Invest in Knowledge

Invest in Knowledge is a monthly podcast about all things financial with CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ John Gigliello of the Albany Financial Group, based in Albany, NY. Through the course of his business, as well as this podcast, John takes an educational approach to financial planning, aiming to leave listeners with the insight they need to successfully shape their financial futures. After all, as Benjamin Franklin said, "An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." Securities are offered through LPL Financial, member SIPC (www.SIPC.org). Investment advice is offered through Private Advisor Group, a registered investment advisor. Private Advisor Group ad Albany Financial Group are separate entities from LPL Financial. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. The economic forecasts set forth in this material may not develop as predicted and there can be no guarantee that strategies promoted will be successful. This is a hypothetical example and is not representative of any specific situation. Your results will vary.The hypothetical rates of return used do not reflect the deduction of fees and charges inherent to investing.

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Invest in Knowledge

4 Keys to Cutting College Costs

June 10, 2022 • John Gigliello, CFP® • Season 1 • Episode 9

Colleges are priced like airline tickets. Everybody pays a different price. But at least on airlines, you might get a more comfortable ride if you pay more. Paying a lot more could get you a first-class seat. Paying a little more could get you an aisle seat near the front or a seat on the exit row with better legroom.
But if you pay a higher price for a college, you won’t get any extra perks for that. Your child won’t have smaller classes or be entitled to more face time with professors just because you paid more for a bachelor’s degree than the parents of other students.

There is no academic advantage to paying more. Worse, paying more can negatively affect your overall retirement plan, which is why it’s even more important to cut your college costs.

Here is a reality that will probably surprise you: most colleges are always on sale. That is a fact.

Still, Americans owe more than $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. That’s for 43 million borrowers, according to statistics released last month by educationdata.org.

The average public university student borrows $30,030 to attain a bachelor’s degree and 2.8 million people over the age of 60 are still paying off college loans.

The growing cost of college and the resulting student-loan debt are affecting families all the way through retirement.

It used to be that homeowners planned to pay off their mortgages and live out retirement debt-free.

But a survey by national mortgage firm American Financing found that 44% of Americans between the ages of 60 and 70 have a mortgage when they retire. Nearly 17% think it’s possible they will never pay off the mortgage. Why is that? For many families, it’s the price of sending their child to a costly college.

The problem that we’re dealing with is that families often overpay for college, take on too much debt, and hurt their savings and retirement plans because they tumbled unprepared into the late-stage college funding pressure cooker.

Hi, I’m John Gigliello, Certified Financial Planner with the Albany Financial Group and you’re listening to Invest in Knowledge, a podcast about all things financial. After a life-altering health issue at 39, my calling in life became clear: To share my knowledge of personal finance with PEOPLE who are looking to make smart and responsible choices with their money. Only through education, action and accountability can YOU build the confidence and security YOU need to live a SATISFYING life.
You may be wondering, "Why is a financial professional up here today talking about college?" I do this as a service to my clients and my community because I've seen many families struggle with these issues. Getting kids through grade school and then high school is hard enough. You’ve been working and working, maybe saving for the eventual college tuition. Then, BOOM! Your kid is a junior or senior in high school and you realize you haven’t planned enough. The costs of tuition, plus room and board, are higher than you expected. Stress increases as you receive piles of slick brochures from fancy colleges and hear your friends brag about where their kids are going.

As we just discussed, this leads to poor decisions which may negatively impact your family’s financial health for years, even decades, to come. I’ve seen that happen and I want to help you before you get to that stage. Your son or daughter can go to a good school, have a great college experience, and do it without saddling any of you with undue debt. I’ve seen that happen, too.

4 Keys to Cutting College Costs: How to Avoid Overpaying

But if you pay a higher price for a college, you won’t get any extra perks for that. Your child won’t have smaller classes or be entitled to more face time with professors just because you paid more for a bachelor’s degree than the parents of other students.

There is no academic advantage to paying more. Worse, paying more can negatively affect your overall retirement plan, which is why it’s even more important to cut your college costs.

Here is a reality that will probably surprise you: most colleges are always on sale. That is a fact.

Still, Americans owe more than $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. That’s for 43 million borrowers, according to statistics released last month by educationdata.org.

The average public university student borrows $30,030 to attain a bachelor’s degree and 2.8 million people over the age of 60 are still paying off college loans.

The growing cost of college and the resulting student-loan debt are affecting families all the way through retirement.

It used to be that homeowners planned to pay off their mortgages and live out retirement debt-free.

This is going to be a two-part podcast episode. Today, I will talk about college planning and 4 keys to cutting college costs. Next month, I will dive into the details of qualifying for financial aid and understanding the different types of loans, scholarships and grants available. By the end of these two episodes, I believe you'll be better prepared to meet late-stage college planning challenges.

You may be wondering, "Why is a financial professional up here today talking about college?" I do this as a service to my clients and my community because I've seen many families struggle with these issues. Getting kids through grade school and then high school is hard enough. You’ve been working and working, maybe saving for the eventual college tuition. Then, BOOM! Your kid is a junior or senior in high school and you realize you haven’t planned enough. The costs of tuition, plus room and board, are higher than you expected. Stress increases as you receive piles of slick brochures from fancy colleges and hear your friends brag about where their kids are going.

And with an issue such as college planning, where everyone’s decision is unique and personal to their own circumstances, I invite people to come in for a complimentary meeting where we can conduct an Expected Family Contribution analysis for you and get an idea of what strategy would fit best into your overall retirement income plan. I will tell you more about that later.

It’s hard to think about college planning as a major financial planning challenge for families when you just want to send your kid to a good school. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But we need context for understanding all the forces that come into play. Here’s a quick rundown of many of the key aspects of this challenge:

Ø Students and parents feel the academic and social pressure of competition

Ø Colleges target your child, wanting him or her to apply mostly so they can reject the application

Ø Impending deadlines promote tension and rash decisions.

Ø Your student’s college list may be unrealistic (influenced by popular ranking lists) and uninformed about actual costs, degree earning power, and the average number of years to graduation.

Ø School counselors aren’t trained to help families figure out how to pay for college

Ø Families lack knowledge and guidance

All these dynamics contribute to something none of us want to have happen: Overpaying for college.
That late-stage college funding pressure cooker can deliver some very unhappy results. Families act rashly, and as a result, many parents tap home equity or take out large, second mortgages to pay for colleges. As we saw earlier, many have not paid those off by the time they retire. Some divert retirement funds to pay tuition and have to work longer than they had hoped or planned. The glaring truth is that most families just lack knowledge and guidance on how to get the best price for college.

When it comes to late-stage college planning, the biggest problem is that there is no plan. It’s not well thought out. But until you send in your acceptance letter, it’s not too late.

Now, I don’t want to make things seem completely hopeless. The fact that you’re listening indicates that you’re ready to tackle what is actually a very big financial planning issue for families. That’s a good sign because as you’ll see, there are steps to start taking now that will make this period of your life less stressful. You'll be less pressured if you have a late-stage college funding strategy.

By now you’re probably tired of me introducing all the complications. You’re thinking, “What is the first, most important thing I need to know so I can avoid overpaying?” That brings us to our first key.

Parents MUST lead the college selection process (with child as co-pilot) because you have the most to lose. “Lose” means picking the wrong school, overpaying for it, or underestimating total costs, including how many years it actually takes to earn a degree.

I’m not saying that the student shouldn’t be involved in the college planning process. That’s not true at all. But the parents need to know what they are willing to pay and where the money comes from. It’s all too easy to go into the search process blindly, looking at every school that shows up at a college fair or sends you glossy marketing materials. Then the student falls in love with a certain school. I knew a dad who let his son apply to his dream school (NYU) “just to see.” Of course, the son got in, and the father found it impossible to tell him no. Unfortunately, NYU is notoriously stingy with their scholarships and aid, and the dad ended up paying much more than he could really afford. It’s much better to know your facts and figures at the beginning, and search for colleges with eyes wide open.

Here are few items about college that you don’t see or hear about much, but I want to put them in front of you as part of understanding why it’s so important for you to be running the college selection process for your child. According to the National Student Clearing House Research Center, in 2020:

· 24% of college students drop out after the first year.

· 9% transfer to another college for their sophomore year

· College dropouts are 4 times more likely to default on student loans than those who graduate.

Next, you might be wondering, “So let’s say I’m in charge, leading this process. The news is filled with the rising price of college. Can I send my child to a good school without blowing my savings?”

The answer is yes! Higher education is actually a buyer’s market, despite news about increased costs and high rejection rates.

Price discounts are quite common among state universities, as well as private institutions. Schools give discounts through grants and scholarships. In fact:

· 59.5% of students at public universities don’t pay full price, and

· 89% of students at private schools receive a price break.

This is according to the national Association of College and University Business Officers’ annual tuition discounting study, released in 2020.

One thing you should take away from these facts is that it’s clearly not just “A students" who get scholarships and grants. Nearly everyone who attends a private college receives some type of price cut from his or her school.

For years now, the tuition discount has been creeping up. The percentage of students who receive grants and scholarships at private schools is actually at an historic high.

The average tuition discount at private colleges and universities – 59.5% – is also at an historic level.

For example, that average 59.5% discount off a $45,000 tuition bill leaves the real price of the school at $18,225. That’s a $26,775 discount.

You might naturally be wondering why schools are giving out so much money. Here’s the reason: for most schools it’s a buyer’s market. This might seem strange because all the media attention is focused on the most elite universities that reject nearly all applicants.

Most schools, however, don’t enjoy this kind of advantage. They have to work hard to fill their freshmen slots. And to do that they have to offer financial enticements to get students to come to their schools.

According to a 2020 Gallup/Inside Higher Education survey of admission directors:

· Only 27% of admission directors at state school met their goals by May 1.

· 55% of admission directors at private and public schools didn’t meet their freshmen goals by July 1.

· Only 2% of all admission directors said they hadn’t been concerned about meeting enrollment goals for the fall of 2020.

Now, you might be feeling intrigued or overwhelmed with this new information. Regardless, you probably want to know, “What are the key things to focus on in order to successfully navigate the college funding process?”

Gather the PEGS – P-E-G-S: (price, expected family contribution, graduation rate, and starting salary) for your schools to start the process of identifying the best deal and best price.

Let’s look at each briefly.

We start with "price" which means net price calculators. You use these tools to discover a school’s true cost.

One of the most infuriating aspects of the college admission process is that traditionally, families couldn’t know what any college was going to cost until their child received his or her financial aid package. Even worse, they usually got the offer in the spring, giving them little time to select a school by the deposit deadline, which is often May 1.

Applying to schools, however, doesn't have to be a financial crapshoot if you use net price calculators before your child applies to any colleges. A net price calculator is supposed to provide you with a personalized estimate of what a particular school will really cost.

When using a calculator, some families will discover that the cost of a $55,000 university will be $20,000 or $10,000 or even lower. For other families, the cost really will be $55,000. Let’s say, for example, that a college costs $50,000 and the student will receive a $30,000 award from the school and a state grant of $5,000. The net price for this student would be $15,000.

The net price equals the true price of the college because it only considers free money and disregards loans when calculating the cost of a school.

Federal law requires schools to post a net price calculator for freshmen on their websites.

If you want to avoid budget-busting schools, it’s critical to know what the actual prices of particular schools will be before your child falls in love with them. In fact, turning to net price calculators could ultimately save you tens of thousands of dollars by focusing your efforts on schools that will be more generous to your family.

Helpful calculators require information from your tax return and your latest nonretirement investment account statements. You’ll want to gather them up before using the calculators.

Families should turn to these calculators to get a handle on what sort of applicants capture the best awards at an institution. What kind of grade point averages or test scores does it take for a student to win a greater award from a specific school?

With so much money at stake, it's worth taking the time to use these calculators strategically.

It can be hard to find the net price calculator on some school websites. An easy way to locate it is to Google the name of the school and “net price calculator.”

Accurate NPC results won’t be available until later years in high school when a student’s GPA and SAT/ACT scores are known. The reason for this is that it would be impossible for a school to know what kind of awards a child might get without knowing what his or her academic profile is.

You need to understand that not all calculators are good ones.

The weakest calculators rely on the federal template. Using these could take less than a minute to complete! The questions are minimal, which leads to dubious cost estimates. The federal calculator only asks for income ranges, but a good calculator will require figures off your latest income tax return.

Bad calculators also rely on old cost data. Some net price calculators are still using 2015-2016 costs, so check how old the figures are.

These federal calculators are only meant to provide personalized cost estimates to families seeking need-based aid. And even then, the need-based aid answers are simply averages. They do not calculate merit scholarships.

Now let’s move on to the E in PEGS. That stands for Expected Family Contribution. This is a federally calculated number that tells you you’re expected to pay.

Your Expected Family Contribution is a dollar figure that represents what a financial aid formula believes your household should contribute to pay for one year of a child’s college education—but it’s not necessarily what you will pay.

Your EFC is based on a number of factors including income, nonretirement money, education account assets, size of the household, marital status of the parents and number of students in college. The EFC will give you a good idea whether you will qualify for need-based aid or if you should seek out schools that provide merit scholarships.

Two EFC financial aid formulas exist.

The federal formula is tied to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the online form students must complete to qualify for federal and state aid at any school. The vast majority of colleges also use the FAFSA to determine who will receive their own in-house aid. I’ll explain the FAFSA more in just a second.

The institutional formula is tied to the CSS Profile, which is used by roughly 200 private schools to determine who will get their in-house money. A tiny number of public universities, including UVA and University of Michigan, also use the Profile.

The two formulas do have some significant differences. Sometimes the EFCs resulting from each of these formulas will be similar, but other times they will not.

I want to take a step back and explain the timeline here. You can get a free estimate of your EFC from CollegeBoard.com, which will be pretty close to the official one. Get an EFC estimate as early as freshman or sophomore year in high school.

For your official EFC, and in order qualify for any help, you must complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as FAFSA, which you can find at fafsa.ed.gov. The first day that parents can file for financial aid is on Oct. 1 of the child’s senior year in high school. Parents will be using two-year-old tax returns to complete the FAFSA, so there is no reason not to file the application as soon as possible.

This is really important to know: You must file your FAFSA early. Aid from states and public universities can run out, so filing early is essential. Some states have earlier deadlines, and if you miss the deadline to file the FAFSA in your state, you will be ineligible for that state aid.

Finally, even if you don’t think you will qualify for financial aid, applying early to state universities may boost your chances of merit scholarships since deadlines can be early.

The lowest EFC a family can have is $0. That means a student has no ability to pay for college. In contrast, there is no cap on an EFC for high-income families. It’s possible to have an EFC of $40,000, $50,000, $100,000, or higher. When the EFC is high and need-based aid is out of the question, you look for schools that provide merit scholarships to affluent students.

Families will usually have to pay more for college than their EFC indicates that they can afford because most schools do not meet 100% of a student's demonstrated financial need. Consequently, it's important to identify the most generous schools that would consider your child an attractive candidate. We’ll go into more details about this later.

Your EFC is produced through a calculator on the College Board’s website. It uses both of the methodologies we discussed before and produces two EFCs for you, one generated by the federal (FAFSA) formula and the other by the institutional (Profile) formula. In order to get a complete and accurate EFC, you will need your latest tax returns and other nonretirement financial records.

Okay, let’s take a couple of minutes to run through some EFC scenarios to give you an idea of what EFCs are possible. Let’s start here with an example from a middle-class family with average income, around $52,000, and low savings of roughly $15,000. I’m only using nonretirement money in my examples because the formulas don’t consider retirement assets in their calculations. In this example, there is a couple with one child heading to college and a young sibling.

The EFC for this family using both the federal and institutional methodologies is around $2,500. With this modest EFC, the family would ideally be looking for schools that provide very good need-based aid because their ability to pay for college is limited. This could potentially come from in-state universities or from private colleges that offer generous aid. It’s important to add that only six dozen or so colleges and universities say they meet the full financial need of their students.

Let’s look at a higher-income family with adjusted gross income of $160,000. This family has more assets ($125,000), home equity ($200,000), and considerably more income. Like the previous example, there are four in the household with married parents and the oldest heading to college.

The EFC for this household ranges from $34,426 to $35,165. There would be some elite schools that would provide this family with need-based aid. But the family should look for institutions that provide hefty merit scholarships to higher-income students.

Now let’s look at this same family but with two kids in college and an Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) of $150,000. The EFC for each child would be between $17,997 and $22,926. With a reduced EFC, the family’s chances for need-based aid rise significantly. It’s important to understand that a family’s federal EFC for each child drops by 50% and the institutional EFC drops by about 40% when there are two children in college.

So a family that might not qualify for need-based financial aid with one child in college may be eligible with two or more in college.

You can determine if a student would be eligible for need-based aid by subtracting the EFC from a school’s price tag.

So, to sum up, let's look at college funding strategies informed by two different EFCs. First, families with a small EFC should look for colleges that provide generous need-based financial aid, as well as their own state schools that will have need-based program for residents. Remember, it’s important to file the FAFSA as early as you can since students tend to receive twice as much grant money from state programs.

Write down that date to file your FAFSA: October 1 of your child’s senior year.

Now, families with large EFCs should look for private and state schools that give good merit aid to many students. The most elite private universities tend to give little to no merit scholarships because they have plenty of high-income students who will come without a price break.

So that gives you a sense of how the EFC works in your college shopping. After you obtain your EFC, you can focus on the types of schools that are the most appropriate.

The G in PEGS stand for "graduation rate." This part of your school analysis is looking at what percent of students graduate and how long it takes them.

Parents assume that their children will graduate in four years, but this often doesn’t happen. According to federal statistics, the four-year grad rate for private colleges and universities is 53% and for state schools, 33%.

It’s always important to check the four-year graduation rates since a delay in graduation can significantly boost the cost of college. There can be major differences among the same type of schools. So always check!

You can find four-, five-, and six-year grad rates at College Results Online. You can also find the 6-year grad rates broken down by race and ethnicity, gender, and income. The difference between grad rates among men and women, as well as different ethnicities, can be dramatic.

To find the site just Google "College Completion."

Princeton is an example of a school with an excellent graduation rate with 88.6% of students graduating in 4 years and 97.3% graduating in 6 years.

San Diego State is an example of a university that has an average grad rate for a state institution with 35.5% of students graduating in 4 years and 74.2% in 6 years.

These statistics are from 2017, as government reporting on college data is often a few years behind.

Now on to the final PEGS letter.

The S in PEGS stands for "salary." As part of your evaluation process, you may also want to look at a school's salary outcomes and consider them in the context of how much you’re paying for your child’s degree. Parents tend to overpay based on assumptions and rankings, but a BIG investment isn’t always worth it.

The place to research salary outcomes is this website called Educate to Career. It shows you the average salaries, by major, of graduates of a certain institution. As you’re weighing one college offer versus another, this could be an effective tool to use. Let’s look at an example.

Let’s look at two northeast schools with strong engineering programs: New Jersey Institute of Technology and Drexel University. Let’s suppose your child gets into both. What does that mean in terms of price?

Well, for NJIT, the price tag is $33,000 per year and for Drexel, $55,000. And we’re looking at out of state tuition. If you extrapolate that out four years, the difference between $132,000 for NJIT and $220,00 for Drexel is $88,000. If you live in New Jersey it would be even more extreme. Now let’s look at salaries for graduates from each school.

Educate to Career lists the occupation titles down the left and the salaries on right.

For Drexel, an aerospace engineer is likely to make $71,700 and Industrial Engineers, $67,000, according to the site

For New Jersey Institute of Technology, those salary figures are $71,900 and $69,000 respectively.

Hard to tell the difference, right? It’s not too much; a couple hundred bucks here and there.

Our example shows is that the adage “you get what you pay for” doesn’t necessarily apply to college degrees. But the idea of a “return on investment” is certainly a factor to consider. Many of us know from life experience that job salaries aren’t arranged in any sort of neat continuum of highest to lowest based on the school’s brand name. It just doesn’t work that way.

Getting clarity about the PEGS for the schools on your list is very helpful but it’s not the whole picture yet. You’re still probably wondering “Will my kid qualify for financial aid and how does that fit with grants, scholarships, and loans?”

This bring us to a fourth key: The common question, “Will my kid qualify for aid?” is best answered when you understand how discounts, scholarships, and loans work to produce the lowest college cost possible. There is so much information to share on this key that I will publish a separate episode on the topic next month. So Stay tuned.

No doubt, at this point, many of you are feeling like, “Yikes! This is so much information. How do we thoroughly process it and proceed?” It’s a good question that leads us to our final wrap up. Let’s look at where we started.

We started with the main challenge: Families often overpay for college, take on too much debt, and hurt their savings and retirement plans because they tumbled unprepared into the late-stage college funding pressure cooker.

Then we looked at the details behind these main points:

• Parents MUST lead the college selection process.

• Higher education is actually a buyer’s market.

• Gather the PEGS (price, expected family contribution, graduation rate, and starting salary) to start the process.

• Understand how financial aid works to get the best price.

This brings us naturally to the conclusion that you need to…

Start developing your college funding strategy now by getting an Expected Family Contribution analysis. From that baseline, you can begin to gather the rest of the critical information you need to start the hunt for the right school with the lowest possible tuition while protecting your retirement plans.

College education is a buyer’s market, and the old adage “knowledge is power” is true. When you act as an informed consumer, you can get the best education at the lowest cost and minimize the risk of damaging your retirement savings.

I’d like to leave you with one last thought: Paying for college is one of the biggest purchases in your life, next to a house. So do your research and get it right.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Invest in Knowledge. Don’t hesitate to reach out to my office with any additional questions or to receive a copy of The Savvy Parents Guide to Cutting College Costs. You can find all of my contact information on my website: www.jgigliello.com.

If you know of anyone who is struggling with college planning, please feel free to tell them about this two-part podcast episode. Of course, we always encourage you to take part in the financial planning process to help secure your financial future and in turn, feel optimistic and proud about your accomplishments. Knowing that I’ve provided education and a plan for my clients has allowed me to turn a PERSONAL CHALLENGE into a GRATIFYING JOURNEY. If you’re looking to make smart and responsible choices with your money, then stay tuned for our next episode of Invest in Knowledge coming in early July. Have a wonderful day!

The facts and statistics in this episode were compiled by Horsesmouth, LLC.
John Gigliello is a registered representative with and securities are offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advice is offered through Private Advisor Group, a registered investment advisor. Private Advisor Group and Albany Financial Group are separate entities from LPL Financial. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. The economic forecasts set forth in this material may not develop as predicted and there can be no guarantee that strategies promoted will be successful. This is a hypothetical example and is not representative of any specific situation. Your results will vary. The hypothetical rates of return used do not reflect the deduction of fees and charges inherent to investing. Individual tax and legal matters should be discussed with your tax or legal professional.