IT'S TIME FOR YOU PARENTS TO LEARN A NEW SKILL. YOU NEED TO KNOW HOW TO FIND AFFORDABLE COLLEGES FOR YOUR KIDS. BOTH BECAUSE THERE IS AN INCREDIBLE RANGE IN THE NET COSTS OF AMERICAN COLLEGES. AND BECAUSE, ALTHOUGH ALMOST ALL COLLEGES SAY THEY HAVE GENEROUS FINANCIAL AID PROGRAMS, ONLY ABOUT A THIRD OF THEM REALLY DO. THE REST WOULD GLADLY HUSTLE YOU AND YOUR KIDS INTO HIGH-LOAN FINANCIAL AID PROGRAMS THAT WILL BE LONG-TERM DISASTERS FOR ALL OF YOU. AND THAT'S NOT OVERSTATED. I ANALYZE THE AID AT HUNDREDS OF AMERICAN COLLEGES EVERY YEAR, AND I KNOW HOW THEY WORK.
BUT YOU JUST GOT LUCKY. SOMEHOW YOU FOUND THE TOTALLY-FREE WEBSITE THAT WILL HELP YOU TO FIND THE SCHOOLS THAT WILL BE THE MOST AFFORDABLE FOR YOU AND YOUR KIDS BEFORE THEY APPLY TO ANY COLLEGES AT ALL.
THE SKILLS YOU WILL LEARN HERE ARE ALMOST CERTAINLY NOT TAUGHT BY YOUR HIGH SCHOOLS, AND THEY CAN EASILY SAVE YOU $100,000 PER CHILD ON THEIR DEGREES. MORE IMPORTANTLY, YOU WILL LEARN THAT THE COSTS OF THE BEST EDUCATIONS AT THE BEST COLLEGES IN AMERICA ARE EASILY WITHIN THE FINANCIAL REACH OF KIDS LIKE YOURS.
SO, RELAX AND GET READY TO LEARN ALL ABOUT AMERICAN COLLEGE GENEROSITY.
BUT YOU JUST GOT LUCKY. SOMEHOW YOU FOUND THE TOTALLY-FREE WEBSITE THAT WILL HELP YOU TO FIND THE SCHOOLS THAT WILL BE THE MOST AFFORDABLE FOR YOU AND YOUR KIDS BEFORE THEY APPLY TO ANY COLLEGES AT ALL.
THE SKILLS YOU WILL LEARN HERE ARE ALMOST CERTAINLY NOT TAUGHT BY YOUR HIGH SCHOOLS, AND THEY CAN EASILY SAVE YOU $100,000 PER CHILD ON THEIR DEGREES. MORE IMPORTANTLY, YOU WILL LEARN THAT THE COSTS OF THE BEST EDUCATIONS AT THE BEST COLLEGES IN AMERICA ARE EASILY WITHIN THE FINANCIAL REACH OF KIDS LIKE YOURS.
SO, RELAX AND GET READY TO LEARN ALL ABOUT AMERICAN COLLEGE GENEROSITY.
I. INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this website is to help middle and lower income American parents find truly affordable colleges for their children while minimizing their college debt. Although the techniques I developed for this site are equally effective for upper income families, my focus is on helping students who are eligible for Pell Grants - students from American families with household incomes less than about $70,000 per year - to find affordable colleges.
So, this site is about saving ON college, not saving FOR college. My goal is to help the dreams that middle and lower income American parents have for the educations of their children come true, within their realities as they exist today, using assets they already have, by making the best use of a freely available online resource.
As we begin, you parents need to hear and believe three facts that will probably be new to you:
A. The less you can afford college, the more you can afford college. Let me rephrase that. Overall, the less you can afford college for your children right now, the more you can afford college for them when they enter college next year, because the system of American college generosity is that effective. But...
B. The net cost of American colleges for middle and lower income American families varies wildly. The net amount, after adding all costs and deducting financial aid, WHILE NEVER CONSIDERING LOANS AS FINANCIAL AID, for middle and lower income American parents to pay, or for those parents and their children to borrow, varies from absolutely nothing per year to over $50,000 per year. Surprisingly, this amount does not vary with the quality of the schools, it varies with their generosity, with the more generous schools costing a lot less. And...
C. Finding these generous colleges, finding schools that will be truly affordable for your family, is the easiest and most reliable aspect of an effective college search. The other aspects of an effective college search aren't that hard either, and they all need to be done, but Congress passed a law in 2008 that made finding affordable colleges a piece of cake, and it's continued to be a piece of cake since that law became fully effective in 2011.
That law required all colleges to include "Net Price Calculator" programs - we'll call them "NPCs" - in their websites. NPCs allow parents to answer a few questions about their family's finances and get a 97% accurate estimate of their costs and financial aid at that school right then, before their students even apply. NPCs are free, reliable, anonymous, immediate, and secure. And by using NPC's in your college search, your risk of excessive college costs and loans will be reduced to zero. No joke. NPCs let you immediately identify colleges where costs and loans are too high, and your kids won't apply to them. So, your risk of excessive costs and loans will be zero.
The only problem with NPCs is that your high school almost certainly hasn't told you about them. High schools nationwide have been asleep on this for the ten years since this law was passed, and they still are. But, at least for you, that's about to change. You're here, and you're about to learn skills that will change your lives and the lives of your kids. And you'll be astonished by some of the affordable college opportunities available to your kids next year.
Congratulations on finding this website, and welcome aboard!
The purpose of this website is to help middle and lower income American parents find truly affordable colleges for their children while minimizing their college debt. Although the techniques I developed for this site are equally effective for upper income families, my focus is on helping students who are eligible for Pell Grants - students from American families with household incomes less than about $70,000 per year - to find affordable colleges.
So, this site is about saving ON college, not saving FOR college. My goal is to help the dreams that middle and lower income American parents have for the educations of their children come true, within their realities as they exist today, using assets they already have, by making the best use of a freely available online resource.
As we begin, you parents need to hear and believe three facts that will probably be new to you:
A. The less you can afford college, the more you can afford college. Let me rephrase that. Overall, the less you can afford college for your children right now, the more you can afford college for them when they enter college next year, because the system of American college generosity is that effective. But...
B. The net cost of American colleges for middle and lower income American families varies wildly. The net amount, after adding all costs and deducting financial aid, WHILE NEVER CONSIDERING LOANS AS FINANCIAL AID, for middle and lower income American parents to pay, or for those parents and their children to borrow, varies from absolutely nothing per year to over $50,000 per year. Surprisingly, this amount does not vary with the quality of the schools, it varies with their generosity, with the more generous schools costing a lot less. And...
C. Finding these generous colleges, finding schools that will be truly affordable for your family, is the easiest and most reliable aspect of an effective college search. The other aspects of an effective college search aren't that hard either, and they all need to be done, but Congress passed a law in 2008 that made finding affordable colleges a piece of cake, and it's continued to be a piece of cake since that law became fully effective in 2011.
That law required all colleges to include "Net Price Calculator" programs - we'll call them "NPCs" - in their websites. NPCs allow parents to answer a few questions about their family's finances and get a 97% accurate estimate of their costs and financial aid at that school right then, before their students even apply. NPCs are free, reliable, anonymous, immediate, and secure. And by using NPC's in your college search, your risk of excessive college costs and loans will be reduced to zero. No joke. NPCs let you immediately identify colleges where costs and loans are too high, and your kids won't apply to them. So, your risk of excessive costs and loans will be zero.
The only problem with NPCs is that your high school almost certainly hasn't told you about them. High schools nationwide have been asleep on this for the ten years since this law was passed, and they still are. But, at least for you, that's about to change. You're here, and you're about to learn skills that will change your lives and the lives of your kids. And you'll be astonished by some of the affordable college opportunities available to your kids next year.
Congratulations on finding this website, and welcome aboard!
Two Notes:
1. This site is now at the start of its sixth year, and it's also in the middle of a thorough rewrite. Surplusage is being eliminated, and things are being moved around, so please maintain your senses of humor while I complete this process. However, the two key documents you will use in finding your most affordable colleges will be unchanged. They are at the bottom of every page in this site, and all you have to do to find your own affordable colleges is to download them, follow the instructions, and get to work.
2. The "American College Generosity" website is intended for parents, counselors, and teachers whose students are already convinced of the value of a college education. If your kids or students aren't at that stage yet, I have another site that can help you nudge them in that direction. The name of that site is "See Your Kids in College;" and it's light, easy, and effective. It's methods are intended for students who are about to enter middle school - right when student effectiveness usually tanks - but its methods work for all students. It starts from the fact that college sounds like work, but looks like fun.
Here's its URL:
http://seeyourkidsincollege.weebly.com/
II. POSTER KIDS
I learned the skills I teach in this site helping our son Gregory find effective colleges that we could all really afford. We're a middle income family from Poulsbo, Washington; Greg was interested in electrical engineering and music; and my goal was to find a list of colleges that really fit his needs and that required minimal student and parent debt. I had discovered Net Price Calculator programs in 2009, and they were central to our college search.
Greg ultimately matriculated as an electrical engineering major in the Tufts University School of Engineering in the fall of 2013. He graduated in May of '17 with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering along with a minor in Music Engineering with a concentration in Electronic Musical Instrument Design. While at Tufts, Greg stayed active in music, recording three EPs with his band "Shark Saddle" and also recording four solo EPs and one LP. Here's the link to Greg's LP, https://unclesugar.bandcamp.com/. Since graduation, Greg has been working as a software engineer in Los Angeles. He's in his career, he's working hard, and he's still very active in music.
Tufts is a very generous school, and its NPC results indicated that we should expect Greg to accumulate about $16,000 in total student loans during his four years there, with no parent loans required. The final results were better than that. No parent loans were required, but Greg's student loans were less, a total of $11,000 over his four years at Tufts, which has resulted in total student loan payments for him of about $100 per month.
Words, as you might expect, cannot describe how pleased Katia and I are with Greg's experience on "The Hill."
Thank you, Tufts, and go Jumbos!
While I'm at it, I ought to mention our daughter Maria, the lovely young lady standing next to the old guy in the picture below, who will graduate from Trinity College in Hartford, CT in May of 2019. At Trinity, Maria is carrying two majors - Math and Urban Studies, as well as two minors - Russian and Models & Data. She also tutors other students, she worked two years with disadvantaged youth at the YMCA in downtown Hartford, she just finished a semester abroad in the "Math in Moscow" program, she's done rocket science in Los Angeles during her last two college summers, and she's an active a cappella singer. Trinity, once again, has honestly generous financial aid, and Maria's final financial numbers should be roughly equal to Greg's. Maybe a little better.
So, Katia and I can only say "Thank you, Trinity College!" and "Go Bantams!"
1. This site is now at the start of its sixth year, and it's also in the middle of a thorough rewrite. Surplusage is being eliminated, and things are being moved around, so please maintain your senses of humor while I complete this process. However, the two key documents you will use in finding your most affordable colleges will be unchanged. They are at the bottom of every page in this site, and all you have to do to find your own affordable colleges is to download them, follow the instructions, and get to work.
2. The "American College Generosity" website is intended for parents, counselors, and teachers whose students are already convinced of the value of a college education. If your kids or students aren't at that stage yet, I have another site that can help you nudge them in that direction. The name of that site is "See Your Kids in College;" and it's light, easy, and effective. It's methods are intended for students who are about to enter middle school - right when student effectiveness usually tanks - but its methods work for all students. It starts from the fact that college sounds like work, but looks like fun.
Here's its URL:
http://seeyourkidsincollege.weebly.com/
II. POSTER KIDS
I learned the skills I teach in this site helping our son Gregory find effective colleges that we could all really afford. We're a middle income family from Poulsbo, Washington; Greg was interested in electrical engineering and music; and my goal was to find a list of colleges that really fit his needs and that required minimal student and parent debt. I had discovered Net Price Calculator programs in 2009, and they were central to our college search.
Greg ultimately matriculated as an electrical engineering major in the Tufts University School of Engineering in the fall of 2013. He graduated in May of '17 with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering along with a minor in Music Engineering with a concentration in Electronic Musical Instrument Design. While at Tufts, Greg stayed active in music, recording three EPs with his band "Shark Saddle" and also recording four solo EPs and one LP. Here's the link to Greg's LP, https://unclesugar.bandcamp.com/. Since graduation, Greg has been working as a software engineer in Los Angeles. He's in his career, he's working hard, and he's still very active in music.
Tufts is a very generous school, and its NPC results indicated that we should expect Greg to accumulate about $16,000 in total student loans during his four years there, with no parent loans required. The final results were better than that. No parent loans were required, but Greg's student loans were less, a total of $11,000 over his four years at Tufts, which has resulted in total student loan payments for him of about $100 per month.
Words, as you might expect, cannot describe how pleased Katia and I are with Greg's experience on "The Hill."
Thank you, Tufts, and go Jumbos!
While I'm at it, I ought to mention our daughter Maria, the lovely young lady standing next to the old guy in the picture below, who will graduate from Trinity College in Hartford, CT in May of 2019. At Trinity, Maria is carrying two majors - Math and Urban Studies, as well as two minors - Russian and Models & Data. She also tutors other students, she worked two years with disadvantaged youth at the YMCA in downtown Hartford, she just finished a semester abroad in the "Math in Moscow" program, she's done rocket science in Los Angeles during her last two college summers, and she's an active a cappella singer. Trinity, once again, has honestly generous financial aid, and Maria's final financial numbers should be roughly equal to Greg's. Maybe a little better.
So, Katia and I can only say "Thank you, Trinity College!" and "Go Bantams!"
III. ACG BACKGROUND
Almost all of my working life has been focused on client service. I've had three actual "careers" since law school: first as a lawyer (mainly as a criminal prosecutor and investigation manager), then as a stockbroker, and finally as a commercial and residential real estate broker. In each of these careers, the needs of my clients always came first, and my goal was to help each of my clients achieve the best results possible in their circumstances.
The last of my working careers faded away during the Great Recession, unluckily at the same time as my kids were getting ready to look for colleges. So, I put my client service skills to work on finding colleges that fit both their academic needs and our combined budgets. Just like working for other clients, my goal wasn't to help my kids find "typical" or "average" opportunities. Rather, it was to find the best opportunities available. Working first with our son Gregory, my goal was to find one opportunity that fully fit his needs, then to find another, and another, and then to use what I had learned to develop a convenient, valid, and repeatable method of finding even more great opportunities for him that year and for our daughter Maria two years later.
Working with Greg I found that, by using the Net Price Calculator programs that had just been required by Congress, finding affordable colleges was really the easiest part of a college search. Just pick a school, type "net price calculator" in its website's search box, answer their questions, turn the crank, and record its results. With a little practice, the whole process only took ten minutes or so per school, and then we could be certain whether that school would be affordable for us or not.
Later, after Greg's matriculation at Tufts in the fall of 2013, I realized that:
A. Although Net Price Calculator programs should have revolutionized the affordability aspect of the college search process, making the burdens of excessive college costs and loans really a matter of choice for students and families, even the most knowledgeable parents and guidance counselors usually knew nothing about them at all;
B. My method of making the best sense out of NPC results was unique, and no one else had published anything addressing the same issues; and
C. Our family's income was in the same range as the median household incomes of a lot of American states – like Washington, New York, Colorado, California, Minnesota, and plenty of others - making the data I had already collected relevant to a lot of other families.
So, I explained it, expanded it, and published it as the American College Generosity website, a site that's now going into its sixth year. In addition to showing families how to do their own financial aid searches and how to make sense out of Net Price Calculator results, I include analyses of the actual costs, available aid, and expected loans - if any - at about 125 American colleges for sample families at both the middle and lower income levels.
ACG is now used by thousands of American families each year, and it has become a service project for our whole family, with all of us involved directly or indirectly. Realizing that Greg's education was largely funded by the generosity of Tufts University - and that Trinity College is now doing the same for our daughter Maria - we offer this service at no charge, doing our best to show our thanks and broaden the impact of the generosity of their colleges.
IV. SINCE 2013
Let's remember that, when Greg matriculated at Tufts in August of 2013, it was exactly five years since the law requiring Net Price Calculators was passed by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush. Let's also remember that back then - due to the failure of government, the schools, and the press - NPCs and the revolutionary impact that NPCs could have on the educations of our students were almost completely unknown.
So, what's happened since then? I've been directly involved in promoting NPCs since then, and I can say that NPCs and their potential benefits are just as unknown now as they were then. In fact, I've still never met a parent or student who has heard the phrase "net price calculator" before meeting me. That reflects a failure on the part of four key American institutions, something I cover in more detail on my "Presidents" page.
To my mind, the most important and valuable resources in America are the best dreams of our children. And, although it may be little known, the system of American college generosity continues to serve our children and their best dreams now as it has for centuries.
Almost all of my working life has been focused on client service. I've had three actual "careers" since law school: first as a lawyer (mainly as a criminal prosecutor and investigation manager), then as a stockbroker, and finally as a commercial and residential real estate broker. In each of these careers, the needs of my clients always came first, and my goal was to help each of my clients achieve the best results possible in their circumstances.
The last of my working careers faded away during the Great Recession, unluckily at the same time as my kids were getting ready to look for colleges. So, I put my client service skills to work on finding colleges that fit both their academic needs and our combined budgets. Just like working for other clients, my goal wasn't to help my kids find "typical" or "average" opportunities. Rather, it was to find the best opportunities available. Working first with our son Gregory, my goal was to find one opportunity that fully fit his needs, then to find another, and another, and then to use what I had learned to develop a convenient, valid, and repeatable method of finding even more great opportunities for him that year and for our daughter Maria two years later.
Working with Greg I found that, by using the Net Price Calculator programs that had just been required by Congress, finding affordable colleges was really the easiest part of a college search. Just pick a school, type "net price calculator" in its website's search box, answer their questions, turn the crank, and record its results. With a little practice, the whole process only took ten minutes or so per school, and then we could be certain whether that school would be affordable for us or not.
Later, after Greg's matriculation at Tufts in the fall of 2013, I realized that:
A. Although Net Price Calculator programs should have revolutionized the affordability aspect of the college search process, making the burdens of excessive college costs and loans really a matter of choice for students and families, even the most knowledgeable parents and guidance counselors usually knew nothing about them at all;
B. My method of making the best sense out of NPC results was unique, and no one else had published anything addressing the same issues; and
C. Our family's income was in the same range as the median household incomes of a lot of American states – like Washington, New York, Colorado, California, Minnesota, and plenty of others - making the data I had already collected relevant to a lot of other families.
So, I explained it, expanded it, and published it as the American College Generosity website, a site that's now going into its sixth year. In addition to showing families how to do their own financial aid searches and how to make sense out of Net Price Calculator results, I include analyses of the actual costs, available aid, and expected loans - if any - at about 125 American colleges for sample families at both the middle and lower income levels.
ACG is now used by thousands of American families each year, and it has become a service project for our whole family, with all of us involved directly or indirectly. Realizing that Greg's education was largely funded by the generosity of Tufts University - and that Trinity College is now doing the same for our daughter Maria - we offer this service at no charge, doing our best to show our thanks and broaden the impact of the generosity of their colleges.
IV. SINCE 2013
Let's remember that, when Greg matriculated at Tufts in August of 2013, it was exactly five years since the law requiring Net Price Calculators was passed by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush. Let's also remember that back then - due to the failure of government, the schools, and the press - NPCs and the revolutionary impact that NPCs could have on the educations of our students were almost completely unknown.
So, what's happened since then? I've been directly involved in promoting NPCs since then, and I can say that NPCs and their potential benefits are just as unknown now as they were then. In fact, I've still never met a parent or student who has heard the phrase "net price calculator" before meeting me. That reflects a failure on the part of four key American institutions, something I cover in more detail on my "Presidents" page.
To my mind, the most important and valuable resources in America are the best dreams of our children. And, although it may be little known, the system of American college generosity continues to serve our children and their best dreams now as it has for centuries.
V. THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN COLLEGE GENEROSITY
Generosity was the inspiration for this site, and generosity is its theme.
The word generosity frequently came to me as I began helping my son with his college search seven years ago, as I did the same for my daughter five years ago, and as I have continued my research for this site. I have been continuously inspired by the generosity of the alumni and other benefactors of American colleges who have made educations at their schools possible for our children.
Sometimes extending back for centuries, their generosity has shown a remarkable and lasting faith in their schools and in the generations of students who would benefit from their gifts. I thank them, and I hope we can show ourselves worthy of both their generosity and their foresight.
But their generosity had a purpose. It formed a system, a loop, linking previous generations of students with the present generation. And it was a benefit that needed a beneficiary for its purpose to succeed. Without you, without your openness to that generosity, the loop will be interrupted, and that system of generosity will fail.
I originally wrote this site in the last months of 2013, an important anniversary of the seminal event in American college generosity. Three hundred and seventy-five years before then, a very young and well-educated minister died in the Massachusetts Bay Colony leaving half of his wealth and all of his 260 books to a new school founded two years before in a neighboring village, a school named for him in gratitude two years later.
Reverend John Harvard intended that his resources and library would be used for the enlightenment of the teachers and students of that new school. But, if his money had just been locked in a safe, and if his books were just locked in cases, the purpose of his generosity would have failed. Instead, his generosity was used to its fullest, becoming an invitation to the generosity of others and resulting in one of the world’s finest universities served by the greatest university library in the world.
The system of American college generosity began there in 1638, it continues to spread and flourish, and its fruit is within your reach today.
May its purpose be validated in you, may your educations be complete, and may your best dreams be fulfilled.
Mark Warns, JD
Founder, Author & Analyst
American College Generosity
Generosity was the inspiration for this site, and generosity is its theme.
The word generosity frequently came to me as I began helping my son with his college search seven years ago, as I did the same for my daughter five years ago, and as I have continued my research for this site. I have been continuously inspired by the generosity of the alumni and other benefactors of American colleges who have made educations at their schools possible for our children.
Sometimes extending back for centuries, their generosity has shown a remarkable and lasting faith in their schools and in the generations of students who would benefit from their gifts. I thank them, and I hope we can show ourselves worthy of both their generosity and their foresight.
But their generosity had a purpose. It formed a system, a loop, linking previous generations of students with the present generation. And it was a benefit that needed a beneficiary for its purpose to succeed. Without you, without your openness to that generosity, the loop will be interrupted, and that system of generosity will fail.
I originally wrote this site in the last months of 2013, an important anniversary of the seminal event in American college generosity. Three hundred and seventy-five years before then, a very young and well-educated minister died in the Massachusetts Bay Colony leaving half of his wealth and all of his 260 books to a new school founded two years before in a neighboring village, a school named for him in gratitude two years later.
Reverend John Harvard intended that his resources and library would be used for the enlightenment of the teachers and students of that new school. But, if his money had just been locked in a safe, and if his books were just locked in cases, the purpose of his generosity would have failed. Instead, his generosity was used to its fullest, becoming an invitation to the generosity of others and resulting in one of the world’s finest universities served by the greatest university library in the world.
The system of American college generosity began there in 1638, it continues to spread and flourish, and its fruit is within your reach today.
May its purpose be validated in you, may your educations be complete, and may your best dreams be fulfilled.
Mark Warns, JD
Founder, Author & Analyst
American College Generosity
Copyright 2018, Mark Warns, All Rights Reserved
As promised, here are a Word version of my Apple-to-Apples template for your own college cost comparisons along with a Word version of my data input pages you can use for your own family:
| acg_2017-2018_apples-to-apples_template.docx |
| acg_2017-2018_family_npc_input_data.docx |