to look at advanced search functions, if the school has the major, we know that. You'll see there's not every single major in the world in here. You know, most schools, schools like big major universities like, you know, Penn State, my alma mater, go Lions, you've heard me say that a lot. But, you know, schools like that, they have up to 150 plus majors. So, you know, we don't have all those represented here, but you should be able to find something that kind of fits in, at least at a high level, if they're doing something highly specialized within that major. So computer sciences for this student is going to drive things. And then you'll see siblings here. And if they've got more, you just keep plugging them in and more siblings will keep popping up. So, you know, the important thing is if they have a graduating class, you know, I'm going to say this one's a ways out. So, you know, there's no overlap. We've talked about, you know, that the federal schools aren't going to give you a discount for having multiple kids in school anymore. So, but these schools very well may. So, you know, if that's the case, it will be, you know, in the projections. So that, you know, that's the student bio, obviously an important element for potential for scholarships. We don't do admissions indications. I always say, you know, let's stay in our lane here. You will get questions about, you know, admissions, but we'll show you when we go through school profiles, what it does take to get in. So, and then obviously student income, if there is any, again, you can make up to about, I think it's $7,600 without it affecting the EFC. So, but so if those are there, plug it in. And then obviously student assets, if they have them, and we've talked about, you know, the impact that that can have, that can really jump your EFC is pretty high, particularly federal and institutional, but you'll see it didn't really impact consensus. Because as you, if you remember, like, let's say they had a trust $100,000 sitting out there. Consensus schools look at all assets of the family, parents, student, all at 5%. So, you can kind of see how that big jump here, but not so much here. So, those are the kind of things, again, putting in the right information, College Aid Pro will do the rest. So, that's kind of it for this session. Next one, we'll go through the budget exercise. And we'll see you in the next video.

College Aid Pro

Expected Family Contribution (EFC)

income

assets

student bio