Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Rushion interviews Brad Baldridge; over the past ten years, Brad has helped hundreds of families plan and pay for college.

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Rushion interviews Brad Baldridge; over the past ten years, Brad has helped hundreds of families plan and pay for college. · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

0:05
Speaker 1: Welcome to Money Making Conversations.
0:06
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Speaker 2: my man, Rashan McDonald. Money Making Conversations.
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Speaker 1: Here we go. Welcome, Welcome to Money Making Conversation Masterclass.
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Speaker 1: I am the host, Rashan McDonald. You know the interviews
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Speaker 1: and information this show provides off for everyone. Please listen,
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Speaker 1: Please take their advice. Please you know google information I
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Speaker 1: is information that I believe will make your life a
0:51
Speaker 1: lot better because it's time to stop reading other people's
0:53
Speaker 1: success stories and start living your own. Also on the show,
0:57
Speaker 1: I have Brad Baldridge. Over the past ten year, Brad
1:00
Speaker 1: has directly helped hundreds of family plan and pay for college.
1:03
Speaker 1: That's important. When the college season got to help these
1:07
Speaker 1: kids make it to their educational goals and got to
1:10
Speaker 1: have that money has to provided in depth college plans,
1:13
Speaker 1: resulting and increased financial aid scholarships, identification of right schools
1:17
Speaker 1: at the right price, and better loans. As I say
1:20
Speaker 1: every week, you can only hear these interviews on Money
1:23
Speaker 1: Making Conversations Masterclass. Let's get this show started with my
1:26
Speaker 1: first guests. It is Brad Baldridge. He's one of the
1:30
Speaker 1: nation's leading financial experts. He teaches families the best ways
1:34
Speaker 1: to plan, save, and pay for college so they can
1:36
Speaker 1: make their children's college dreams come true without wiping out
1:40
Speaker 1: their finances or their retirement. Please, welcome to the Money
1:43
Speaker 1: Making Conversation Master Class. Brad Baldrich. How you doing, Brad?
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Speaker 3: I'm doing great. How are you pretty good?
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Speaker 1: Brad? You know I always call my guests prior to
1:52
Speaker 1: the show just to here if you're divorced and let
1:54
Speaker 1: them know that. You know, this is a very upbeat
1:57
Speaker 1: show about information that I want to share with my guests.
2:01
Speaker 1: How long have you been doing this, Brett.
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Speaker 3: I've been doing this about twenty years now.
2:06
Speaker 1: And we'll push you in this direction because you are
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Speaker 1: a certified financial planner.
2:10
Speaker 3: Correct that's correct.
2:11
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:11
Speaker 3: So college planning is kind of a subset of general
2:16
Speaker 3: financial planning, which is what cfps do, and I just
2:20
Speaker 3: got involved in it, and the more I got involved,
2:22
Speaker 3: the more questions I heard, the more I realized that
2:24
Speaker 3: this was an area that just isn't being covered by
2:27
Speaker 3: for most families as far as their normal planning, and
2:30
Speaker 3: there's a big need for it. So I've been giving
2:33
Speaker 3: presentations at high schools and just have a had a
2:37
Speaker 3: very good response. So I just again, it's kind of snowball.
2:39
Speaker 3: The more I worked at it, the more I more
2:41
Speaker 3: information I put out there, the more people came to
2:43
Speaker 3: me and had more questions.
2:44
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's really interesting because you know, help
2:47
Speaker 1: me out with the education of what scholarships are, What
2:50
Speaker 1: is financial planning, what is financial aid? Because those are
2:53
Speaker 1: different fields of education that you can the finances that
2:58
Speaker 1: you can get to pay for an education. Correct, But
3:01
Speaker 1: how do you as a financial planner for the for
3:04
Speaker 1: the for college education, how do you work amongst these
3:07
Speaker 1: different fields when a person or parent comes to you.
3:12
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, So it's kind of a specialized area because
3:15
Speaker 3: you need to have a really good understanding of how
3:18
Speaker 3: financial aid works. Both the need based aid, which is
3:20
Speaker 3: the FATA and all that process, as well as scholarships
3:24
Speaker 3: and merit scholarships and merit aid and that's would be
3:28
Speaker 3: athletics and high academic achievers and that type of thing.
3:32
Speaker 3: And then all that has to roll together with the families' finances.
3:35
Speaker 3: And you know, for most families, college is going to
3:38
Speaker 3: cost something. But depending on where you stand, it could
3:41
Speaker 3: be five or ten or twenty thousand dollars or it
3:44
Speaker 3: could be fifty or sixty or seventy thousand dollars for
3:47
Speaker 3: each year. So you know, doing it well makes sense
3:50
Speaker 3: for most families.
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Speaker 1: You know, sometimes every year you read about I got
3:55
Speaker 1: one hundred scholarships, I got fifty scholarship. I've been enrolled
3:59
Speaker 1: in over two hundred schools. And when you sit down
4:03
Speaker 1: and you talk to do you talk to the schools
4:06
Speaker 1: directly or do you do virtual counseling or how does
4:10
Speaker 1: your system work?
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Speaker 3: Brad Right, So generally you can think of it as
4:14
Speaker 3: I'm the coach that's working with parents, right, So I
4:18
Speaker 3: help parents understand need based aid and merit aid and
4:21
Speaker 3: talk them through what they can do to make things better,
4:24
Speaker 3: whether they should save or invest or choose the right
4:27
Speaker 3: loans or reposition assets help them figure out what schools
4:33
Speaker 3: might be a good fit for their student. Again, oftentimes,
4:37
Speaker 3: because college is so challenging, people are shocked to learn
4:40
Speaker 3: that there's very similar schools with very different price tags,
4:43
Speaker 3: just depending on how your family fits into the overall
4:47
Speaker 3: mix for that particular school.
4:49
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this because I got to ask
4:50
Speaker 1: these questions because you know, do you bring in because
4:53
Speaker 1: you know there are a lot of military options to
4:56
Speaker 1: pay for school, do you bring that into your financial
4:58
Speaker 1: planning as an option or you could stick with the
5:01
Speaker 1: merit and the need base.
5:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, military does come up where it's a good fit,
5:06
Speaker 3: and again that's kind of a family decision. You know,
5:10
Speaker 3: military is adoption athletics for you know, some athletes, But
5:15
Speaker 3: the reality is for a lot of people, you know,
5:17
Speaker 3: five or ten percent might be athletes, a few percent
5:20
Speaker 3: might use the military, a few percent. And that's the challenge,
5:23
Speaker 3: right There's all these different ideas and programs out there,
5:26
Speaker 3: and only a couple of them are going to be
5:27
Speaker 3: right for any particular family. And I think that's the
5:31
Speaker 3: big caution where you know, families will say, well, my
5:34
Speaker 3: brother in law did it, and this is what he did.
5:36
Speaker 3: But unless your family and your student and your income
5:39
Speaker 3: and all your statistics are just like your brother in law,
5:42
Speaker 3: there's a good chance that what worked for him may
5:44
Speaker 3: not work for you. And you're going to have to
5:46
Speaker 3: come up with your own strategies that will work better
5:48
Speaker 3: for you.
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Speaker 1: And that's really the key, because I was a need
5:51
Speaker 1: base when I was in college. I you know, my family,
5:55
Speaker 1: my father was a truck driver, and I hit that
5:58
Speaker 1: hit that economic level where I was able to apply
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Speaker 1: for financial aid and that enabled me to actually go
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Speaker 1: through college and I didn't have to get a college loan.
6:08
Speaker 1: Now because the big shout out now is that these
6:11
Speaker 1: college loans and trying to get governor subsidies where they
6:15
Speaker 1: don't have to pay these loans back. And I'm just
6:18
Speaker 1: as I walk through this conversation with you, Brad and
6:21
Speaker 1: Brad is one of the nation's leading college financial experts.
6:23
Speaker 1: He teaches families the best ways to plans safe and
6:26
Speaker 1: pay for college so they can make their children's college
6:29
Speaker 1: plans come true. Now you hear the word loan, you
6:33
Speaker 1: hear the word need base, you hear the word merit
6:39
Speaker 1: walkers through is getting the loan a bad thing for
6:44
Speaker 1: fund your education.
6:46
Speaker 3: No, not even getting a loan in general is not bad.
6:48
Speaker 3: It's not good either. It's just one tool in the toolbox,
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Speaker 3: and I think where people misuse the tool, that's when
6:55
Speaker 3: things get bad. Right, If you only have a hammer
6:57
Speaker 3: and you've got screws that you're trying to deal with,
7:00
Speaker 3: it's just not a good fit. And it's kind of
7:01
Speaker 3: the same thing when it comes to college. You know,
7:03
Speaker 3: sometimes the loan is the only tool available, so that's
7:07
Speaker 3: the one you use, and it gets people in trouble.
7:11
Speaker 3: Other times loans are very appropriate. So it really depends
7:15
Speaker 3: on you know, your particular situation and you know how
7:19
Speaker 3: much earnings you may have to pay them back and
7:22
Speaker 3: all that type of thing.
7:23
Speaker 1: But like you said something really interesting you said, Rashan,
7:26
Speaker 1: you know, you would think that the same school would
7:29
Speaker 1: have the same financial commitment, and they don't. So if
7:32
Speaker 1: you have a student out there and you and they
7:34
Speaker 1: trying to go the route of a loan, knowing they
7:36
Speaker 1: have to pay that loan back, do you play a
7:39
Speaker 1: role in the decision making with the parents to say, hey, look,
7:42
Speaker 1: this is what's going to happen. I would recommend this
7:45
Speaker 1: school over here. Excellent graduate, excellent reputation within the business community.
7:52
Speaker 1: How does your relationship work with the parents, because in
7:55
Speaker 1: the end, you're trying to make sure that they the
7:58
Speaker 1: child gets a proper education and the parents are not
8:01
Speaker 1: so not like mortgaging the retirement, and there's an opportunity
8:07
Speaker 1: for this kid to live a life that their parents
8:09
Speaker 1: may not have led.
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Speaker 3: Right exactly, And I think it's if you you know,
8:13
Speaker 3: look at what it looks like at the end, right,
8:16
Speaker 3: you know, that's an important thing to realize that. You know,
8:19
Speaker 3: as an example, at the very end of the process,
8:22
Speaker 3: at the end of your senior year, you know, a
8:24
Speaker 3: family might say, Okay, we applied to these five schools, right,
8:26
Speaker 3: you know, this one we didn't get accepted at. This
8:29
Speaker 3: is the local state school. It's going to cost us
8:31
Speaker 3: about twenty five thousand. Here's a couple of private schools.
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Speaker 3: One's twenty seven than one's twenty nine thousand, and then
8:38
Speaker 3: here's another private school that's you know, fifty seven thousand.
8:41
Speaker 3: A lot of families would say, you know, fifty seven
8:43
Speaker 3: versus twenty seven. You know, maybe we'll skip that expensive one.
8:46
Speaker 3: But not always. Sometimes people say that, you know, the
8:48
Speaker 3: most expensive one is the one we like, and we're
8:50
Speaker 3: willing to pay it. There's no right or wrong here.
8:53
Speaker 3: Just like you know, when we buy a car, not
8:54
Speaker 3: everybody pays the same price. But if there's lower priced
8:59
Speaker 3: options avail, you know, you certainly want to consider them.
9:02
Speaker 3: And I think that's where many families make a mistake,
9:05
Speaker 3: is when they apply, all their choices end up being
9:09
Speaker 3: expensive choices, and they didn't even realize that there was
9:12
Speaker 3: lower cost options available because they it's very opaque. You know,
9:16
Speaker 3: Colleges have the price that they publish, but there's also
9:19
Speaker 3: the price you pay, and that can be very different
9:21
Speaker 3: if you get a lot of aid. You know, as
9:23
Speaker 3: an example, Stanford is eighty some thousand dollars, but they've
9:27
Speaker 3: had some press releases out there saying that for families
9:30
Speaker 3: whose income is under one hundred thousand, you know, their
9:33
Speaker 3: cost will essentially be zero. They'll pay all of tuition
9:37
Speaker 3: and all of room and board, so the student can
9:39
Speaker 3: go almost free. Now, if that's the case, you know,
9:42
Speaker 3: it doesn't really matter that they list at eighty five thousand.
9:45
Speaker 3: What you pay is what matters. And conversely, if your
9:49
Speaker 3: income is really high at Stanford, they don't offer any
9:52
Speaker 3: meridate at all. So if you don't show any need,
9:55
Speaker 3: then you're going to pay full price almost no matter
9:57
Speaker 3: what because of the way the system works. So for
10:00
Speaker 3: some families, you know, Stanford could be free. For other
10:03
Speaker 3: families too, could be eighty five thousand. And it's really
10:07
Speaker 3: understanding where you fit into that, because I've had families
10:10
Speaker 3: coming to me and say, it doesn't make sense the
10:12
Speaker 3: school didn't offer any merit aids and it's like, okay,
10:15
Speaker 3: well that school never offers MERITATE so it's not like
10:18
Speaker 3: they're picking on you. They don't give it to anybody.
10:20
Speaker 3: So look for schools where MERIDID is appropriate. If you
10:24
Speaker 3: have a student that's you know that that's what you
10:28
Speaker 3: need to do to make it work. Other families, it's like, well,
10:31
Speaker 3: let's find schools that are very generous on the need
10:33
Speaker 3: base side, because in our situation, need based aid is
10:36
Speaker 3: what's going to help us. And then there's always the
10:39
Speaker 3: lower cost, you know, state schools. And again when I
10:42
Speaker 3: say low cost, the average state schools twenty seven thousand
10:45
Speaker 3: per year, all in that, you know, again relative to
10:49
Speaker 3: the fifty thousand and seventy five thousand dollars schools, it
10:52
Speaker 3: looks like a good deal.
10:54
Speaker 1: Right, I'm going to assume you that Brandon I was
10:58
Speaker 1: a need based I was way ondo one hundred thousand
11:00
Speaker 1: dollars my family. So you know that that's that's where
11:05
Speaker 1: we get, you know, the thing about it when I'm
11:07
Speaker 1: when I'm when I wanted to bring you in the show,
11:09
Speaker 1: and I'm very happy because you're breaking down. There's a
11:13
Speaker 1: place you can go, a person you can talk to
11:16
Speaker 1: that can really you know, we through all these decisions
11:20
Speaker 1: or these books and all this that's really what your
11:23
Speaker 1: brain is all about, kind of like breaking through all
11:26
Speaker 1: the confusion of bringing clarity to better options. Correct.
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Speaker 3: Absolutely, there's all kinds of programs, and every time the
11:35
Speaker 3: government says, okay, we're going to build a new program
11:38
Speaker 3: because we found a problem. We're going to help you know,
11:41
Speaker 3: these people in this situation. Well, now there's one more
11:43
Speaker 3: program that you have to figure out if you qualify
11:46
Speaker 3: for or not. And because over the years they've added
11:48
Speaker 3: need based aid and merit aid and the fastest common
11:51
Speaker 3: changed and the different loans, and now there's a and
11:54
Speaker 3: the states get involved. States also offer aid in various ways.
12:00
Speaker 3: By the time you mix it all together, most families
12:02
Speaker 3: are like, wow, this is really confusing. Do I look
12:04
Speaker 3: at these programs or those programs and how does it
12:07
Speaker 3: all come together? I mean, that's the bad news is
12:09
Speaker 3: it's confusing and challenging. The good news is if you
12:12
Speaker 3: look at a typical college campus, there's lots of students there,
12:16
Speaker 3: so most families in the end eventually figure it out.
12:19
Speaker 3: The real challenges do they figure it out as best
12:22
Speaker 3: as they could when you know, are they paying the
12:24
Speaker 3: lowest number they could? And I think for a lot
12:27
Speaker 3: of families they're not because they made mistakes and they
12:30
Speaker 3: ended up just taking loans to, you know, to cover
12:32
Speaker 3: up the fact that they didn't plan well.
12:34
Speaker 1: And that's where I too, and I have to catch
12:37
Speaker 1: twenty two that we are talking about in this interview
12:39
Speaker 1: is that you know, these when I brought a whole
12:42
Speaker 1: matter of loans, you know where you know, President Biden
12:45
Speaker 1: is trying to you know, just let loans not in
12:50
Speaker 1: the general population and going why why should I pay
12:54
Speaker 1: that off? Why should I? That's the decision they made.
12:57
Speaker 1: They And that's what I'm saying is that you have
12:59
Speaker 1: to say down what I consider you to be an
13:01
Speaker 1: expert in the college financial planning world. How does one
13:06
Speaker 1: to get in touch with you are or do you
13:08
Speaker 1: have a website to be able to communicate with these needs?
13:11
Speaker 1: And my interview is not over. I just want to
13:13
Speaker 1: get this information out all right now.
13:14
Speaker 3: Before the Yeah, So all my information is at our
13:17
Speaker 3: website Taming the High Cost of College dot com. So
13:21
Speaker 3: there's all kinds of free resources as well as I
13:24
Speaker 3: phone numbers and anything else that you might need, so
13:26
Speaker 3: you can reach out there for sure.
13:28
Speaker 1: Cool. I'm talking to Brad. Brad Baldridge for twenty years,
13:31
Speaker 1: he has shared his expertise and insights to his private
13:34
Speaker 1: practice as a blogger. We talk about that blogger Taming
13:38
Speaker 1: the High Cost of College podcast when we get back,
13:40
Speaker 1: but also late stage college planning. He explained that to
13:45
Speaker 1: me prior to the interview because I'd never heard of
13:47
Speaker 1: that and when he spoke to me, when he explained
13:49
Speaker 1: it to me, it made a lot of sense. We'll
13:51
Speaker 1: be right back with more Money Making Conversations Masterclass with
13:55
Speaker 1: Brad Baldridge. Over the past ten years, he's helped hundreds
13:58
Speaker 1: of families plan and pay for college.
14:07
Speaker 4: We'll be right back with more money Making Conversations Masterclass
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Speaker 4: Now, let's return to Money Making Conversations Masterclass with Rashaun McDonald.
16:26
Speaker 1: At the beginning of my interview, Brad, you know, I
16:28
Speaker 1: was really just letting everybody know it's all about the money.
16:31
Speaker 1: It's all about the dollars, you know. That's why I
16:33
Speaker 1: wanted people to understand that you are a certified financial
16:36
Speaker 1: planner and you've shifted gears and basically a certified financial
16:40
Speaker 1: College Education planner. I guess I can add that as
16:44
Speaker 1: a title, correct.
16:45
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean that's what I do. There's no official
16:48
Speaker 3: title for that, or no official I'm.
16:50
Speaker 1: Gonna give it to you, Brad. I'm gonna give it
16:51
Speaker 1: to you. If you don't mind, I'm gonna give it
16:52
Speaker 1: to you.
16:53
Speaker 3: I don't mind.
16:55
Speaker 1: And with that being said, we were we were talking
16:58
Speaker 1: about late college planning. What exactly is that?
17:03
Speaker 6: Right?
17:04
Speaker 3: So late stages where people really need to start focusing
17:07
Speaker 3: in on the very specifics of college, you know, early stages,
17:11
Speaker 3: you know, grade school, high school, or before high school,
17:14
Speaker 3: grade school, kindergarten, even before school starts, or hey, we're pregnant,
17:19
Speaker 3: maybe we should be saving for college, right, you know
17:22
Speaker 3: that's and that's all well and good, But you're not
17:25
Speaker 3: visiting colleges, you're not planning your testing strategies, you're not
17:28
Speaker 3: doing a lot of the very minute work you know
17:31
Speaker 3: early All that starts late stage, So late stages when
17:34
Speaker 3: you start switching from Okay, whether I've saved a bunch
17:36
Speaker 3: of money, whether I've saved zero at all. College is
17:39
Speaker 3: coming and it's coming quickly. What do I need to
17:41
Speaker 3: do to be ready? And I think for a lot
17:43
Speaker 3: of families. The first thing is you need to start
17:45
Speaker 3: earlier than what we used to do. When I went
17:47
Speaker 3: to college, it wasn't unusual to wait till your senior
17:50
Speaker 3: year before you even thought much about college. Now I
17:53
Speaker 3: encourage families that really start thinking about it sophomore year,
17:56
Speaker 3: maybe even freshman year of high school, so that you
18:00
Speaker 3: have some time to plan and prepare. And again, it's
18:02
Speaker 3: not necessarily the student that's doing it. Batterly, it's the parents,
18:07
Speaker 3: because the parents have pieces to do, no matter what
18:09
Speaker 3: school or whatever. So they need to understand how need
18:12
Speaker 3: based aid is going to work, and how MARIDID works,
18:14
Speaker 3: and if you've been saving and investing money, are you
18:17
Speaker 3: doing enough, and how much you need, how a you're
18:19
Speaker 3: going to be fair if you've got multiple kids, and
18:22
Speaker 3: all these things that you can work on even if
18:24
Speaker 3: your student's not quite ready to be visiting and doing
18:27
Speaker 3: their part yet. And if you can spread that out
18:30
Speaker 3: a little bit, it takes a lot of the pressure
18:31
Speaker 3: off because one of the things I hear over and
18:33
Speaker 3: over again is I'm so confused, I'm so overwhelmed, and
18:37
Speaker 3: we have to get all this figured out in the
18:39
Speaker 3: next six months, because you know, we're up against deadlines,
18:42
Speaker 3: and for a lot of families, if you can start
18:45
Speaker 3: earlier so that you can slow the process down, you
18:48
Speaker 3: can enjoy it a little bit more. It's not such
18:50
Speaker 3: a rush, and you can get a little more thorough
18:53
Speaker 3: and understand, you know, what you're dealing with, and it
18:57
Speaker 3: helps you plan and ultimately, I think, with a little
19:00
Speaker 3: more time and effort, you come up with a plan
19:02
Speaker 3: that ultimately saves you money.
19:03
Speaker 1: And I think that's important because you know it. You know,
19:07
Speaker 1: of course, you know, when I was growing up, college
19:10
Speaker 1: was a lot cheaper, but it still was expensive and
19:14
Speaker 1: you still have to plan for these things. And if
19:16
Speaker 1: I'm a parent and I need to plan for college,
19:20
Speaker 1: how do I get started?
19:21
Speaker 3: Brand right? So I think the first thing is to
19:24
Speaker 3: really just kind of jump in and realize that college
19:27
Speaker 3: planning is a process. You start, you know, not really
19:29
Speaker 3: understanding much of anything, and either you read a book
19:32
Speaker 3: or you you know, listen to my podcast or you
19:35
Speaker 3: whatever it is, you just start, you know, start wherever
19:38
Speaker 3: you are and start working at it, and as you
19:40
Speaker 3: learn more, you kind of gain some experience. But and again,
19:44
Speaker 3: you know, as an example, I give presentations at some
19:46
Speaker 3: of the local high schools and one of the high schools.
19:49
Speaker 3: I've been giving presentations for the last ten years or so,
19:53
Speaker 3: and I'll have participants come up me and they'll say,
19:55
Speaker 3: you know, I've got a senior and it's like, well,
19:58
Speaker 3: you know, all this is great information, but I feel
20:00
Speaker 3: like it was too late. You know, why weren't you
20:01
Speaker 3: here last year or the year before? And it's like,
20:04
Speaker 3: I was, I was here the last ten years.
20:07
Speaker 1: Wow.
20:07
Speaker 3: But a lot of parents don't pay attention. They don't
20:10
Speaker 3: you know, they're not thinking about college. They're still trying
20:12
Speaker 3: to figure out how do we do high school?
20:14
Speaker 6: Right?
20:15
Speaker 3: High school is new and you know, so they're not
20:17
Speaker 3: thinking about college yet. And because they're not thinking about it,
20:19
Speaker 3: they don't notice the bulletins that talk about the presentations
20:23
Speaker 3: and that kind of stuff. You know, if you start
20:26
Speaker 3: thinking about it, you'll notice all that stuff and then
20:28
Speaker 3: you can start participating in it.
20:30
Speaker 1: You know, it's really because life is a lot of drama.
20:33
Speaker 1: You know, you worry about your children, you have social
20:36
Speaker 1: media issues. You know, it's so many things that life
20:39
Speaker 1: is the economy. You're just coming out of COVID and
20:43
Speaker 1: so you know it's parents, your child at home, where
20:46
Speaker 1: you go see your child a school. So it's a
20:49
Speaker 1: lot of things that are going on as a parent,
20:51
Speaker 1: and I just wanted to slow down the moment on
20:53
Speaker 1: my show that people here, you got to listen. That's
20:57
Speaker 1: all he's saying. These options out here. They didn't just
21:00
Speaker 1: hop up last week. He like you said, he's been
21:02
Speaker 1: in an environment where he's been there ten years and
21:05
Speaker 1: people were walking up to him like he just started
21:08
Speaker 1: yesterday because they would not listen. They were not looking
21:10
Speaker 1: at the signs on the wall. They were not planning
21:14
Speaker 1: beyond a month, because a lot of people kind of
21:17
Speaker 1: keep the clock on thirty days bread or ninety days.
21:20
Speaker 1: They don't look at a year or two years down
21:22
Speaker 1: the line. And when you're dealing with your child, you
21:25
Speaker 1: want to hear what your child dreams are. And when
21:27
Speaker 1: you hear what your child's dreams are, you need to
21:29
Speaker 1: start looking at the options of whether you can of
21:31
Speaker 1: how you are going to participate in making your child's
21:34
Speaker 1: dream come true. That's what you're saying, correct, right, Absolutely.
21:37
Speaker 3: I think there's all you know, there's kind of a
21:39
Speaker 3: big picture stuff of just understanding how it all works,
21:42
Speaker 3: and then you get into the weeds of well, if
21:45
Speaker 3: I do this, you know that loan is better than
21:47
Speaker 3: this loan, or if I do if I do this,
21:49
Speaker 3: I'll get a little more aid. Or if my student
21:51
Speaker 3: applies to these scholarships, we have a shot at you know,
21:54
Speaker 3: changing the overall price by finding the right scholarships. So
21:58
Speaker 3: there's lots of things you can do. It's part of
22:01
Speaker 3: it is figuring out well which ones are the best
22:03
Speaker 3: things to do and which ones will have the most impact.
22:06
Speaker 3: And again it's a kind of a case by case basis.
22:08
Speaker 3: If you've got a strong athlete, sports might be appropriate.
22:12
Speaker 3: If you don't have a strong athlete, you have to
22:14
Speaker 3: look somewhere else. If you have a strong academic, that
22:17
Speaker 3: might be your thing.
22:17
Speaker 1: Right now, you you said your website earlier brand and
22:22
Speaker 1: getting phone calls in so he said it too fast?
22:24
Speaker 1: He said it too fast? Can you slow doubt and
22:28
Speaker 1: read state your website as to how we can reach
22:31
Speaker 1: out to you.
22:32
Speaker 3: Right, So the website is taming the high cost of
22:35
Speaker 3: college dot com, So just like it sounds, taming the
22:38
Speaker 3: high cost of college dot com.
22:40
Speaker 1: And that's a podcast as well. Correct.
22:42
Speaker 3: There's also a podcast about available wherever podcasts are sold,
22:47
Speaker 3: so you can look that up as well. It's on Spotify,
22:49
Speaker 3: et cetera.
22:51
Speaker 1: And it's really when we're talking about parents and recommending
22:54
Speaker 1: for savings and paying for college, what are some of
22:57
Speaker 1: the biggest surprises for many parents is that the price
23:00
Speaker 1: of college isn't what they see on school websites. Like
23:03
Speaker 1: you said earlier that about Stanford. Where can you find
23:07
Speaker 1: the real cost of what a college education is for
23:11
Speaker 1: your child?
23:13
Speaker 4: Right?
23:14
Speaker 3: So I do have a free resource. It's on my website,
23:18
Speaker 3: is one of the resources, and it has the net
23:21
Speaker 3: price of colleges by state and then so the net
23:24
Speaker 3: price would be that, you know, the list price minus
23:27
Speaker 3: whatever age you typically receive. So we've got some numbers there,
23:32
Speaker 3: you know, showing if your income is this, you know,
23:35
Speaker 3: this is the average price. If your income is higher,
23:38
Speaker 3: this is the average price. So it's all broken out
23:40
Speaker 3: and it's a great place to start. But all this
23:43
Speaker 3: stuff is averages, and that's one of the big cautions
23:47
Speaker 3: is the average is this the you know, the average
23:49
Speaker 3: family has two point two kids, Well, show me a
23:52
Speaker 3: point two kid out there. It's you know, averages only
23:55
Speaker 3: go so far. What you really need to do is
23:57
Speaker 3: understand how it's going to work for you. So start
23:59
Speaker 3: with the averages, learn how it works, and then from
24:03
Speaker 3: there you can literally figure out what the cost will
24:06
Speaker 3: be based on your situation, not based on an average situation.
24:10
Speaker 1: As we close out the interview, Brad, how can families
24:12
Speaker 1: balance paying for college and saving for retirement?
24:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that is one of the biggest challenges,
24:19
Speaker 3: and I think it's important that you just kind of
24:21
Speaker 3: keep all your goals in mind when you're making those
24:25
Speaker 3: college decisions, because if you need to be saving, you know,
24:29
Speaker 3: let's say five hundred or one thousand per month in
24:32
Speaker 3: order to make retirement happen. And now you just discovered
24:34
Speaker 3: that college is going to be another thousand a month, Well,
24:38
Speaker 3: you can't take a thousand that was for retirement. You
24:40
Speaker 3: got to take a thousand from somewhere else. And I
24:43
Speaker 3: think for a lot of families, in the spur of
24:44
Speaker 3: the moment, they'll delay retirement, or they'll do things or
24:47
Speaker 3: that you won't even just think about it to just say, well,
24:49
Speaker 3: we'll sign up. We'll figure it out later, and you know,
24:52
Speaker 3: that's kind of the cost, and that's the mistake.
24:54
Speaker 1: To figure out later part is what you're trying to
24:56
Speaker 1: get us to stop doing, because later we'll come to
25:00
Speaker 1: you quicker than you think, and when it comes to you,
25:03
Speaker 1: you don't have answers for the later.
25:04
Speaker 3: Correct exactly, just like you know, when our kids were young,
25:08
Speaker 3: it seems just like last week, and all of a sudden,
25:10
Speaker 3: here we are in high school and it's going to
25:12
Speaker 3: go just as fast as you know. High school is
25:14
Speaker 3: going to go very quickly, and then college is here,
25:17
Speaker 3: and so forth and so on. And I think that's
25:19
Speaker 3: where again, making a reasonable plan. I'm not saying you
25:21
Speaker 3: shouldn't spend a lot of money on college. I'm not.
25:23
Speaker 1: What I'm saying is.
25:25
Speaker 3: If you're going to spend a lot of money on college,
25:27
Speaker 3: understand the impact on other areas. You know. I always
25:30
Speaker 3: give the example, you know, if you choose to give
25:32
Speaker 3: up your lake home so you can spend crazy amounts
25:34
Speaker 3: of money on college, that's one decision, r. But if
25:37
Speaker 3: you're going to delay your retirement till you're seventy five
25:39
Speaker 3: because you've spent too much on college, that's a completely
25:43
Speaker 3: different decision. And I'm not saying the wrong decisions, but
25:45
Speaker 3: at least be aware that that's the consequences. And I've
25:48
Speaker 3: seen that happen all too often of you know, parents
25:51
Speaker 3: having a lot of debt because they were willing to
25:53
Speaker 3: help their students, you know, at any price. So the
25:56
Speaker 3: parents took on a ton of debt, and now they're
25:58
Speaker 3: trying to figure out how retirement works while they're still
26:00
Speaker 3: trying to pay back student loans, and it just doesn't
26:02
Speaker 3: work for some Wow. So that's you know, that's the
26:05
Speaker 3: big caution of well, for some families, loans that are
26:08
Speaker 3: required to make it happen. But then you also need
26:11
Speaker 3: to have a kind of a heart to heart with
26:13
Speaker 3: a student about well, who's going to pay back the
26:15
Speaker 3: loans and how is this all going to come together?
26:17
Speaker 1: Absolutely, hey, Brad, it's really thank you for coming on
26:21
Speaker 1: the show. I definitely win the middle of a college
26:23
Speaker 1: season or falling spring, so I definitely want to continue
26:27
Speaker 1: this conversation because I think people need to hear. Like
26:31
Speaker 1: you said, they they've they've a lot of people didn't
26:33
Speaker 1: hear this interview, and so it's necessary that we keep
26:36
Speaker 1: selling the information, telling the story of how education is affordable.
26:41
Speaker 1: You just got to know the right path. As we
26:43
Speaker 1: close out, give give out your website slowly one more time.
26:46
Speaker 3: Brad, Yes, so it's taming the high cost of college
26:50
Speaker 3: dot com.
26:51
Speaker 1: Thank you, Brad, and we'll talk soon.
26:52
Speaker 4: Okay, Yes, thank you for joining us for this edition
26:59
Speaker 4: of Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Money Making Conversations Masterclass with
27:04
Speaker 4: Rushan MacDonald is produced by thirty eight to fifteen Media Inc.
27:08
Speaker 4: More information about thirty eight to fifteen Media Inc. Is
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Speaker 4: available at thirty eight fifteen media dot com. And always
27:16
Speaker 4: remember to lead with your gifts