What If It Did Work?
What If It Did Work?
Navigating the Hidden World of College Financial Aid
Navigating the labyrinth of college financing has become one of the most daunting challenges facing families today. With prestigious universities now approaching $100,000 per year, how can parents provide educational opportunities without sacrificing their financial future?
Paul Campeau, CFP and founding partner of Bridgewise College Planning, pulls back the curtain on the hidden world of college financial aid. Since 2008, he's personally guided over 500 families to save an average of $40,000+ at top-tier schools while protecting their retirement savings. His insights reveal why many families unknowingly pay far more than necessary for higher education.
The conversation explores the stark reality that students sitting next to each other in the same classroom often pay dramatically different amounts. Some pay full price while others receive substantial discounts through strategic planning and understanding the financial aid system. Campeauo explains why private universities frequently offer better financial packages than public institutions, and why community colleges aren't always the budget-friendly option they appear to be.
We dive deep into the psychology behind college selection, examining how emotional decision-making leads families to overlook financial considerations. Campeau shares practical strategies for maximizing aid eligibility, including how to structure savings to avoid financial aid penalties and the critical timing of when to begin planning.
Perhaps most valuably, Campeau outlines his "CFO approach" to college planning – a systematic method for finding schools that provide the right academic and campus fit while remaining financially sustainable. His framework empowers parents to make informed decisions rather than succumbing to marketing pressure or emotional appeals.
Ready to discover how your family can pay less for college without compromising quality? Visit bridgewisecp.com for a College Readiness Breakthrough Session and take the first step toward a debt-free education for your children.
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I never told no one that my whole life I've been holding back. Every time I load my gun up so I can shoot for the star, I hear a voice like who do you think?
Speaker 2:you are all right everybody.
Speaker 2:Another day, another dollar, another one of my favorite episodes, my favorite podcast, because I'm biased. What if it did work? I can't wait to talk to this man. He's a CFP Certified Financial Planner, but besides that, paul Campo is the founding partner of Bridgewise College Planning. Since 2008, he's personally helped over 500 families across the US plan for college without compromising wait for this their long-term financial goals. With a CFO-style approach, paul empowers parents to save significantly over $40,000 at top-tier schools like NYU, boston University, stanford, michigan, louisiana State University. It's not in your thing, but you know.
Speaker 3:We've sent kids there.
Speaker 2:And my oldest goes there. She's a legacy, so I had to throw them a bone. His practical, values driven strategies help families reduce debt, lower stress and choose the right college, while protecting retirement. Thank you for being on the show.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm excited to be here. I mean the work you do, omar, about overcoming and pushing through and everything else. I mean it does work and it does work often if you make it happen. So I love being on shows like this.
Speaker 2:You're going to laugh because before having you and before all this, well, my oldest, she's going to be a sophomore at LSU. She's a legacy. But my ex-wife rational, I'm emotional, so it was always like it doesn't matter how much it's going to cost If my kid wants to go pay out-of-state tuition to go to the Louisiana State University, just like your dad. And just what I read, why would you want to go into debt and then plus to go into debt and then plus when you and I went to college? I mean, it's not inflation. These prices are getting like holy smokes, like a hundred thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 3:And yeah, there's probably a dozen schools that are pushing a hundred thousand dollars a year right now. And if you have a high school student as well, by the time your high school student's done there, there's going to be quite a few above a hundred thousand dollars a year and it's, it's just absolutely crazy. Even the state schools if you're uh, you're talking about lsu, a lot of the state schools out of state um university of michigan is a great example there's still seventy some thousand dollars a year for an out-of-state student and forty thousand a year for an in-state student.
Speaker 2:You're going to laugh, paul. This is the golden age 1992. A young guy from Miami went to Louisiana State University. Costs room and board, books, the whole nine yards $9,000 a year. And you're like, oh okay, well, it can't be that much more. 2025 had a legacy. If you're paying full price out-of-state tuition for Louisiana State University $48,000 a year to get a degree.
Speaker 3:And they're still filling their freshman class.
Speaker 2:Every school. Because, for some odd reason, she was undecided because she wanted to go to soccer, but she wasn't good enough to. She'd have to go to middle of nowhere, nowhere. So did that routine so follow? Oh yeah, we're. We're at capacity. And you're like at capacity. I've never even heard outside of a couple years ago. I've never heard of this school. But why is it though? Is it though? Is it great marketing from the academia into believing that you must at all costs pay $100,000 for a year, not total a year, to go to a school, to go to the right school?
Speaker 3:Well and that's one of the things is what is the right school, and we'll talk a lot about that today here, omar. But it is good. Marketing, that is part of it, but there's other factors. I mean, it's less aid from a lot of the states for their universities I'm not saying every single state, but a lot of the states. It's a different type of help from the federal government than what they've seen before of help from the federal government than what they've seen before. All right, so I'll give you a pop quiz.
Speaker 2:You know the number one reason why kids choose a university, I would say the number one reason gosh.
Speaker 3:Why did your?
Speaker 2:daughter choose hers. Oh well, she chose mine because ever since the kid was out of out of the womb was all LSU, lsu, lsu.
Speaker 3:She knew somebody who went there and had a great experience.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and you know I spoke about my fraternity brothers and I talked about yeah, oh yeah, and how, how beautiful Baton Rouge is and how you know it's an amazing school.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, definitely a lot of recruits. So it's a parent, it's a sibling, it's a cousin, it's a friend at their high school, it's somebody who went there and had a great experience. That's number one. Number two is beautiful buildings you know, number two reason. So if you fall, most of them do have I've gone all over the country.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in general are there ugly campuses, yes, but uh, not many, would you say, or like wow I well, and that's every major one attracts kids it's, it's yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, the landscaping and the buildings and you know all. Usually they have a memorial tower and you see this 100,000 capacity football stadium and you see fraternity and sorority row. I mean I've got my youngest and it's like, oh yes, never did I want to tour Vanderbilt. But I'm like, oh yes, because you know you sit there and you it's like the infomercial, why vanderbilt? Well, to me it was like I don't know.
Speaker 2:I never really thought about going to that, but you know they do such a great job too, like all those. Yeah, once you get in, you will they. It's 100% emotional.
Speaker 3:Oh for sure. But those buildings cost a lot of money, right? A lot of them don't have anything to do with you know, if you visit enough colleges, maybe you have Omar. There's colleges out there that have water slides in the rec center. You know what I mean. Like, does that really add to their physics class or whatever they're studying at university?
Speaker 2:Not really, but it's attracts kids because it's going to be a fun atmosphere. Right, it's a lazy river with LSU it's spelt that way. That is so amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so those are the kind of things that attract kids. It's the new dorm rooms, it's the private showers, all the different things, right Sports.
Speaker 2:Sports is important. That's why all these universities pay so much money for a coach in football. And the Northeast has before holy smokes. Lsu's out-of-staters were like well, I'm from Texas or I'm from Mississippi, now it's kids from all over. From the north, oh yeah, because, oh my gosh, there's Livvy Dunn and there's Paul Skeens and there's, oh, joe Burrow and all these amazing athletes. And it's funny because you'll always hear the professor Well, we can't upgrade the library, but we sure can spend money on athletic boats. Yeah, because it gets all the out-of-state tuition kids.
Speaker 3:And they are still spending money on the library. They are still spending the money. They need all the new technology. In every one of the labs they're training the next generation of workers, the next generation of scientists, the next generation of workers, the next generation of scientists, the next generation of entrepreneurs and everybody else. They need the next generation of equipment. So it's no doubt those professors also are spending the money from this year and then like two years ago.
Speaker 2:Yes, I've never gone no university. Looks like it did back in in the early 90s when I went. It's like everything's like, oh my gosh, the union and everything. But, believe it or not, it's like a dopamine hit too, because it's like going to vegas. Because you go to all these, you know they'll always take you to the union. And there's there's the laughter and the noise and the lights are flashing and you're like, oh yeah, you can do. Your child would excel here. We have 22 places to eat on campus.
Speaker 2:Right 500 organizations, 498 that you will never join or ever think about. But we have those options, yeah, but we're the only school but you go. It's like, yeah, the other one has 472.
Speaker 3:Right and probably has the two of the student wants anyways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:And that's such a that's such a great point is um and that's part of why I talk about that CFO approach is we're we're willing to put our kids into those situations, we're willing to sacrifice to get our kids that great experience. But we want to think about what are the other options? What is a better situation for our kid? And that all goes to number one thing in college planning is picking the right college, right. If you know, if your listeners get nothing else out of this whole conversation is if your student can pick the right college, they can have a great experience, they can have the right academics, and then you can have a financial fit, because the if you're picking the right college, it has to be a financial fit as well, Right, and that's what what they need. So if we can picking the right college, it has to be a financial fit as well, right, and that's what they need. So if we can get the right curriculum, the right academics, we can get the right campus, the right field.
Speaker 3:You know, is it too far away from a city? Is it too downtown in the city? Is it a huge campus? Is it a small campus? Is it a huge number of students? Is there, a small number of students, all those different things. We need to get those right. But then we need that cost fit as well. And if we go to somewhere that doesn't have a cost fit, they go there for a year or two and mom and dad go into debt for it. And all of a sudden, when that payment is $1,200 a month after the second year, it's either mom or dad has to tell the kid that they can't afford not just to pay for college, they can't afford not just to pay for college, they can't afford to borrow more for college. And what?
Speaker 3:mom or dad is going to tell their daughter they can't come home or they have to stay home now after finishing two years with great grades, right, Well, I hope you like the local college Exactly, and they still have another kid at home, maybe a few.
Speaker 3:And that's the situation a lot of first-time parents get into is they're their first kid. They don't think it through, they don't plan it well and most parents that have a high school student and you know some of your kids' friends not only they don't have a plan for college. That's relatively normal. Most people have never even listed out year by year how much money they might need to pay for their kids college right well, you're a cfp, so I mean you're the rational guy.
Speaker 2:But I mean the way you go any tour they'll always don't work, have you? Have you ever noticed it's always don't worry about?
Speaker 3:oh sure, it's like it'll be, because mom and dad can just go into more debt the chips.
Speaker 2:It's not real money, it's chips. And with any university, I I mean I couldn't tell get that job and go. Yeah, I 100 000. I got my master's degree at university of Miami. It was not anywhere near that, but now it's like 94,000. I couldn't tell, yeah, and it's only $94,000 a year. Right, oh, but don't worry about it. That that's not why we're here. We're here to tour. We're here to tour the campus and you'll get in everything. Like you know, don't worry about it when they say don't worry about it, when anybody says don't worry about it Time to worry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's like oh, does the school have an endowment? Are you going to give my kid a 100% scholarship?
Speaker 3:And here's the cool thing, omar, is a lot of schools do Not all schools, and that's why you have to select the right schools, but the average private college discount rate the last couple years is 56.2%. So there are tremendous discounts that are flying around for some families and that's where, if we can do it the right way, that $95,000 university for some families is going to cost a couple grand a year. Right, it's kind of like buying an airline ticket, right? If you fly from Florida to California, everybody gets on the plane at the same place, they get off at the same place, but not a single person paid the same price as each other on that plane. Right? Some people bought it online, some people use points. Some are in first class, some are in business class. It's the same at college, you're sitting in class with the same kids, with the same professors, the same education, the same experience. Some people paid a couple grand to be there, some people paid 30 or 40 grand and some people paid full price at 95 grand to be there. And that's where we want our families, we want all of your listeners to be the family that pays less.
Speaker 3:Right, to get every dollar of financial aid they could qualify for, but most people don't know the system. So that starts with number one picking the right college. Number two you need to know the financial aid system right, and that's where there's things out there. There's assets that don't count. There's assets that do count against you in the financial aid formula and that's where taking the CFO approach goes to the next level is just an extra $10,000 in savings for the families who did the right thing and they saved when the kids are young and they made good financial decisions and they didn't waste their money on cool stuff they could have done with their family at certain points, didn't waste their money on cool stuff they could have done with their family at certain points.
Speaker 3:That extra savings $10,000 could end up causing your college bill to go up by $500 to $2,500 per year, depending on where you put it, and it's absolutely detrimental.
Speaker 3:So somebody who saved a hundred grand for their kid's college gets charged five grand more, right, and that's where we want them to think that through as the. It's good to save money, right, because we have a bill coming. So the financial planner says, yeah, good to save money, but we want to do it in a way where you don't get penalized for that that the other families who squandered that money or maybe didn't squander it because they went on, they did cool stuff for their kids, they went on fun vacations, did. It's not like they're going to a casino and blowing it all most of the time some of it maybe, but not most of it those are the people who get more financial aid because they weren't prudent savers, and that's where we want those people who are making good financial decisions to not have to be penalized for it. We want the ones in the seats for a lot less money than the people paying full price to be in that same lecture hall.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, why pay full price if?
Speaker 3:you don't have to Well, because people don't know the system.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know they don't know the system, but it's like I've never. A million years ago, tuition was only a thousand dollars for an instater. Back then no one was like, oh, that guy's from Florida, he's paying his family's paying nine dollars. No, nobody knows. Nobody knows, nobody cares. In fact, a lot of times I think kids feel pressure because we want to keep up with the Joneses and you know, like that scandal with Lori L, you need your kid to go to so you can social media posts and, in the grand scheme of things, no, yeah, people will give you that cyber hug and they'll give you the kudo, but people go back into their own stuff because it's, it's an emotional thing.
Speaker 2:What would my, would my life have been any different? I think I would have loved my kid the same. Well, as long as she didn't go to Alabama. But it's like you know, did I make that decision? No, is it something that? Yeah, of course we go to the same school. Well, you know, that's it, bet, that's it. But I mean there's ways of doing it because clearly we're not paying $47,000 a year. Would I do it? Yes, but my ex-wife was always the rational one, even when we were married. And you know it would never. Why pay full price when know just doing any. And and also, there's just so much out there that and so many endowments and so many scholarships and just like. Third, it doesn't even have to be from the school. There's like we, we live in information superhighway and so much information but people will never Google. Hey, how can I pay less?
Speaker 3:Well, and unfortunately, Google ends up with a lot of wrong answers, right, Well?
Speaker 2:usually it's whoever pays the most for the ad spend they're like well this is the guy that has all the answers.
Speaker 3:You end up on a student loan website. That's a slightly less interest rate. Maybe you know what I mean, like. Oh well, that that that's.
Speaker 2:You know you, you can't beat that. Uh, you, uh, you know I was a financial advisor, so I was never cfp, but sure I do know common sense. Anybody would say any loan like that, especially one that's unforgivable, that you, you could file bankruptcy 10 times and you will still owe that. Yeah, that's not the debt that you want, that you don't have to be dave ramsey. It's just called having common sense sure um, but there are.
Speaker 3:There are loans. This is crazy, because people do take loans for college.
Speaker 3:That's where if you don't get a free scholarship right, you don't get free ride. So that's number one you don't have the savings. Most people do turn to debt, right, but there's certain questions you want to ask if a debt is included in their plan, and I promise you some of them seem like common sense, but they're not. So one is is it a fixed rate or is it a variable interest rate? What are the fees that come along with it? The normal loan for college, a Parent PLUS loan. You probably saw it on your award letter from LSU that you could take out that Parent PLUS loan.
Speaker 2:Oh, right off the bat it was like. You know what it reminds me of. It's like oh, you have a free trip to Hawaii.
Speaker 3:Yeah reminds me of is like oh, you have a free trip to hawaii, yeah, you sign a couple documents and your daughter goes off to college, and it's that easy right yeah, yeah, and all, all of them do that, though they're like just acceptance that loan has over a four percent fee up front. So imagine if a mortgage company was charging a four percent fee up front to do a new mortgage Like that's just astronomical right.
Speaker 3:The federal government would be after you in a heartbeat to make sure that stops right. They do it to every single parent who takes out a federal government loan, Like it's just absolutely crazy. Plus, this year's interest rate is 9%. So on top of that is just a crazy high interest rate. So, yeah, that's what a lot of parents are doing because it's the easiest option. So we want to look at the fees, we want to look at the interest rate, we want to look at do we? This one's going to sound really obvious Would we rather have the interest-free loan or the high interest loan? And I promise you I've had people pass up interest-free loans when we review what they had offered to them the year before they met us. They passed up those interest-free loans and took out something different, right? And that's where sometimes, even I don't think Dave Ramsey would ever say this. But I like 0% interest loans. That's not a bad idea if we have 0% interest for 40 years.
Speaker 2:No, we pay it back right away.
Speaker 3:It's not a bad idea If we have 0% interest for 40,. We pay it back right away.
Speaker 2:It's free money. The thing people don't understand is when they give you the interest-free loan, they think so highly of you that you're going to be late and get penalized that way.
Speaker 2:That one's a little different because it's from the federal government, oh okay, we won't get into the politics of that okay, so it's not like well, you know how the credit it's. Yeah, it's not a private loan trying to trap you okay, because usually that's that's how they get you yeah, somebody's like holy smokes, it's, it's, it's interest-free, this is like free money. And then you know you, you miss a payment. You're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's interest free, this is like free money. And then you know you, you miss a payment. And you're like, oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it's not like that, um, but the the other big question if people are using loans and this is really interesting from a planning perspective is should you loan all the money upfront or should you take a little bit year by year as the student goes off to college? And the reason it's an interesting question is maybe you pay less interest by taking a little bit each year. But what happens if you get your student done with their second or third year and then all of a sudden, for whatever reason, you can't borrow more money? For the last year or two, we just borrowed a whole bunch of money and you have no mechanism for them to go off to college to finish. And that's where it gets really interesting and that's why we like doing proper planning. First of, how is this going to work for all four years for all of the students, two or three kids in the household or however many they have?
Speaker 2:We need to make sure it's working for all the years, not just the first year for the first student about like 10,000 colleges, I'm sure even more, throughout this country. Maybe there's one that is sound, that fits your model, Because I mean, and I get it, I've done the tours. But look hindsight, most people could have fit into any university. It would you know that you had that love for your school? It's because that's what it's. You already spent the four years, five years or whatever there. So, yeah, you're like, oh, it's the greatest. But you know if, if I would have gone to auburn or if I would have gone to Syracuse, or you know if I would have had an amazing. It's just who you are. So that one school, that one dream school that looks that you know that that has the hollow you fit, it doesn't mean that you're not going to have an amazing experience. There's a million universities out there and a lot of them have the nice buildings and the nice rec center.
Speaker 2:And you just might have to wear different colors. That's about it.
Speaker 3:And maybe not win as many football games. Exactly, exactly, but no, that's interesting because, omar, I started my career. My son, my oldest child, is 11. And I started doing this for a number of years, doing college plan, doing financial plan, probably six years or seven years before he was born. And when I started doing it I would sit with families and I'm like you have two car payments for a thousand dollars a month you have, your mortgage payment is more than you probably should have taken. You have some credit card debt that maybe you refinance into a home equity line of credit because it's slightly better. You have all this other crap that you're dealing with and you have three other kids and you're asking me to figure out $50,000 a year for the next four years so that your oldest can go to college. And I'm like these people are just absolutely insane what they're asking me to do and I'm a good planner, so usually I can figure it out and I can make it happen and we can do it. But I'm like these people are crazy. And when I love my wife my wife Christina is absolutely amazing. I love her, love my family, love my friends, like I have a great community around me.
Speaker 3:But when I went to the hospital when my son was born and I held him for the first time, I loved him differently than I've loved anyone ever before. Right, and I knew at that moment that I want to do everything I can to give him the opportunities to learn, to understand, to gain wisdom, to gain experience, to do all the things that's going to make him successful in whatever he wants to do in life. Right, that I'm going to give him every opportunity I possibly can. And then I went back to work a week or two, that I'm going to give him every opportunity I possibly can. And then I went back to work a week or two later and I clicked in my brain that's the only. That's what these parents are trying to do. Right, they want to give them that best opportunity. Whatever they believe that is, they want to make that happen. So, but absolutely, we do need to sometimes temper expectations, but it's pretty rare If somebody doesn't have the income and the financial means to figure out for me to figure out a plan to pay, usually they're going to end up with enough financial aid that we can still make it work.
Speaker 3:Right, and that's where the expertise on how to work the financial aid system comes in is how do we make sure that works? If they have a reasonable income that genuinely you know they make $800,000 a year, they're not going to get any need based financial aid. That doesn't mean they don't get any financial aid, but they're going to end up paying full price or something close to it. You know their bill is still going to be $50,000 or $60,000 a year. We usually have the income to figure out the financial plan in some way or another and that's where having that experience comes in.
Speaker 3:So, um, you know, I've talked with thousands of families. I've helped over 500 different families individually to figure out how to pay this college bill. So when somebody comes in for a college readiness breakthrough session and we recommend them for our services, they were able to figure it out. And that's the really cool thing is, I haven't seen a new situation in like eight or 10 years that I've never seen before. So everybody is special and unique, omar, right, but you're similar to somebody else that I've seen before. You know what I mean. I've seen it a few dozen times in most cases, and we know what they did good and how to figure it out it's just to me.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of times too, we get caught up, kid gets caught up, and it's like the degree that you're getting, it's like me. Full disclosure, bachelors in communications, masters in communications have a and now you're on a podcast exactly you.
Speaker 2:You sound like academia I only worked as a journalist for a couple of years you obviously couldn't talk like this before oh no, not, not at all, not at all, anyway it's. It's funny just in the sense that to me, I've always and yes, like I said, my, my, my kids pain. Uh, we're actually paying less with everything that you're talking about and probably what some of our friends with a five, with the florida prepaid, with the fees and everything and still paying room and board.
Speaker 3:We're probably paying less and well no, those prepaid ones are absolutely crazy. Um, you look at certain states. Um, it's a good example michigan. Uh, the the highest cost university in michigan this year is seventeen thousand dollars. The prepaid costs twenty one thousand dollars. If I want to buy it this year, like that's not paying. Buying it at today's prices, let's find it at future prices, just giving them the money early. And then, if you go to a less expensive school, you go to something like like a central michigan or oakland university and tuition's only 14 000. You just paid 21 000 for a 14 000 exactly, exactly yeah and they never tell you that it's.
Speaker 2:It's the other thing is it sounds great. Oh you're. You know you have a newborn. You know well, you know if it's a mate, it's amazing. They wouldn't be like, oh we need this. And you get the brochures. They email you, they send it to you.
Speaker 3:They're spending a boatload of our tax dollars in most states to advertise them.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Colorado is another good example. The Colorado one actually went out of business, went bankrupt, basically, and then they realized that they have to start it back up because they needed more money to fund the people who they made those promises to.
Speaker 2:So they stopped doing it for a few years. I was going to say how did they pay for those people to go to school?
Speaker 3:Well, they're backed by the state government, so all the citizens go into a little more debt or whatever it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah but no, I'm saying in general, they prefer income. Oh yeah, it's like a Ponzi scheme.
Speaker 3:That's exactly 100%.
Speaker 2:Hey, the people that are paying the tuition are the ones that are, and that's exactly why we stay away from those things.
Speaker 3:They just don't make sense financially, from a cost perspective and from a good financial planning Right. You can't use the money for anything else.
Speaker 2:Right, no, no. What do we do to?
Speaker 3:stay out of debt before college so we can continue saving money for college Right.
Speaker 2:And then it's like well, OK, my oldest decided to go to LSU. So clearly you can't use the. Did you, did you? My oldest decided to go to LSU.
Speaker 3:So clearly you can't use the football. Did you mention that your daughter went to LSU?
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's a sophomore, my oldest. Yeah, just one more time. But no, but it's like, do we have the pressure to make the? I've got to? She's a senior in high school. Do you give? Well, you can't go anywhere. You can go anywhere, but only in the state of florida, because we have a florida prepaid. But it's like which we don't. I mean, I guess somebody's gonna have to do get a master's degree or whatnot in the state of florida. But to me it's always why? Why would you want to do something that you're locked into right and it sounds good?
Speaker 3:now it's actually so far ahead of time.
Speaker 2:Yes, like eight you. You don't know. If, let's say, I bought that and we moved to california, well, now what the kid has to go to Florida. Or if we bought the Michigan or the Colorado, well, we're no longer there. Oh, but the kid has no. No, you're going to school there. It's something that you.
Speaker 3:It doesn't help as much on the cost fit, but we also need to look at what's a good curriculum and what's a good campus for that student.
Speaker 3:Right, and it might not be the in-state public university and that's where usually the best discounts, the best financial aid, you're going to get. There's a few like LSU is a good example, michigan UCLA. There's a few great public universities that have a good amount of financial aid available, but where you're going to get their biggest bang for your buck in most cases is the private universities, the ones that look like they're three or four times as expensive as your local public university. Those are the ones that usually end up costing less for a lot of middle class families because of how the financial aid system works, right? So you don't just have to look at Ivy League. You can look at just the middle tier of private universities that are that 70, 80, $90,000 a year, but they have huge endowments and they have a small amount of students to spread that endowment. Before you know, you go to school like LSU or Michigan state or whatever other school you want to name. There's just a huge number of kids there, right? Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:So it almost doesn't matter how big the endowment is. You can't spread it that thin exactly right.
Speaker 2:Well, they'll give you like this huge number. This is what we have the to give you guys. Oh man, that's for everybody, but nobody does. It's like what? Uh, the? W would say that fuzzy math, because when you add up all the students you're like oh yeah, it's.
Speaker 3:It's not really that good well, and my favorite omar is, then they take that stat and they say, well, our average financial aid package is $9,000. Of course I love that Hold on, hold on, and then I think about it, and $7,000 of that is loans. Because when the college says financial aid, they might just be talking about loans right, of course, but they're not be talking about loans right. Of course. But they're not wrong $2,000 a scholarship.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we see that a lot from the public universities especially, and that's where a lot of times you know, I'll tell you family. They're out of Ohio, actually, and I'm a Michigan football fan, so I don't like Ohio very much. But they have some good people that aren't Buckeye fans. They originally were looking at some in-state public universities and they still applied there because we wanted to see what would happen with financial aid and visit a few more campuses and see what the right path was for this particular family and they had a financial plan to pay for it. They both heard the mom was an optometrist, the dad was an engineer type. They make pretty good money. They're looking for okay, where can we make this happen?
Speaker 3:But part of what ended up happening because they took advantage of college readiness breakthrough session. They knew how different schools did financial aid because with our firm we're able to get a good amount of predictability based on our experience and the data that we buy from the universities so we can use it against them. We make sure that we're setting them up. They ended up going to a private university in Ohio, actually for less than the cost of the state school and she's a band kid. She's going to be applying for med school soon, and she got through all four years of her undergraduate for a lot less expensive than going to the local state university, because we knew who gives good financial aid and who would give good financial aid for a family like theirs.
Speaker 2:Well, she also probably got a partial scholarship for being in the band. A lot of schools do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and there's all sorts of different fits at different universities and that's where taking that uniqueness of that student and that's why we I have a full-time counseling team is they're able to meet with the teenagers and see what that path is and what they want to be involved in and then start recommending what they could get at different universities and looking at that cost piece. But once again, the academic has to fit and the culture has to fit.
Speaker 2:Well, the one thing that I love about speaking with you is most parents, if you think, the kids having sleepless nights because, oh my gosh, what's my ACT score or SAT, or it's asking me to do a video or whatnot. Parents I mean the parents are the ones that really stress out, because talk about added anxiety and stress. Oh my gosh Paul.
Speaker 3:Well think of the piece we're here I mean peace of mind the families that have the expert in their corner yeah that you're there helps them make every right decision in that college process, make sure they're not missing deadlines, that coaches the kid before that admissions interview they have with an alumni, all of those different things, um, somebody helping them with their applications and their essays and selecting the right classes in high school from a college admissions perspective. All of these different things add up to the parents aren't stressed about it, and that's what we love to be able to provide for families.
Speaker 2:Well, paul, what got you so passionate? Because most but we both know most CFPs when it comes to this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can pay for it oh, they talked about it for about 20 minutes and all of that. We. There's six masters level classes. Yeah, but you're like super passionate about this.
Speaker 2:This is like you feel I. I can hear it in your voice, see it in your body language, even though it's only audio. But you see, you're winning for families and it's like this is this drives you, because you love to see that happiness. What got you into wanting to be that guy to help over 500 families get their kid into a dream school or into a great school in general?
Speaker 3:Great, great question. Because the first four years of my career I was a generalist, right, I did financial planning for retirement and tried to work with some business owners during the morning and worked with some, you know, 85 year olds that are just trying to leave a little bit of money to their kids or whatever other things, did just about everything and what I noticed is the great retirement planning we could do for the families you know they're in their 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s that we're building towards their retirement. Nobody's talking to them about the college plan, right, and that's where, at that time, it was my role. And this is most financial advisors and some of them are reasonably good at it. But the role of most financial advisors out there is to take the money they're given and try to grow it for their retirement right and some of them are pretty good at that right.
Speaker 3:But they're not actually planning out that family's life year by year, showing them how to stay out of debt. They're not actually planning out that family's life year by year, showing them how to stay out of debt. They're not planning out how to pay for their next car. They're not planning how they're going to pay for their kid's college. If you bring it up to them, you know they'll say, yeah, we can do a calculation and based on our calculation, you should save $800 a month and we can put that in a 529 because, that's what a firm has available for college right.
Speaker 2:Anybody that's a financial advisor, see if, oh, my client just had a child. Mrs Jones, you know what you really need. You really need to open up a 529. Yeah, and then that's it and fund it.
Speaker 3:And fund it and they'll tell you $800 a month.
Speaker 2:but you can only afford $100 or $200 because you're young and you have a kid and everything else DCA $100 to $200 a month and, before you know it, with compounding, the power of compounding, before you know it. Well, you won't be able to afford the $100,000 a year tuition, but you'll be able to afford something with DCA. It'll be better. Exactly.
Speaker 3:Yeah and that's where I'll go full cfp nerd for a second here that when we analyze the funds that are inside most of those 529s, they're not good funds, right the. They're not keeping up with their benchmarks, the. The risk you're taking is a lot higher than the return. You're getting right, but not only that it.
Speaker 2:It's like when you see the market just crushing it and you open up the statement and you're like I don't think this is.
Speaker 3:But you're still taking the risk. And you're still taking the risk and still doing it. And that's the crazy part is, we meet 16, 17, 18 year olds in the family. The parents have those 529s and they still have a max drawdown that they could lose 40% in a very short amount of time. Right, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's the only money they have for college and they need it next year in some cases, right yeah, so it's absolutely crazy what they do in the 529s. We actually use 529s more often than anything for generational transfer because they have some very generous limits on gifting and we can skip generations and some of those kinds of things and avoid estate taxes. But that's for people who are worth 30 million and up right. That's not something an everyday person normally is.
Speaker 2:That's a good problem to have Right. That's one of those problems that we can only wish we could have.
Speaker 3:That's where 529s most often fit in our recommendation. So that's where we look at it. I mean think if you were the financial aid office, Omar, and you see somebody has a bunch of money in a 529 plan, Could you charge that family more because you know you're going to get all that money? Well, of course it's a business.
Speaker 2:So the financial aid office Don't worry about how it's getting paid, right.
Speaker 3:They're probably there doing a happy dance because you just told them they can charge you more.
Speaker 2:Paul, this is my favorite. They didn't have this when we went to school. Just hit the ED button, just early decision, and somebody's like what's the benefit of this is the you know what you'll get a leg up on everybody. It's so hard and so prestigious to get in here, but if you say early decision, you'll have that much better chance of getting in. They won't tell you that you have to pay 100% tuition once you get to ED.
Speaker 3:And that's where having the predictability of what financial aid package you're going to get for a lot of our families is a little different than how you're describing it, omar, because it gives them the permission slip to do early decision at some of those universities. So if we're absolutely confident that they're going to get $70,000 a year of scholarship or grants there, well then why not do the early decision? Have the better option to get in?
Speaker 2:But if you yeah, but the school's not banking on that. You know that Paul in. But if yeah, but the school's not banking on that.
Speaker 3:And you know that, paul you because, because you know, you know the game and you're, and that's that's why we want to give people the insider scoop.
Speaker 2:You're like mickey to the in the kids rocky, you're there, you're, you're the coach, you're the instructor, but but what the, the college is hoping for is that you hit the ed. So you know, but most people don't have you.
Speaker 3:Most people are like well, and then you have to cancel out all the other applications and hope you get a good financial aid package and exactly that's what most families are doing, even if their regular decision is they're, they're, applying, hoping, they, hoping to get more scholarships. Right and hope is good, right we're, we're on.
Speaker 2:The hope is a is a town in arkansas that bill clinton's from.
Speaker 3:It's a college in michigan too, um, but yeah, hope is a good thing, but we, uh, we, we.
Speaker 2:Actually it's not a plan of how college is going to get paid for right, oh no, no, that that's definitely because I, I see, I I've heard the stories. You know, yeah, social media, they look like the hero and whatnot. But who? Who wants debt? And especially like what you? Here you are, you're saving for your retirement because every but every sane person knows social security is not going to cut it for anybody. And no, most people aren't going to inherit, most people aren't related to the rockefellers or the vanderbilt right, jp morgan. So you're, there's no huge trust fund. So you're, you're literally in the predicament that you're giving up your future to pay a bill, and that future might be like a frigging horror story if you have no money.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and that's the big thing is. What I love about financial planning is sometimes we have the opposite side of things happen. Right, and if we're smart about the college thing, we can tell the family that they're on track for retirement and a lot of times that frees up the ability to do cool things with their family. Now, right, take the extra vacations and I don't want to fast forward your kids too much but eventually your daughter might get married and have her own family and live in a different city and it's going to be that much harder to do the fun stuff you want to do with her. Right, and you'll get together and you'll still do some stuff, but not as often as you could now.
Speaker 3:And I love when families have that permission slip to do that cool stuff, to live life and enjoy things because of the financial planning that they did. And that comes from having that clear path to having that planned out in a very cohesive way that they can make all the cool things that they want to happen in life happen. And that's what we love to be able to do is it's not our money paying for those vacations or something like that, but it's us that are able to give them the permission slip that you do have enough for later. Let's do this. Some cool stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, you're in, completely in service, paul. You're helping people expand their vision, because everybody knows that person that had to take the extra shift because they're working towards their retirement and they spent less time with their children or with their spouse because they're doing that instead of having the proper guidance. And that's where you come in, because usually what people don't understand yes, I was a financial advisor. All that means is I was a glorified sales guy sure 529, sure you know a bond fund sure yeah, it's on the shelf.
Speaker 3:I can sell that yeah, a loaded fund.
Speaker 2:Sure, you know, because I want to get paid and people have this misconception that you know. Just hire anybody, because you know I saw the movie wall street and you know you're going to be with something. You're going to be a gordon gecko. You're going to be with somebody that's knee deep. No, you're. You're going to be placed into things that the home office or management tells, tells them to solve. They're, they're. They're not the oracle of omaha, it's not like they're.
Speaker 2:You know, when charlie munger was still alive and warren buffett, it wasn't like I was. I was getting a, a call and and Warren Buffett's like yes, omar, I'm drinking Coca-Cola and eating my Egg McMuffin and I think what you need to do is buy more Coca-Cola it's at a discount or some Bank of America. But I don't know why people feel that way when I mean clearly speaking with you, you said all the right things. You're like 529, come on now. Your goal is to see other families succeed. Your goal is to make sure that people can sleep at night and not toss and turn over having to eat cat food. Or, you know, I want Jimmy to go to the perfect school. It's his dream school, but I don't know and, like what you said, sit down with you and there's plenty of. Just because you see something At that price doesn't mean you have to pay full price, right? But just know that there are stupid people out there.
Speaker 2:But usually it's also a flex, because if you do have the means, you know it's like oh yeah, you know, I just wrote a check, check to, and, and you know that that's.
Speaker 3:that's someone's ego talking, because even if, if I well, we could pay the 47 000 a year why it's just take an extra trip to hawaii or do something fun in the mountains.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly retire earlier. I mean, why? Why? Why it? People don't understand. It's like nobody knows. It's like what you said If you could fly first class by paying a standby ticket, or, like the American Airlines, the fourth class or whatever, nothing guaranteed, nobody's like when you get upgrade, nobody's like. Well, did you use points or were you one of those idiots that had their name up and you were lucky? No, you're. Your neighbor is not going to ask you who's floating the bill for your kid to pay for school. So, paul, this is something. This is like the funeral business. There's going to be kids every year. There's never going to be Paul. There's never going to be Paul. There's never going to be a time that they're like you know what? Yeah, there's nobody's having kids. Nobody wants to go to college anymore. We, we both know.
Speaker 3:And I'm lucky enough, they keep changing the system. We have to keep people on top of it.
Speaker 2:They keep on raising the rates because it's an emotional sell. Sure, it has zero to do with inflation, because school didn't, like my master's degree, go from 20 to 100,000 in only like 25 years. Shoot, could you imagine that rate of return? If you could get something like that, Holy smokes. But yes, how do they find you? Because I mean, it's a no-brainer to me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so they can go on Google, search my name. They can search Bridgewise College Planning. I like them going through that way because then they can see all our five-star reviews and know we're a great company, that other people love us too. You click through to our website or our Facebook page. On our website you can see the opportunity for a college readiness breakthrough session. We're willing, omar, for any of your listeners, any of their acquaintances and friends, if they want to learn a little bit more from your podcast and then come in for a free consultation at that college breakthrough readiness session. That'll allow them to get an hour with our expert that'll look at their students path for college. They'll look at the parents financial path for college and we're evaluating if we're a good fit. Right. So we only sign on, and this is one of the other reasons we have all five-star reviews. And the reason is because two reasons really. One I'm going to sound arrogant, omar it's because we're good at what we do and we hire a really good team, but that's confidence.
Speaker 2:Arrogance is if you had all this swagger and you, you had, you helped out zero anyway. But you, you, you talked a big game and you're like we, we know what the hell we're doing, right?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, I mean, and then, but the?
Speaker 2:second reason it's like damn right, we're gonna. Oh, have you ever flown into that? You know like a place with a lot of mountains. Damn right, I'm a great pilot. You want that guy, or do you want? Well, you know it's daunting. I don't want to sound confident, so hopefully we'll get there. No, be the confident man. You've helped that many people. You have results.
Speaker 3:But the other reason is we're very particular who we sign on. So people who come in for a college readiness breakthrough session we only about three out of every 10 have the opportunity to work with us because we're so selective on who we sign on as we're looking for people that we have. We're a fee-based service. We only work for the clients that we serve. But our fees between three and $8,000 per student that comes through our program or per family. Sometimes, when we look at that kind of a fee, we're looking for a 10-time multiple. If they come through our program, right, that they're going to get 10 times as much value as that.
Speaker 3:If we're not getting that kind of multiple, we're going to give you some tips. We're going to answer kind of multiple. We're going to give you some tips. We're going to share the answer. All your questions educate you and you're going to probably do it on your own and do well enough, right? But for those families that we can have that major impact on, we love to be able to serve those families and do what's the very best thing for them. So, yeah, come to the college readiness breakthrough session at bridgewisecpcom or search google for bridgewise college planning. You can link right through to it, so um well, no go ahead, my no go ahead the, the.
Speaker 3:You heard the. I'm sure you've heard the quote by teen boone pickens that a fool with a plan will beat a genius with none. Um, and it's true with this is the parents of high schoolers. Now's the time to get it right. Nobody's ever gotten better results in college planning by waiting till the last minute, by getting the bill first and then figuring it out. You want to have this done well ahead of time. Take control of that plan as soon as possible, so listeners can start by going to bridgewisecpcom and just clicking on that button there for the college readiness breakthrough session.
Speaker 2:And like what T Boone Pickens would say Paul can get you to Oklahoma State. I went there and it was a tremendous school. It was an amazing school Some years ago. I don't know For a state that says they're just okay. I mean it's one of those states I've never visited, but it's never been and I wanted to go.
Speaker 2:A million schools, Oklahoma, nor Oklahoma State, made the top 100 list. Yeah, and what Paul's trying to say is think about that. If he can 10X that return, save you $50,000 a year. Heck, that's a no-brainer. I mean, that's easy money there. Now, granted, your kid needs to go to a great school. If Junior's going to the local CC, the local community college, then Paul's trying to tell you hey, you know what? We'll give you some tips.
Speaker 3:Well, and something interesting because people go to the community college thinking it's cheaper. So we do have to wrap it up at some point here. But the community college route think from the business mind of a college. The people who donate back the most are students who went through for all four years or longer and had a great time there right, had a great experience. The ones who went to a community college there and then only went a couple of years at the full-time university and then move on, don't donate as much money back. So a lot of the schools are prioritizing that financial aid for freshmen who are going to be there all four years. So there's a lot of cases out there where it makes more sense just to go to the full-time university right from the get-go and a lot of times that ends up being less than going to the community college first. So yeah, it's crazy once you know the system, how, how those different things might work paul, that that's something common sense, that once it it's so obvious.
Speaker 2:But it's not obvious because most people would be like, oh, go take your basic stuff, save so much money and you'll be laughing all the way to the bank. But you said it best. Yeah, if I would have gone somewhere, gotten my AA also, why would they? It's probably harder for me to get in because, like they think, long they get. You know, I I've, I've been paying alumni dues, I've been paying all that and you're right, I would have zero attachment.
Speaker 3:I've been paying all that. And you're right, I would have zero attachment. Well, omar, I think that's why they want leadership on their resume. That's why they want entrepreneurship on their resume. That's why they want volunteers on their resume. It's because those people are going to go on. It's not because of what the university did. They were already doing awesome things in high school, right?
Speaker 3:They're going to go on and make a boatload of money on average and donate some of that and donate, of course, city of course it's not because they want good leaders on their campus, it's because they want the money after oh my gosh, you make it sound like such a business.
Speaker 2:I thought this was about this a learning institution, and no, I know there is great experiences. I'm a positive about college and if anybody ever told me that you know that LSU or any school was, it wasn't about the money and it. I'd be like I want whatever you're smoking, man, because you'll, you'll definitely drink any cool.
Speaker 3:Right, and if they weren't about the money, they wouldn't have a huge endowment saved up from all the years before. Right, exactly, but, yeah, that's unfortunate, but if you know the system, there is an opportunity to have. Think of the good experience you had. A lot of people have great experiences. They meet some of their best friends that are going to stick with them through life. They've been through similar circumstances. They've been able to get the education and the experience they need that, by the time they're done, you're ready to be an adult, and that's what we want for these high school students is four years of college. They get into the working world, they can handle themselves and there's a lot to do on the financial side with those students during college, and that's what we love to be able to teach, not just the parents, but those kids how do we get on the right path in life and how do we grow from there.
Speaker 2:So, um, yeah, thanks for allowing me to be on here, omar sure, paul, and definitely look up, look up paul, paul compo, and it's to me it's a no-brainer. You can actually help people. Anybody could get accepted into most schools. It's all about paying. Why pay full price? Why get into debt when you can have Paul help you? Him and his team can help you. So, hey, I love that about you. You're in service, brother. You are the definition of a guy that I love because you help people. Hey, what if it did work? What if college was a lot cheaper? Don't pay full price. Have an amazing night with your family. Thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Thank you for the hour. God bless, I was trapped inside that prison, oh, for a long time. To make it happen, you gotta take action. Just imagine what if it did work.