College planning and saving advice from the experts
2020
Financial Aid Applications
Colleges require one or more of the following applications to apply for federal, state and institutional financial aid. In light of Covid-19, deadlines may have changed or vary from last year. Missing them can mean missing out on financial aid you would have been...
Ask the Expert: Searching for Colleges in the COVID Era
If I’m still finalizing my college list and because of Covid-19 I can’t visit campuses, are there other things I should be doing to prepare to apply? Even if you can’t visit and your list is not final, there is plenty you can...
Ask the Expert: Virtual College Search
My child is entering her senior year of high school, and obviously college visits are out. How can parents support the totally virtual college search? This is a question close to my heart because I have a daughter who’s a...
Waiting Room Reward
What does flipping through a magazine in a doctor’s office have to do with saving for college? For Brenna DeLaine, a physician herself, it resulted in saving thousands of dollars for her children’s higher education tuition costs. It was about 16 years ago when Brenna...
From the Beginning
Andrew Spargo likes his newspapers—the printed version—not the online sites. So he was reading The Wall Street Journal in 2003 when he saw an ad for a new way to save for college, called Independent 529. (It’s now Private College 529 Plan.) At the time, Andrew and...
Doubly Good College Savings
Ken and Trina Weingarten know finances and believe strongly in higher education. They have made saving for their daughters’ (Sofia and Elena) college expenses a high priority since they were young. The couple has operated Weingarten Associates, a financial and tax...