I uploaded last week's webinar on the New Rules of Financial Aid  to our podcast,  The College Planning Edge. 

(Yes, I too have a podcast.)

The changes affect families applying for aid next year, who have more than child in college at the same time, as well as divorced families and small business owners.  

I'll be blunt:  most of the new rules are pretty sucky.  But some of the other ones ain't all bad, like the ones covering grandparents who help pay for college, and parents who contribute to their retirement accounts.

I also predicted delays and confusion surrounding the entire process.  That will be fun.  Not.

Here's where you can listen to this episode, and the tips and strategies I offered to cope...

...and get your hands on the financial aid and scholarships you deserve to take a bite out of the insane cost of college!

POCAST EPISODE

- Andy "Long Time Listener, First Time Caller" Lockwood

...

There's a not-so-silent financial aid killer, lurking in the shadows, awaiting hapless families looking to apply for college financial aid this year.

This assassin appears to have targeted middle class and upper middle class families with college-bound kids.

Who-slash-what is this criminal?

The federal Department of Education.  The Department has revamped its financial aid eligibility rules for the first time in 40 years.  The press has called these changes "tectonic."

I call them, "sh-tty."

Parden my francais, but I calls 'em like I sees 'em.  And in a few minutes, I'll be doing just that when we go live:

I'm doing a last-minute, quickie webinar on the changes -- and my thoughts and strategies on how to cope -- if you're applying for financial aid this year and beyond.

Here's some of what's on tap tonight:

*Rules changes for families with more than one child in college

*Rules changes for business owners

*Rules changes for divorced families

*Rules changes for how...

Everyone knows that the cost of college is waaaaaay of hand...

...except the Department of Education, it appears.

This year, they're implementing the largest overhaul of the rules about financial aid eligibility in 40 years.

I've seen these new rules, and they ain't pretty, for the most part.  Actually, they're pretty damn anti-middle class.

One of the changes that hits close to home for me, personally, is the one that pulls off the table the credit, or "discount" in the rules for families with multiple children in college.  I have three kids in college, which is why I'm taking this personally.  But it's not just me, 60% of families have more than one child in college.

Under the old rules, if you had two in college, your eligibility would be DOUBLE that of someone with the same income, savings, etc. but only one child in college.  

Now, both families are eligible for the same amount.  Even a family with quintuplets would be treated the same way as...

At 7:31 am I was on a morning news show that Pearl and I couldn't figure out how to watch, discussing the pending changes in financial aid, including the elimination of the "sibling discount."

As usual, I didn't have enough time to delve into all of the items I felt were important, possibly because the producers didn't want to put their audience to sleep.

So I decided to throw together a last minute, quickie webinar on the new rules of financial aid and what they mean for you, tomorrow night, to walk you through what you need to know if you're applying for financial aid for the upcoming year and/or beyond.

Here's some of what's on tap for tomorrow night:

*Rules changes for families with more than one child in college

*Rules changes for business owners

*Rules changes for divorced families

*Rules changes for how contributions from grandparents or others are treated in the financial aid formulas

*Changes in the timing of when you file

*The effect of the changes on...

Good morning!

I'm in the midst of three college drop-offs over a grueling,10 day stretch, but wanted to tell you about two financial aid-related stories that caught my bleary eyes over the past couple of days.

The first was about alleged price fixing among elite colleges.

The second related to incredible, nauseating amounts of cash spent by public universities on the most STUPID stuff.

Sadly, neither of these stories is breaking news. This stuff has been going on longer than the 21+ years I've been a college advisor.  

The first story was about U Chicago paying $13.5M to settle allegations of financial aid price-fixing.  I'm embarrassed to say that I don't quite get the plaintiff's point. According to the summary I read, it looked like the allegation was that U Chicago colluded with 16 colleges, including Brown, Columbia, MIT and Duke. 

But the collusion was not about U Chicago sharing their applicants' files and coming up with identical awards, they way the...