Often times the financial plan will include the planning for, and often times, paying for, children to attend college. The average cost of a private university in the Northeast has increased nearly exponentially over the past 15 years with no signs of slowing. College tuition along with all the other costs to send a child to college can be intimidating if not daunting to any family. At Main Effort we help our clients put the entire process into perspective and integrate it into your overall strategic plan. We provide guidance on how to frame the cost of college and help clients build a plan to make it all happen. We have frank conversations with our clients on how much we feel they can afford to contribute towards their child’s education as well as help them identify potential sources of assets to assist in offsetting the cost.

Our “how to pay for college” presentation is simple yet effective. It is how we breakdown the costs of college and the different potential places people could draw money to cover costs. While doing this we never take our eye off of the overall financial plan which (as we know) eventually leads to retirement. We discuss the use of student loans, budgeting, leveraging of assets and many other techniques to help a client to cover the cost. We discuss the possibilities of clients qualifying for need-based financial aid as well as the possible options for schools that offer merit-based aid.

As part of our financial plan (hopefully long before your child is leaving for college) we help clients develop and implement a college savings plan that supports the clients’ overall financial planning strategy. If a client has the ability to save for college, we will make sure that they do.