Re: College Financial Aid Consultants

"Otha Stubblefield" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Charging...consultant?????  Never heard of such a thing.  Financial Aid
> packages are pretty standard.  There's money provided by the government
> (grants, fellowships, loans), money provided by the state (grants), and
> money provided by the school (scholarships, grants).  You just need to
find
> out what is available from the school that you are targetting.  Talk to a
> financial aid counselor at the school for free!!!

Actually there are a lot of things that the school financial aid counselor
won't tell you.

You want to arrange your financial affairs to maximize your eligibility,
and many of the things you can do, while not illegal, are not really
ethical either. My old gf was a financial aid counselor at Stanford
Business School. The MBA students were very good at exploiting
the system. I.e., minimize any real estate equity by taking out the
largest possible mortgage. Know that cash, securities, and real
estate are considered assets for qualifying for aid, but a $50K
automobile is not. These students could be very well off but
appear to be paupers.

For parents that plan several years ahead, there are all sorts of
ways to make your child eligible for more financial aid than they
would normally be entitled to.

I saw a book many years ago that detailed all this, but I can't
remember the name of it.