Two New Tuition Guarantees Families Should Know About
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Washington and Lee University (in Virginia) just announced that families earning under $200,000 won’t pay tuition. Under $75,000, they won’t pay for housing or food either. That’s good news for middle income applicants.
What’s even better is that the Washington and Lee move is actually part of a growing national trend in which quite a few colleges — beyond the Ivies –are raising the income caps for need-based financial aid.
Just today, for example, we also heard that University of Vermont families earning up to $125,000 will have tuition and the comprehensive fee fully covered. That’s a high threshold for a selective public university.
For many students, tuition guarantees like these can change which colleges deserve a spot on their list. There is, of course, one caveat: the headline is only the beginning. “Tuition-free” should never automatically be interpreted as “free college.”
You’ll still have to determine whether your family actually qualifies, how much of the cost of attendance the ‘free tuition’ grant covers, whether you can reposition your assets to improve your chances of qualifying for more aid, what costs remain after the “free” part, and which forms have to be filed (and then refiled) to receive and keep the grants.
Maximizing your chances and leveraging all of your grant opportunities requires advanced planning. Ideally we like to begin planning for funding and financial aid optimization by the second semester of 10th grade (just prior to the look-back year — the year that your income will be evaluated for the financial aid formulas).
So, there are two big lessons from today’s news. The first is that the rules governing financial aid and funding will keep changing. The second, and probably the more significant one, is that the sticker price is becoming an increasingly unreliable way to build a college list. Going forward, we expect to see record level discount rates as Institutional grants and scholarships remain the most common lever utilized by admissions offices to attract new students.
You need to know your net price BEFORE you build your college list. That price is going to be different for you than it is for your neighbor – and if managed properly, it’s going to be much lower than the published price. In fact, we routinely see high six figure earners receive five-figure discounts when they plan properly.
When we started this business 20 years ago, very few people outside enrollment offices were talking about tuition discounting, strategic enrollment management, institutional financial aid, or the business side of higher education. If you wanted information on funding, you had to dig for it.
But something interesting has happened over those two decades.
Information has become abundant. Today’s parents have access to more college information than at any other time in history.
And yet…
Families we meet don’t seem more confident. They seem more overwhelmed.
Today the problem is no longer finding information. The problem is knowing what to do with it. Knowing which advice applies to your family and how to act upon it.
That’s why we created our College Planning Advice Community.
This group is not for everyone. It is specifically for parents of college-bound teens who are tired of well-intentioned but ill-informed opinions from fellow Facebook warriors and are ready to learn not only how this system actually works, but how to make it work for their family.
If that is you, here’s what to do right now:
Join our free College Planning Community at skool.com/college-planning-advice
The moment you join, you’ll get immediate access to the YCC College Planning Roadmap, the Merit Money map, the Special Circumstances Guide, grade-specific planning tools, and direct access to our planners for real answers to your specific questions.
Free for 7 days. Then $8 a month. Cancel anytime.
Go here now: skool.com/college-planning-advice
(If you’re a client, these tools are available on our YCC Member dashboard).
Do the challenges. Get the guides. Book a short call. Do it before you file a single form. Do not assume the standard instructions apply to your family until you know what the standard instructions are actually missing.
