On the latest episode of The Get Ready Money Podcast, I spoke with Vicki Vollweiler, Founder and CEO of College Financial Prep about changing the way we think about money and paying for college.
In this episode we discussed:
Vicki Vollweiler, MBA, CDC, the founder and CEO of College Financial Prep, provides a full range of college funding and college admissions services for families as both parents and students prepare to enter college. Vicki is both a College Planning Expert and a Divorce Financial Coach helping parents to navigate financial aid, scholarships, student loans and college planning. With her Master's Degree in Business Administration and expertise in analysis, pricing, return on investment, and negotiations, Vicki brings valuable skills to the table. Vicki is also a Certified Divorce Coach.
Connect with Vicki Vollweiler:
Instagram: @CollegeFinancialPrep
LinkedIn College Financial prep
LinkedIn
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On the latest episode of The Get Ready Money Podcast, I spoke with Vicki Vollweiler, Founder and CEO of College Financial Prep about changing the way we think about money and paying for college.
In this episode we discussed:
Vicki Vollweiler, MBA, CDC, the founder and CEO of College Financial Prep, provides a full range of college funding and college admissions services for families as both parents and students prepare to enter college. Vicki is both a College Planning Expert and a Divorce Financial Coach helping parents to navigate financial aid, scholarships, student loans and college planning. With her Master's Degree in Business Administration and expertise in analysis, pricing, return on investment, and negotiations, Vicki brings valuable skills to the table. Vicki is also a Certified Divorce Coach.
Connect with Vicki Vollweiler:
Instagram: @CollegeFinancialPrep
LinkedIn College Financial prep
LinkedIn
FzPeMZGPX2DUD9ODzbwb
Are you looking to get ready, be prepared and transform your financial future? Then you've come to the right place. This is the Get Ready Money Podcast with Tony Stewart, where Tony has insightful conversations with financial experts who are changing the way we think about money. Watch up on the latest financial trends and hear practical advice from Tony and his expert guests so you can build healthy habits that work. Be empowered with tips for implementing small changes that can have a big impact on your financial future. So sit back and get ready to hear from today's guest.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Get Ready Money Podcast changing the way we think about money. I'm pleased to be joined today by Vicki Valweller. Vicki is the founder and CEO of College Financial Prep. In this episode, we'll be discussing Vicki's thoughts on how we change the way we think about money and preparing for college. Vicki, welcome to the Get Ready Money Podcast.
Speaker 3:Thanks, tony, so happy to be here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great to have you Always a mouthful with the introduction, but now we got that out of the way. So you know, let's get started. I'm going to tell us a little bit about yourself. What is your origin?
Speaker 3:story. So my name is Vicki Valweller and founder of College Financial Prep. My origin story, so I guess it started way back when I went for my master's at Syracuse University. I went on a full ride plus stipend. They paid me to go there, which was fabulous. And then, you know, I've had a regular job. I was a VP of operations and client services. I was always negotiating pricing and costs between clients and vendors. You know a lot of similar work to what I'm doing now analyzing the financials.
Speaker 3:Then I got a divorce. Life happens. I got a divorce and I decided to become a certified divorce coach and I was helping people specifically with their personal finances and making sure that they were in a good place to be able to lead the best life going forward financially for themselves and for their families. And then clients started to say to me now how am I going to afford to send my kids to college? And this light bulb went off. Because you know now we're not talking about how am I going to save money on the cable bill. I mean college. You know this is big money and, yeah, my own children were starting to get a little older. You know I had to start thinking about it as well.
Speaker 3:And, you know, after lots of research and talking to lots of people, eventually College Financial Prep was born and you know, while we started specifically with divorce and college planning, you know today working with all clients because everybody's looking to save money on the cost of college. But, yeah, I do have a special place in my heart, you know, for those you know dealing with divorce and college planning simultaneously. That is an area that I do like to specialize in Because there's been, there were, opportunities to strategize there. That's not necessarily available for everyone. So, yeah, I've had some clients to date and granted, stars need to be aligned, but yeah, they've saved hundreds of thousands of dollars on the cost of college, which is so gratifying for me to be able to help them do that.
Speaker 2:Well, that's fantastic, and I don't think many people are aware that there is some flexibility. How do you get across that message that you know you can negotiate on college a little bit?
Speaker 3:So can I tell you a story?
Speaker 2:Yes, please.
Speaker 3:So a number of years ago, my heating system broke down and it was New Year's Eve this was a couple of years ago, true story. My heating system broke down and I managed to get. My basement was flooding. It was a mess.
Speaker 3:I managed to get a couple of different contractors in here on November 1st to give me estimates and you know one of them came. They gave me a price. The second one came. They gave me a price. You know we were also talking about the different work that they were each going to do and for a couple of reasons, including price, but you know more reasons than just that I decided to go with the second vendor and I called the first one to thank him for his time, especially on New Year's Day, but that I was going with the second person and the first thing he said to me was can I give you a better price? And you know what Everybody is willing to negotiate. They're businesses. The colleges are businesses. The colleges have seats to fill. If they haven't filled all of their seats, they may want to offer you a discount of some sort, or maybe they'll call it a scholarship to entice you to attend, to purchase their product, to attend their school. So it is possible to negotiate with the colleges.
Speaker 2:Well, it sounds a little bit like then. Maybe, if you're applying to a college, it's super popular that it might be harder to negotiate with one of those colleges.
Speaker 3:Well, definitely, because they may have already, you know, they may have no problem selling their seats, they may be at capacity. So it's kind of like supply and demand.
Speaker 2:Well, that's fantastic and I think that's a different way to look at it, you know, is that maybe, if you're trying to really save money on colleges, do you want to find those colleges that may have the extra seats and yes.
Speaker 3:So for me, I always believe that the the starting process of saving money depends on the colleges that you're applying to.
Speaker 3:It's the colleges on your list and you want to apply to the colleges that are most likely going to offer you those discounts. You know whether it's because they don't tend to sell all of their seats, or maybe it's that your student is, you know, for in the top of the the applicant pool, maybe academically, maybe maybe your child is, you know, a French horn or oboe player and they need students in the band. Maybe you're looking at colleges in a different geographic region from where you live and the colleges are looking to entice, you know, to further expand their reach and, you know, entice students from further away to attend. Or maybe a school is offering a brand new major and your child is interested in that major. You know they may be. They may also want to entice you to enroll. So lots of different reasons, I mean. That's certainly not an exhaustive list, I mean, but just a bunch of reasons why you know schools may want to entice students to enroll with scholarships, you know, which are really like discounts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's a good way to look at, and I don't know if people always think about that as a potential scholarships that are available, because I know you know our son just started college and there's thousands of different scholarships, you know, for all kinds of things. It's really surprising and pretty confusing.
Speaker 3:Well, okay, the scholarships you have. You know, because a lot of people don't realize this you have scholarships that are awarded by the colleges. You also then there are scholarships or grants through, you know, government sources, and there were also private scholarships. So you know, somebody could use the term merit scholarships. And what are you talking about? The colleges? Are you talking about private sources? So you know, there there are lots of different places to get scholarships and lots of different places to look for scholarships. Typically, the colleges will provide the most in scholarship money, so that's usually the best way to go, in my opinion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, what I liked is, and also worked out well for us as parents, is this merit scholarship that our son got had his colleges dependent upon his GPA and it's a little bit of a sliding scale, so we're like that is awesome. Wait, do me a favor, elaborate please so so if he keeps his GPA up, he gets a higher amount and there's a lower amount with a lower GPA.
Speaker 3:Oh, because that's different. So sometimes I've seen with certain colleges and I'm just making up the number you know the child has to maintain, the student has to maintain a 3.0, a 3.2 or whatever it is, and if they don't maintain it then they no longer receive the scholarship. So you know, I'm always cautioning parents to you know, saying you know it's great that they were offered the scholarship, but what happens if they should lose the scholarship? Are you still going to be able to afford years two, three and four? So you know, you always have to be careful with the terms and conditions of the scholarships at the schools.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah, I saw that actually at another college he applied to, so maybe it's more something that's happening out here at the barrier because, like you said, the colleges are businesses that are competing with each other on terms that they offer. So you know, since we're talking about money is why is money such an important aspect of going to college?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, the price of college is expensive, the it costs so much. And then the kids graduate, and whether they go on to grad school or immediately get a job, and what are they earning? They're earning money. And is what you're paying for the education going to be worth it for what they're going to be earning when they come out the return on investment? So I'll give some examples.
Speaker 3:I don't think I'm knocking teachers in any way, because I'm not. My daughter wants to be a teacher. Not knocking teachers, but let's use a teacher as an example. Does it make sense to go to an in-state university? You know, let's talk about my daughter. She wants to teach. I live in New York, I work with people all around the country, but I live in New York and my daughter wants to stay in New York. Does it make more sense for her to go to an in-state university to become a teacher, or to attend a private institution or go to an out-of-state public university? That will cost more?
Speaker 3:In all of those examples, if you want to live in New York and teach in New York, you're still going to be taking the same licensing exams. You're going to teach in the same public schools. You're going to earn the same salary. What? Where are you going to have the biggest return on investment? By going to the in-state university? Now, maybe there's somebody making up this example. Maybe they want to be a medical researcher, something that's highly specialized. Maybe one school offers a program that can help with you know their career path, and maybe they have the employers that are coming to that campus. Maybe they have, you know, the wherewithal to be able to get the student that higher commanding salary than any other school would. In that instance, yeah, it may very well be worth taking out the student loans because the return on investment may be greater.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, and I think this is a reminder why financial literacy is so important, not only for the students, but for the parents to be able to evaluate all this stuff. And that's why your services are so valuable. And at the end, I'll give you an opportunity to plug your website and everything so people know where to find you. So let's punch into the get ready questions. What basic money concept do you wish people knew?
Speaker 3:Basic money concept Percentages. I always did this with my kids when they were little. You go to a store. People should understand that if you go to a store and look at something, if it's $100 and that item is now 20% off, you should know that it's $80 and then be able to evaluate if it's even still a good deal for $80. Because maybe it's still too expensive for what it is. Yes, I don't know why that always sticks in my mind. I just I wish, I wish people had more, would focus a little more on math and math understanding and then, as it translates to dollars and finances, the real basics. I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, because that's something I talked to my wife about. Is you know a little bit? Is you know like and I've been working with my son you know it's like okay, well, just because something is on sale for 50% off doesn't mean it's necessarily a good deal, you know, because another vendor may already be selling it for 60% of the original price, right, right.
Speaker 3:You have to look at the net cost. 50% off plus another 20% off is not 70% off. Yeah, no.
Speaker 2:And that's the thing is. I think that you know, one of the best things I recommend to people is to take a breath and to really think it through before they make a decision, especially, yeah, I mean, if we're talking about buying a shirt yeah, probably not, maybe from I am store, you know, usually it's not going to make a difference, but you know, if you're buying a car, those kind of percentages, or college, another big ticket item, you know those percentages really mean real money, definitely. So fantastic advice, so let's talk about that.
Speaker 3:So if somebody gets awarded a scholarship of $10,000, and $10,000 that's fabulous, but what is the price overall if it's 80,000, you have to start at the 80,000 and take away the 10, it's still $70,000. So is that you have to think about? Is that really doable? You can't just look at what the amount. You know which school gave you the biggest scholarship.
Speaker 2:And that amount that they're charging, because I noticed that is like, yeah, their pricing is very interesting but they get away with it because I think people, you know, don't apply math and really comparatively shop for schools. So what is one simple thing you can do each year to set yourself up for financial success?
Speaker 3:One simple thing I'm going to say review, where you have all your, you know all the subscriptions. You know maybe it's things that you're not using anymore. I'm making this up you have the gym membership you're paying every month for. Maybe you don't need it anymore, Maybe you have too many streaming services that you don't need it. You know, and you only watch one or two of the channels. There are lots of ways that money seems to flow through people's hands. You know, in and out, and there are certainly ways to cut expenses, and you know, I know, that increasing income can be harder, you know. So it's always, you know, focus on where can you cut first, but yeah, and then, ideally, you know, you'll take that extra money and hopefully put it towards savings or cutting down debt. So I'm just going to close the store for one second. Sure, Sorry, I hear that's really loud. All good.
Speaker 2:So you know, I think that's great advice is, you know, reviewing all your subscriptions. You know, annually, every so often, you know whatever works for you is a good idea, because you know you forget about the stuff. You sign up for something and then it's on that auto renew.
Speaker 3:I mean, is that going to help pay for college? No, it's not going to totally pay for college, but you know little things can help. You know, ideally, in an ideal world, you know I would hope parents are saving since the time the child is born. But you know I fully get, life happens. It's not always possible. So you do what you can do to save money and, you know, put yourself in a better financial position.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Well, it may not be tuition, but it could pay for books, Definitely, you know. So that's a definite win for people. So what is one habit that people can change when it comes to their money?
Speaker 3:One habit. Maybe people like to go and get their coffee every morning. Maybe instead of five days a week it could be four days a week. Changes don't need to be drastic, Little changes at a time.
Speaker 2:I love that, and that's actually an example I've given you know, as well as like, hey, you don't have to give up your coffee, you know, just maybe do it. You know, half the days in a week, you know three days a week, you know, and then you balance out.
Speaker 3:Sometimes maybe spending money and investing it in a coffee maker could save you money in the long run.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and that's that sort of changing how you're focusing. But it's a small change and those small changes are easier to stick with and all of a sudden go in cold turkey on something and just like it's not very more.
Speaker 3:I know that many employers you know say, with like a 401k plan, you know it can be automatically deducted from paychecks, you know you may not even notice when money comes out and that can be a good way to help save money to. You know, put it to put money away. And the thing that concerns me the most with paying for college and whether it's student loans or whatnot, is that it potentially can impact the parents future retirement. So yeah, also any money that can be put away into retirement at the same time, you know.
Speaker 2:I'm all for it. Yeah, double duty.
Speaker 3:People say that you can take out student loans, but you can't take out loans for your retirement. You know what? It's still all your money. To me it's all you know. One pot and it's just. It has to go to cover both. You know, and unfortunately a lot of people think oh, my kid wants to go to an $80,000 year school. Let them take out the loans and they'll pay for it.
Speaker 2:And it just doesn't work that way. Nothing server quite that easy right. So, Fikki, especially what you're doing, what money myth are you trying to break?
Speaker 3:I think I just shared about how people think that the kids can just take out the student loans and it will be on them, and that the parents can just absolve themselves of it. And it really doesn't work that way. The kids like freshman year through the federal government. They can only take out $5,500 a year in student loans. I mean that's not going to get anybody very far. No, I mean, yes, it can work for community college or staying home, but really it won't go very far. So I think that's a huge misconception for parents as they're approaching the college years.
Speaker 2:Well, what other issues are there by parents essentially passing the buck to their kids? What else have you seen?
Speaker 3:Parents passing the buck to their kids.
Speaker 1:I'm dealing with it now.
Speaker 3:It's not necessarily passing the buck to their kids. I see a lot of issues in regards to divorced families and what the divorce agreements say and then compare that to how the colleges operate and sometimes the colleges will say well, my portion is capped at X, so the school really doesn't need my financial information. But meanwhile by both parents, when requested, not providing their financial information it's going to hurt the child because then they're not going to get anything. I mean potentially In rare instances they'll accept a waiver. But if both parents in a divorce situation or separated situation, if they can both do what's best for the student and put the differences aside, that can potentially help everyone, regardless of what the agreement is. You're not even necessarily saying your child is going to that school, but just go through the path and see how it goes. Just don't apply early decision.
Speaker 2:So I mean essentially, it sounds like there are a lot of special considerations for divorced parents and making their college decisions.
Speaker 3:Definitely. I think so. I don't know if you and I have spoken separately. There's what's right now called the FAFSA Simplification Act that's going through and a lot of changes coming up with that. Here I'll tell you some of the changes.
Speaker 3:One of the changes that affects everybody is that if you have more than one child in college at the same time, that's no longer being considered in the FAFSA formulas. It's still being considered by those schools that use the CSS profile financial aid application, but the FAFSA application is no longer considering it For divorced parents. What's happening is that it's changing. It used to be the custodial parent would fill out the FAFSA application. Now it's becoming the parent who provides more financial support for the child and there are so many different scenarios that can arise with this, because it's possible that the parent who provides more financial support is now a non-custodial parent. They can live many states away and not have anything to do with one another. I mean, I'm just making this up. I hope that's never true, but I'm just saying there could be lots of different scenarios that are arising from this.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I'm dealing with lots of clients and making sure everything is buttoned up for them for FAFSA season when that comes this year, wow the scenario that comes to mind to me is when you have people who have fluctuating incomes, so when one parent is making more money and the next year is another parent, or you know, like what do you consider as a partnership income now, but it's not their income.
Speaker 3:It's the amount that you're providing in support for the child.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:Right, so that it could vary. It could stay the same. So yeah, going through people's finances.
Speaker 2:Wow, hard to define that too, yes.
Speaker 3:So right now there's no even like definitive guidance regarding it. No change that's happening for small business owners. It used to be that if you had less than 100 employees you didn't need to report the value of the business. Now everyone needs to report the value of their business on the FAFSA application and there's been a lot of complaints, especially from like the Midwest, on this topic, because you have farmers that you know farmers, they're small businesses. They own lots of land. Can they sell their land to push towards college? No, so there's lots of changes happening. On the plus side there are a couple of pluses. The plus side for, you know, lower income households, they're expanding. You know who's eligible for Pell Grants. Another plus is, you know, say, grandparents contribute to the cost of a child's education. That's not going to be penalized anymore on the FAFSA. So you know those are some pluses, but you know some of the changes are really going to hit the middle class, middle-level.
Speaker 2:So essentially, the advice is don't get divorced or start a small business until after your kids graduate from college.
Speaker 3:Or if you get divorced, don't get remarried while because if you get remarried, then you have to include the new spouse as well. So I had instances for certain colleges where and this was with both FAFSA and the CSS profile where we had a report like four parents worth of income and assets.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's amazing, and I love how they always tack on the word simplification to all these tax and tax bills. It's like exactly the opposite. It's like how complicated can we make it?
Speaker 3:So if anyone's interested, I actually did a presentation on it and you know you can search it up on YouTube College Financial FAFSA Simplification Act. But my tagline is it's not so simple.
Speaker 2:Not about something for that. So, vicki, let's get out the time machine now. What advice would you give your younger self if you could go back in time, knowing what you know now about money?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. Okay, so here's advice that I give myself. I don't know if it pertains to anybody else. So when I was a college student, my father was a tax attorney and a CPA who only wanted me to take over the practice. Now, I didn't necessarily want to be dealing with tax season every year. It probably would have been lucrative for me to take over his practice. In hindsight, however, I'm sure the ironic part to me is now I work with everybody's tax returns.
Speaker 2:It is funny Sometimes life goes full circle like that right yes, definitely did.
Speaker 3:It's all good, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:This has been some great stuff, so you know, to wrap up, what is your number one tip on changing the way we think about money.
Speaker 3:I wish people wouldn't be scared of the topic. I wish people wouldn't be scared of math. I mean, I think money is just an extension of math. So even you know first grade and adding, you know three plus four. You know let's put dollar signs in front of it. You know it really could be. It could be simple, you know. That's why I used the example earlier with the percentages, because it could all relate to money and that's.
Speaker 3:You know how I've tried to teach my children. You know, as they were growing up. I don't want them to be scared of money. I don't want them to.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you a quick little story, true story. My son was like two years old. I was at a park with another mom and their child, and the kids saw vending machines and the other boy ran over to his mom and said dollar, dollar. And my son ran over to me and said card, card. And all of a sudden this light bulb went off like oh no, he can't see that. I just and okay, first of all, if you're paying with a credit card, make sure you can pay it off at every, at the end of every month. Let me just get that out there so it's not like I was just, you know, indiscriminately charging, but I wanted him to get the understanding of what money was. So I changed my ways and, you know, made sure he understood the value of money. And you know, it's not just you hand somebody a card and you get something. You have to pay for it. So, yeah, I think that's really important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there is something to that physical use of money and I've heard that from other people as well and experience it with my own child. You know it's more easy for them to see that finite aspect to it than with the credit card words More intangible, and especially for a little one. Intangible doesn't exist. They can tell you know if they have $5, they know when they have no more dollars.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly, yeah, no, I always started using cash more often after that, because that's what I wanted my child to say.
Speaker 2:And then you just hear more. Can I have a little more?
Speaker 3:And I think it's also good. When the kids go off to school, you know a lot of parents are nervous that the child shouldn't. You know they should focus on their studies. They should not, whether it's work, study or getting a part-time job. No, no, they need to focus on their studies. They shouldn't get a part-time job. Again, I'm a mom, I understand it. However, you know, if they're working five, seven hours a week on campus, I think there are many benefits. They get a paycheck every couple of weeks. They could put it towards their spending money. They're going to learn time management skills. They'll still be able to get their studies done. They'll have something to put on their resume. I think it could be beneficial for the kids. I wish parents wouldn't shy away from it so much or dissuade the children.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I agree with you. They don't need to work 20 hours a week, but a small job, you know, as you point out, teaches them responsibility. It's also a good way to make friends. You know where I worked in college. I made some friends that I worked with. You know that was also fun. But yeah, having a little bit extra spending money definitely didn't hurt. It wasn't a bad thing.
Speaker 3:Right and then the parents, you know don't need to spend as much, you know giving it to the children.
Speaker 2:Definitely hey. So, vicki, you know where can people learn more about you and College Financial Prep. You have your podcasts. You do a lot of great webinars.
Speaker 3:Thank you. So the website is wwwcollegefinancialprepcom. The podcasts are all on YouTube and on Spotify, but you could see all of them on the website. There's a page to see all the different topics that we have and they're not all related to finances. Actually, most of them are, and it's the College Financial Prep's preparing for college podcast. We just did a fun one the other day talking about how to decorate dorm rooms on a budget. But we've spoken about you know the common app. You know the application process, touring colleges. You know all different types. We had one on care packages all different types of topics as it relates to the kids going off to college.
Speaker 2:Definitely I need to watch one on care packages, because it's our time to send one.
Speaker 3:So let me tell you a true story. I love when friends you know the parents get together and do a care package party. You know you could buy a whole bunch of yeah, I remember doing this with friends, you know, when the kids first went to college we bought all the kids and all of the kids were friends with one another, so they each got trying to remember what it was. They each got the same candy, the same like fun pair of socks, the same, you know. So we all had fun shopping and then we all had fun preparing the packages and the kids were posting pictures of their packages for each other. It was lots of fun.
Speaker 2:That's a wonderful idea. Well, Vicki, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today sharing your wisdom. Thank you, Glad to be here. Yeah, and everybody. As always, I'll post links to Vicki's social media profiles to her website so you can check out the great content that she's putting out. And it's always oh, sorry, Sorry.
Speaker 3:And on the website. If anybody wants to schedule 15 minutes with me, you know for you, paul, you can do so from the website.
Speaker 2:Fantastic, that's a great resource and you know, as always, please remember to subscribe and thank you for tuning in to the Get Rending Money podcast. Until next time.