YouTube Deep Summary

## Welcome and why this training is urgently needed [00:00] All right, welcome everyone. My name is Coach David. For those of you guys that don't know me, I am here with Eagle Lock and financial aid secrets to give you guys a little bit more information as to the financial myths myths that are out there and what is actually true and what is actually not. Okay, so it is July 9th, right. It's just after 5:00. We're going to get started now, right. If you can help me out by putting your students grade in the chat, that'd be great. If you are a class of 2026 2027, uh you need to be listening very carefully, right. Because this is the prime time for you to be starting to prepare. Uh if your students a rising senior, well, you should have already talked to me. If you haven't, my question is why haven't you. If you are a class of 2027, this 2025 tax year is going to be important for you. And so, this is the year where if things need to be changed or so on and so forth, that's when we need to be doing it. Okay. So again, uh thank you guys for kind of uh you know spending a little time with me today, right. Uh I'll go over kind of like what we're what we're going to be talking about today and those sort of things kind of further on. Okay. Now, as far as the agenda today, we're going to be talking about things you've probably heard, things that are totally wrong, things that hurt families, and things that are actually true. And I'll kind of like debunk the myths and give you guys a little bit more um clarification on those things, right. And then I'm also going to have a special offer for those that are here live today. I do see that there's a lot of rising uh seniors here. I also see that there's like 11th graders here, right. You guys are the perfect families to be kind of here today because we're going to be talking about the things that can get you in trouble and the myths and the rumors out there that are kind of so pervasive that a lot of families just take them as truth and they lose out on tens of thousands of dollars. Okay. Now, just a little bit about me, right. If you're part of our coaching program, you've probably seen me around, right. Uh I'm all over Discord answering questions, right. Uh I'm having office hours uh answering, you know, students and parents questions there as well, right. I'm one of the head coaches in the program, right. Uh but just a little background about me, I am a former law school and college admissions reader, right. I used to be a lawyer in a past life. Now I'm doing college admissions, okay. And I'm ready to save you guys money in our financial aid uh secrets program. Okay. So, uh, one of the things that we always do in our financial aid program, in our trainings, is that we like to tell you about the financial aid news that is out there. Okay. So, if there's people that have been like coming to, you know, uh, the trainings more frequently, you'll see that I try to bring up like new topics or new things that are happening um, in the in the world of financial aid. Now, today, uh, I had like one week ever of like better news, but then it eventually turned into not as good news, right. Um but unfortunately this financial aid news part is usually a part that is kind of like telling us about bad things that are happening. Okay. Now one of the bad things that act unfortunately happened on our nation's birthday right on July 4th is that the big beautiful bill was signed. Okay. Uh it was signed by. ## New laws that change how repayment works [03:00] President Trump. It is now law right but it does have farreaching uh kind of implications and it does have implications for financial aid. Okay. The biggest implication that it has for financial aid is on the repayment of loans and the amount of loans that a student can take over the course of college and also grad school and professional school. Okay. So, if you look at this chart that I created, you'll see that on the left, this is kind of what had happened in a normal kind of setting, right. So, let's say you borrowed $20,000 for college, right. over the course of 20 like 20 years, you would repay that and then you would kind of be done, right. Uh now, if you actually look if it's they kind of change it. If it's less than $25,000, they expect you to repay it in 10 years. Okay. So, if you actually think about it on a per year basis, right. And again, I'm doing simple math, not adding in the interest. $20,000 over 20 years is $1,000 a year. Okay. $25,000 over 10 years is $2,500 a year. Okay. So they're basically saying that the amount that you need to pay is going to increase two and a half times. Now you might be thinking, oh well, you know, loan programs, they're all based on your income. So that's okay. No problem. That's another piece of the puzzle that has changed. Okay. So before there was income driven repayment. So depending on how much your student made, right. Then you would you would pay back only a percentage of what you make each year. So let's say that your your student made $100,000 a year, right. they can only take 8% of that for repayment of your loans. So basically, it would be $8,000 a year, right. They would split that over 12 months, right. Uh and so it' be basically a 7 a $700 loan payment. That's basically what would happen, right. Now, let's say you made $0 a year, right. $0 time 8% is zero, right. So 0 divided by 12 months is zero. Okay. So again, um those changes are happening there, right. And again, they have the different kind of payment kind of uh terms laid out a little bit differently versus what they were before. Okay, so these things have changed. It is something I want you to tell I wanted to tell you about, right. Um but here are kind of what here are the kind of like the key points that you need to get out of this. The first is income based repayment plans are that were once in place are no longer available. That means whatever you borrow, it will be paid back within that time frame with pay wi with the payments now being kind of calculated at a standard repayment. Even if your earnings are lower. So it doesn't matter if you borrow $20,000. It doesn't matter if your first job out of college pays you $10,000 or a million, your payment is going to be exactly the same. Okay. Now, I know that seems a little bit unfair, right. They but one of the other things that al has also been changed is that economic hardship or deferment has disappeared right instead they're creating a plan so that that students can get a def like a forbearance right a forbearance is. ## What income-based repayment looks like now [06:00] something a little bit different than a deferment or an economic hardship kind of like they let you off the hook for a little while. Normally what happened in any given year is like let's say that you lost your job, right. You got laid off, right. What what you could do is you could you could apply for a deferment or an economic hardship situation, tell them that your income had dropped to a certain amount and then they would lower your payments or get rid of your payments and your payments would be zero during that time frame. Your timeline would still be ticking as far as how much you have paid, right. Um so each month that you made a $0 payment would still count. Unfortunately, what's now going to happen is that you are going to be allowed to get a forbearance. Right. Now, what happens during a forbearance is that they do the same thing. They lower your payment or they get rid of your payment, but they basically add the in they they basically what they do is they take the amount that you're not paying and apply interest to that and then add it to your principal. Right. Now, one thing that is different is that no longer is there going to be a zero zero kind of like zero dollar payment, right. they will pause your principal repayments, right. But they're going to charge you interest on that, right. But, right, you do have to pay the interest during that time. So, even if you have a Z income, they're going to they're going to require you to to pay the interest payment on your loans. Okay. Again, doesn't necessarily all make sense to me, right. Because if it's like you literally have zero coming in, how can you have a debt going out, right. So, I don't know how this is going to affect the college population. The one good thing about this is that for students, right, the maximum amount of loans that you can that you can borrow during college times is about $27,000. Okay. Uh the interest on that over the course of, you know, a year is smaller, right. Um compared to before when students were allowed to take out like, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in undergraduate student loans, right. Um so there is a little bit of a protection there. Okay. Now the biggest problem that I see because I know that a lot of our students they want to go and get their MBA, they want to go and to medical school, they want to go to dental school, they want to go to this school, that school. One of the things that is disappearing is grad plus loans. These are going to be bye-bye. So professional schools, graduate school, everything is gone. Okay. So students with little to no income or credit history are going to have to start looking at private at like the private banking sector to get loans anywhere between 100 and 500k. Right now think of yourself parents as a bank and a a 22year-old student comes and says I got into medical school. I need you know uh $150,000 a year for the next you know four years. Right. I don't think it's going to happen. Right. They don't have any collateral. They don't have a credit history, right. They don't have any income to show, right. What bank, what lender is going to provide that. I have no idea. I think, you know, the government is just throwing it out to the private sector saying, "Figure it out." Right. Now, in my own humble. ## The truth about loan caps and interest rules [09:00] opinion, right, this is going to completely stifle the number of people going to graduate school and professional school. Right. It's going to lead to another elitist situation where only the very well-off families are going to be able to send their students to graduate school or professional school. Okay. Now, just generally speaking, right, looking at the the numbers, the average loan debt of a kind of uh a student that that is graduating from medical school, right, just from their medical school, not from their undergrad, but just from their medical school is about $280,000. Okay. Now, with the caps being set uh for for graduate loans from the federal government at $100,000, that means that they have to find $180,000 in private loans. It's not going to happen, right. The the system is going to crumble, right. There is going to be backlash. There are going to be students that that can cure cancer, that can create the new, you know, the the newest clean source of energy, right. But they're not going to be able to go and get the education they need because of that. I think this is going to have a huge generational these are going to have large generational consequences. Okay. Um so again I'm sorry I have to bring up the bad stuff but unfortunately someone has to do it. Okay. Now let's go into kind of the training for today. Right. I do have a quick message. Okay. So I'm really excited because this coming weekend in just three days we are going to be having our first accelerator. Okay. Now, for those that have been following along with me and with our team and with Eagle, right. Uh, one of the things that you know is that we've been we've been doing our kickstarts all summer, okay. Our kickstarts were a one-day event to help students brainstorm, get drafts out. Our accelerators are a two-day event on Saturday and Sunday, right. Where we are going to work with students in small in a small group setting to try to get them done with their PIQ's, personal statements, and any kind of early action, early decision if they have them done. Okay. again, but the focus is going to be on the PIQ's and the personal statement. Okay, now these I think we have some very limited seats left. I I'm like when I'm saying limited, I'm I'm literally thinking there's like three or four spots left, right. And again, they might be in Sacramento, they might be in San Jose, they might be in uh the LA area, they might be in Orange County or San Diego. I'm not exactly sure right now, right. Uh but there are a couple spots left. If it is something that you are interested in, please let me know. Now, the other piece of the puzzle is that you had to go to a kickstart in order to go to the accelerator. The kickstarts, we're done, right. There's none left. Okay. But we have created a kind of like self-paced Kickstarter uh to help students get through that. So, if you want to do the self-paced Kickstarter and you want to come to an accelerator later to finalize those essays, I will have a link at the end of the training, right. A phone number you can text, a kind of a QR code you can scan so that you can talk to our team about any possibilities and dates. Okay. All right. So, let's get into the training now. Right. Our training today is on college financial aid, right. More. ## Big rumor bust... does income disqualify you [12:00] specifically, the myths, the rumors. Okay. So, let's get into the rumors. There's a lot of them, right. And if there's other ones, feel free to put them in the chat or in the Q&A so that I can I can kind of talk about those too. Uh I'm going to talk about a lot of the different rumors and then I'm going to talk about kind of the big four rumors and explain them a little bit and then give you guys a little clarification. Okay. The first rumor I hear all the time, and you guys are probably saying this to yourself as well, is we make a little bit too much money. Right now, I live in the Bay Area. Okay, the Bay Area, it's crazy, right. Um, our a lot of our incomes are inflated, but so are our living costs, right. Uh I ju like just for fun recently uh I looked at like what a like a three-bedroom twob house in like um I don't know Wisconsin looked like and I was like wow I could go there and live comfortably and I could be okay right I could I could buy the car of my dreams right I can I can create the man cave I've always wanted but in California right threebedroom two two-b house right uh I'm looking at a a million six right so it becomes a little bit difficult, right. Uh I understand if you feel that way, right. But I am here to tell you that that's not true, right. Another rumor is that financial aid is only for low-income families. Okay. I will say this, the majority of my families that I help are making anywhere between $150,000 to $300,000. If you're in that range, I can help you. Okay. The third rumor is applying for financial aid will hurt my chances of getting into a college. I hear this all the time. It doesn't. Okay. Applying for financial aid is a onetime process. Again, not true. Okay. Financial aid awards will be the same at every school. Again, not true. Okay. Now, there's more. Right. I'm going to keep going. Right. There's other rumors, right. I have to pay back all the financial aid I receive. Well, it depends on what kind, right. Financial aid offers are final and non-negotiable. Right. Everything in life is negotiable, right. Look at a, you know, when you buy a car, is it not negotiable. No. That's because you didn't haggle, right. Um, college is the same way, right. Only students with no other options should apply for financial aid. I don't know if you guys know this, but some high schools have now made it a graduation requirement that you have to apply for financial aid. Okay. So, is it only students with other option with no other options. No, it's it's technically the the kind of state and kind of like schools are now saying everyone should, right. Um, and the last one on this page is if you get a scholarship, you can't get any other financial aid. That's not the case, right. I have plenty of students that get athletic scholarships and plus they get fin other need-based financial aid. I have students that get, you know, other merit scholarships and get other need-based financial aid. It just depends on the situation. Okay. There's other kind of rumors out there. Students with savings or part-time jobs will lose out on financial aid. Not necessarily. Right. There are limits though. Okay. So, obviously, if your students kind of sitting there with, you. ## What you need to know about 529 plans and ownership [15:00] know, $5 million in their savings account, then yes, we'll have an issue, right. Uh or if your student's working a part-time job, but you know, they're creating the next, I don't know, uh the next big thing, the next the next Facebook, right. Um and they're getting paid a bunch, then yes, obviously that will do that. But if they're working a part-time job and you know, they have school and they they have this, there's hour limitations, usually it doesn't affect the situation. Third, community colleges don't need to apply for financial aid, right. Community college students, they do, right. In California, there are uh there there is a program called the promise grant where if you go straight from high school to community college, it is technically free, but in order to do that, you do need to apply for financial aid or turn in the forms at least. I'm not saying you're going to get anything because it's already free, right. But you still need to turn things in, right. International students cannot get financial aid. Now, this is a rumor and it's half true and it's half not. Okay. International students can get financial aid, right. But right but but right state schools you're getting nothing right private schools there's a chance right but it's a very small chance okay we have we have someone that kind of said something like uh in the chat here it says parents that have a rental property are not eligible to get financial aid. That's another rumor. I have plenty of families that have rental properties and get financial aid. Okay. You have to remember unless your rental property is paid off and you're making a buttload of money off of it, right. you're usually breaking even on it. Yes, you're building the equity in the house, but the equity is not it's it's not viable until you sell your home, right. Until you sell that property, right. So, again, there are ways to get around that, right. You again, and another part, you can't get financial aid if you're going to school part-time. You can, right. It's just that you get half of it. Okay. And f we have the financial aids are the same at every school. Again, we had that before, right. Other and like the last page here, right. The first thing, if my parents are undocumented, right. Again, and I know that there's a lot of stuff going on in the world right now, right. I can't apply for financial aid. You can apply for financial aid, right. The only person's citizenship that matters is the students. Okay, here's a big one and one that I'll go over later in depth. If I live on my own, I'm automatically considered an independent student. Completely false. Okay, and then the final one, taking out student loans will ruin my credit. Okay, as a person that has student loans, I know that it doesn't because my credit score is 780. Okay, so we're going to go over a couple here, right. I'm going to go in depth at some of the rumors, right. Uh I have there's another question here. It says, "Is it good to spend your savings to get more financial aid?" Right. Now, again, it depends on how much is in your savings, right. If you have like, I don't know, billions of dollars in your savings, right. Um there could be an issue, right. But one of the things I always have to do is talk to a family about the specifics, right. And also what kind of savings, right. Now, one of the ways. ## Rental properties, savings, and aid eligibility [18:00] that colleges know that you have money in a savings account is because they look at like uh interest uh like interest acred, right. Uh they look at like uh interest income on your tax return, right. Now, if you have a high amount of interest income, they know that it was just there's just money sitting in the bank in a savings account, right. What they basically do is they take the interest income. They reverse calculate, right. Based on kind of the average bank interests that are given, right. And then they see how much money you have sitting in the bank. If you have money sitting in a savings account that you're not touching and you're just letting grow, right. That means that that's money that you can technically spend. Okay. So for most families, I tell them, yeah, we probably don't want to have it in that or we want to have it in a savings account that doesn't acrue interest, right. Well, depending on the situation, right. So, I mean, if you're making, I don't know, 12, 15, 20, $25,000 in interest, well, yeah, it's kind of hard not to say, I don't want to put it in that savings account, right. But at the same time, if taking it out will benefit your financial aid, I don't know, 30, $40, $50,000, right. Well, then the cost benefit of that is something that we're going to have to take a look at. Okay. But let's go into the like let's look in like in depth at some of the rumors. The first one is we make a little too much money. Okay. And my my question to this one is always like I have families that literally sign up for a consultation. They've been to a training. They've seen everything I said. They walk into the consultation. They're like, "Yeah, you know, we signed up for one cuz you said to sign up for one, but we make a little too much money." And I'm like, "Oh, really?" Right. That's my first question. Right now, I'm sure that everyone is here because, well, they're looking for a little help, right. If college could cost a little less, you're thinking that would be so nice, right. So, if that's not what you're thinking, I'm not sure why you're here, right. But if you are here, right. And again, I wish I had I wish I was like in front of a live audience so I can see how many people raised their hands, right. Um, but I I I like really want to ask, is there any family out there that feels that they make too much money. Like literally, like I want to make a $100,000 donation uh to the Red Cross every single week because I'm just like I'm I'm just like swimming in money, right. I'm guessing that that is not the case, right. So again, right, if you guys think that you make a little too much money, you should talk to me. Now, generally speaking, when I talk about kind of income and things like that, I tell families, if you if your AGI, your gross income per year is kind of like north of a million dollars, there's not much I can do for you. Okay. But if you're in that 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, $600,000 range, there is probably something I can do for you. Okay. So again, keep that in mind. Okay. Now, again, if you're making more than a million dollars, I probably can't help. So, you can quietly exit and then I'm going to keep track of who it is because then I know you're a millionaire, right. But no, I'm just joking, right. Uh but it is something that for very high income individuals, I cannot do anything for. Okay. Now, the second thing here is. ## FAFSA versus CSS... what each form actually sees [21:00] that applying for financial aid will hurt my chances of getting in. Okay. Now, here's the thing. I've never seen a super competitive applicant apply to a school and not get in because they were asking for financial aid. Okay. Now, you might be asking, well, how do you know that. How do you not know that. It's because I have had students that have gone to these needaware schools, right. That have gotten in and have gotten aid. If that if that was actually the case, like applying for financial aid will hurt my chances, these students should not have gotten into these needaware schools. Now generally speaking most colleges are need blind. In the United States I think there is about a list of 30 schools that is needaware. Needaware means that your ability to pay for college is a factor in their admissions decision. But then why are all of my students going to these needaware schools and getting financial aid. It just doesn't add up. Right. Again it's the rumor mill and it's also sometimes an excuse. Right. Some some families use it as an excuse. Oh, you know, and one of these schools, I'll just kind of like name one. I'm not and again, not trying to hurt their reputation. Great school, right. Washington University St. Louis is a school that is need aware, right. They take your ability to pay into account when looking at your application, right. But, right, I've had students go there get financial aid, right. Uh I've had students go to other schools and get financial aid that are also need aware, right. So, here is the lesson that you should take away from this, right. Again, it's the rumor mill. Families kind of like making excuses, right. Just because their kid didn't get in, it's like, "Oh, you know what. We clicked the box for financial aid, that's why my kid didn't get in." No, realistically, the kid didn't get in because they weren't the best of the best, right. Uh again, college admissions is getting like harder every single year. Okay. So, yes, we do need to focus on that. But the other part of it is making sure we can pay for it. Okay. The lesson you should take away from this is this. If you do not if you do not uh ask for it, you're not going to get anything, right. It's not like they're just gonna like magically like open up a bag and say here are here's some money to pay for college, right. Uh if you feel iffy about it, right, then don't do it, right. If it's if it's like something that you're really really worried about, right. But then you cannot complain about paying full cost, right. You should be happy because you are you're like you and your family made the decision to click that button where it says no. Okay. So, keep that in mind there. Right. The third rumor I want to go over is that financial aid is a one-time process. Now, everyone that's had a consultation with me will know I specifically say that there it is a yearly process, right. The first year is the most intensive because that's when we're applying to all the schools your students applying to. For those that don't really know what the timeline looks like, the timeline of the financial aid applications is almost the same as the college applications. You can think that they go in together. Now, a lot of people think that's backwards, right. And realistically, it really is, right. Um, a lot of people think, well,. ## How merit scholarships impact your aid [24:00] you find out where you get in and then you turn in your financial aid forms. No, it doesn't work that way. You turn in your college applications, you turn in your financial applications roughly at the same time. Then, by the time you get a decision, you also get your financial aid award. Okay. But it is not a one-time thing. In order to continue getting the money, right. Right. And if you're part of our program to continue getting the money that you got as a part of our program, you need to continue going through the financial aid process every single year. Okay. Obviously, if you don't, right, then you're like the money you got first year, it's not going to be there the second year. Okay. Uh so the the kind of like key piece here is you need to make sure what the due dates are for your school, for continuing students, so on and so forth. Okay. And then finally, rumor number four that always gets me and and parents and students are always asking about this is, "Hey, my kids 18 now. They're an adult. They're an independent student." Sorry, completely wrong. Okay, so independent students are only for certain situations, but unfortunately parents, I know you want to kick them out of the house when they're 18, uh, but unfortunately for the purposes of financial aid, your student is tied to you until one of these things happens, right. Or they graduate from college. Okay. So, just because they have their own lease on an apartment that you co-signed for probably does not make them independent, right. There's only a small group of students that's considered independent. And let me go through them. The first is if you're an emancipated minor. Okay. Now, unfortunately, I haven't had the the pleasure of working with anyone that has been an emancipated minor. Okay. Um uh I haven't had to I haven't been able to work with any kind of like child acting stars or sports uh kind of people, right. Uh with their financial aid. So, um but that is one way right now. One of one of the things that you guys may be thinking was like, "Oh, well, we'll go to the court and then we'll get our kid emancipated, right. That way they can be independent for financial aid, right. Their income will be zero, right. But unfortunately, in order to be emancipated, you need to show that you have an income that you can live on, right. For a normal high school student, not very likely, right. The second is that the student is married. Okay. So, students can get married even at well, I mean at 18, but even before 18 with parent consent, right. But I'm not advocating this. I'm just letting you know that this is another way that a student can become uh an independent student, right. The student is a veteran or currently serving in the armed forces, right. Uh technically, this can happen because your student could go off to, you know, um you know, sign up for the military, I believe, at like 17 and a half, right. Um so again, uh they could they could be an independent student by the time that they're ready to go to college after serving, right. The student is over the age of 24. So let's say your student went to college late. they're going to be turning uh 24 uh during the year dur during the academic year um at school then they can be considered an independent student right the student has their own. ## Independent student status and common mistakes [27:00] dependence right this means that they have children okay and then the student has like I said if they graduate the student has completed their bachelor's degree then they are considered an independent student these are the only six situations in which a student can be considered an independent student okay now a lot of parents like, oh well, yeah, like what's the what's the process of go becoming an emancipated minor. It it's tough, right. You need to your student basically needs to be able to show that they they make enough money to pay their rent on their own, pay their expenses on their own, pay this and that, and then you have to uh stand in front of a judge and then prove to them that living with the parents is not the best situation. Okay, so again, these are the only ways unfortunately. Okay, now let's kind of talk about the takeaways here. Okay, there's a lot of rumors that we talked about. There's a lot of rumors that we even had in the chat, right. The one thing that I want to make sure that you guys do not do is just take someone's word for it. Okay. Again, I'm sure you love your neighbors. And Mr. Rogers, okay, I'm like, well, I mean, parents, you you'll recognize this, but if we have any students in here, you might not know who this is, right. But Mr. Rogers is a great neighbor, right. He's a great person to have. He has a bunch of train sets, right. He's a he's a fun fun grandpa, right. But, right, he's probably not an expert on financial aid, right. And even though they have two kids that went to college, doesn't mean that they are an expert in financial aid, right. I've literally worked with thousands of families in every type of situation, right. So, even if it's not me, you should talk to someone that knows this area like the back of their hand, right. Not Mr. Rogers or, you know, Mr. Bill that lives across the street and has six kids, right. Even six does not compare to the thousands that uh financial aid experts go through. Okay. So again, do not rely on non-expert information. Do not listen to your son's, friends, aunts, brother who works at the financial aid office, right. Don't listen to other people that are not doing this for a living. Right. Obviously, we do this for a living. Okay. So again, great people, but make sure that you take it with a grain of salt. And again, our consultations are free. Make sure to sign up for one so we can talk. And if I can help you, I'll tell you. If I can't, I'll turn you away and say, "Sorry, I can't help you in your particular situation." Or I might even say, "You know what. I I wouldn't be able to help more than you would be able to help yourself, so just go ahead and do it on your own." Okay. All right. So, oh, oh, sorry, had a wrong slide. Right. But how can we help. Right. So the first thing that I ask families to do is ask, right. Ask your questions, right. There's no bad questions. And I know that especially in like Zoom world, um, one of the things that a lot of, you know, a lot of families like feel iffy about is like asking a question and like them thinking, "Oh man, maybe that was a stupid question." But that's why the Q&A is there. The Q&A is completely not like. ## Myths about work income, part time jobs, and savings [30:00] it like it doesn't show to anybody else. You can also change the chat settings to change it to kind of like hosts and panelists. So the only person that's going to be able to see it is me. Okay. So reach out if you're one of our Facebook families, reach out on Facebook, right. If you're one of our coaching families, there is a financial aid support channel there. You can also reach out in your private channel, right. Um and we'll also have a Q&A at the end of this convers at the end of this training. So make sure to put your like questions like uh in the chat or in the Q&A so we can we can ask them. Okay. Um and again, do not go into the process blind, right. I know too many families that have and then they reach out to me after they've unfortunately like they have already done the process and unfortunately screwed it up right and then they ask me to try to fix it which at which point I say I can't right so make sure before you fill out any forms before you turn anything in talk to us so that we can tell you what the situation looks like okay now I like to brag a little bit right and so here are some of the our recent results just from our last year's class right I have a family that make $350,000 a year I got them between 30 and $40,000 at various different private schools, right. I have this family, they make around $440,000 a year. I got them $42,000 at Baylor. And this family, right, makes $230,000 a year. I was able to get them about $30,000 from UC Davis. Okay. So again, one of the things that we want to do is that we want you to ask questions. We want you to kind of reach out to us. Okay. So I'm going to give you multiple different ways to do that. Okay. So the first is right you can text us right you can text us money if you want information on the financial aid or if you have questions right 949775865 just text us money our team will get back to you right if you're interested in our kind of coaching programs more long-term right or let's say that you have a senior and they need to get to work right because they haven't done anything yet right then text college to 949-775865 we will make sure to reach back out to you to give you the information you uh give you different programs that you can be a part of so that we can make sure that your student gets to where they want to go. Okay. Now, one of the things I did say above is that there is something that is just here like just for those here today. Okay. So, I'm going to pause the recording real quickly so that I can share that with you guys and then I'll come back to the recording in a little bit. Okay. So, those that were here, obviously you guys got the instructions on how to qualify for that special offer for those people that are just here today. But I did want to open it up to questions. Okay. Now, again, you can text us money. You can text us college to that phone number there. I also have two QR codes up on the screen. The one on the left next to the money, right. That one is for for you to book your financial aid consultation, right. for if you want to talk with our kind of like team about our coaching programs, right. And our kind of like senior programs that we have, you can also text college or not text college, you can scan the QR code on the right to get more information and get in touch uh and. ## In-state tuition rules and residency strategies [33:00] sign up for a consultation with our team about our coaching programs. Okay, but I do want to open it up for Q&A now. And I do see a couple in there. So, if you guys do have questions, take some time to put it in the Q&A, put it in the chat. Again, there are ways to protect your identity. You don't have to put everything there, right. You can change the chat settings instead from of everyone to host and panelist and then only I will be able to see it. Okay, so let's go ahead and do that, right. And let me go ahead and answer the question we have here. Right, the question that we have here is are you able to become a resident to get instate tuition. The answer to this is yes and the answer to this is no. Okay, so it depends, right. And so it depends to it it depends on a couple things, right. Uh first the first and foremost is which state is it. Okay. Now, if you're talking about California, no, there isn't. It's not going to happen unless your family's moving here, right. It won't happen. Uh I'll give you another example. Washington, most likely will not happen. Okay. Uh but let me tell you about some more positive things. Texas, sure, you can become a resident and it's fairly easy, right. Uh again, it depends on what your situation is, but Texas is a is a place where they want more people, right. They have more land than people and they want to fill it up, right. Unfortunately, California, we're running out of places to store people, right. And so, uh we don't really need any more residents, right. Uh but Texas uh there's a lot of different ways to do it but uh in Texas if you own property that is one of the easiest ways to uh become a resident. So I do know students where you know uh they are going parents are looking for an investment property anyway. They will go ahead and buy a property for the student to live in while they're going to college, right. And now they have resident tuition. Okay. So that's kind of one piece there, right. Um we have another question. It says does the service apply to M's programs. So, unfortunately, need-based financial aid is only available at the undergraduate level, okay. If you're going to a master's program, graduate program, professional program, like so on and so forth, the only thing that is going to be available to you are loans, right. Or merit-based scholarships from the colleges that you're applying to. Now, I'm not sure if you were here at the way beginning, but one of the things that is changing with kind of M's programs and things like that is that before there was something called the grad plus loan. Unfortunately, they're getting rid of that, right. So, instead, right, and again, I don't know how long your M's program is or your grad program is, but there's going to be a cap on the amount of money that you can borrow in order to go to that program. Okay. So, uh obviously, you know, if you're thinking about master a master's program, graduate program, now it's going to be a very trying time because now you have to figure out how you're going to finance it because a lot of kids a lot of students were thinking, well, I can just take out loans, right. And then as I'm making money, I'll pay them back. Unfortunately, the big beautiful, right, I want to call it the bull beep, right. Um, bill, right, has changed that. So,. ## Financial aid for community college and transfer students [36:00] that's not a that's not a possibility for most students anymore. Okay. All right. We have another question. It says, uh, what if we have a 529 with money. Can we still qualify for aid. So, I've talked about this a lot and so like maybe I haven't talked about it recently, right. But 529s, if you have more than $30,000 in it, you have misunderstood the point of a 529. Okay. The 529 was a vehicle created for lowincome families to save $30,000 so that they could send their student to their local 4-year university, right. Their state school. Okay. But a lot of higher income people were like, "Oh, it seems like a good thing. Store money away for college, right?" And again, there's tax benefits because the growth is not is not is uh kind of like it's not taxed, right. So great. But realistically, the growth in the 529's like on average over the last 20 years has been about 3% a year, right. So, it's not a great investment tool. But that's kind of a second thing, right. But let's say you do have money in a 529. Move it. Okay. And so the government has given us a legal loophole for this, right. And the legal loophole is that if the 529, the owner of the 529 is a grandparent, it does not count towards financial aid. It does not negatively impact financial aid. Okay. So, uh, grandparents, right. Obviously, you know, I don't want to get too far into deep into like family dynamics, but if uh there's a good relationship, right, everything's good, right. You want to think about moving that to the grandparents. Right. Now realistically what I found is that it doesn't necessarily need to be a grandparent right it can be any person that is not the parent right so your brother your sister your best friend of 40 years like whatever it is right um but obviously it is a usually a significant amount of money right um even if it's smaller amount of money it's still money right so you want to make sure that the relationship is solid right everything is okay because once you let go once you let go of the control of that you it is gone Okay. Uh, we have another question here. Uh, the next question is, can we open an account with the financial aid portal before October to check out the questions asked. I wouldn't, right. You're like, I would just kind of wait until your proper year, right. So, if your student is a rising senior right now, then it'll open in October. You don't need to rush into it. Okay. Um if you are a rising junior then it'll be open next year October. Okay. Uh so again no need to rush into it right there are PDF versions so you can look at kind of what's there. Um but like the financial aid portal there's a lot of them right. There's the FAFSA there's the CSS there's ID do and then each school has its own kind of like different portal that you have to use in order to turn in other things or do this or do that. So, unfortunately, there's not one universal portal for financial. ## Final mindset shifts and what to do next [39:00] aid. I wish there was, but there isn't. Okay. Uh, we have another question. It says, "To apply for financial aid, both parents are required to complete forms. What if one parent is not involved in a child's life?" That's fine, right. And again, it's a little bit more of a complicated situation, but um let's say that you know uh both parents, let's say that well, I mean, I guess the question really becomes uh parents, are you separated. Are you divorced. Are you still married. what is the situation, right. Uh if you're still married uh and you're filing your taxes married, but you know, one parent is not involved anymore, right. Um then it it becomes a little bit more complicated, but if you guys are separated, it's less complicated. Okay. Uh we have another question and it says, "Can you clarify your comment regarding 30K and a 529?" So, what I was saying before is that the purpose of the 529 was to help lowincome families save $30,000 in order to go to their local like I'm in California, so we'll just call it a CSU, right. So, the CSU tuition is about $7,500 a year, right. So, if you think about it, $7,500 times 4 is 30,000, right. Again, that means that you have saved enough for tuition at that state at your local state school, right. So, that's what the point of it was. But uh with higher income families, they were like a lot of financial aid advisors I think kind of like sold it the wrong way, right. Um but when they did sell it, it like of course your financial person gets paid a commission for selling a 529, right. Let's not lie about it, right. Um but family started pouring a lot more money into it. You know, $50,000, $100,000, 150, 200, $200,000, right. Um, but you have to remember if you're if if you have like I don't know I' I've even seen a family with like $350,000 in it. If your student ends up going to a UC, right, then even if you use all the expenses, your your total cost is going to be about $160,000. If you have 350 in there, you have $190,000 that you can only use for like educational expenses, right. you're not going to be able to do anything with that if your student just graduates from college and goes out into the workforce, right. So, you have to it's not just about like tucking money away because eventually if you're trying to get that money back, there's a 10% penalty that you'll have to pay on it, right. Which is not great. Okay, but that's what I meant by $30,000 in a 529. That's what that was that's what the original aim of it was. Okay. All right. Great questions today, right. I hope I was able to kind of enlighten you guys a little bit and give you guys a little bit more hope uh than normal. Um, but uh make sure that you're reaching out uh via email so that I can give you that extra $500 off. If you don't email me by tonight, unfortunately, I will not give it to you, right. Even if you say, "Oh, I was there, right. Um well, if I didn't get an email by tonight, I can't really verify." Okay. Uh so for those that are watching and are thinking, "What is he talking about?" Unfortunately, you don't get it cuz you weren't here live. just for the people that were here live. Make sure that you do that before uh the end of today. Okay. All right. So, uh I'll leave this screen up just for a couple minutes so that you guys can take screenshots, use the QR code, whatever it is. Um and then just in the chat because the chat actually doesn't get it's not part of the recording. I'll go ahead and put the email that you need to reach out to. Okay. All right. Sounds good. Uh, I hope everyone has a great night. It's getting warm, right. Uh, stay cool. Uh, and if you guys need anything or have any questions, please reach out at any time. Okay. All right. I'll see you guys again next week and we'll talk again soon. Bye-bye.