Navigating College Decisions with Elisia Howard #170

to the right schools. She is passionate about college students avoiding the crippling effects of student loans. So this will be a really valuable conversation for anyone considering college, for students who are already in school, and even for graduates who already have student loans as we'll touch on that as well. So Alicia, thanks so much for coming on the show. Yeah, thank you, thank you for having me today. Yeah,

I'm glad to have you and Alicia. Real quick before we start talking about college, well, we intentionally Matt and I drink a craft beer on every episode. It means the world to Matt and I. We love beer and so uh and so we love our families and we love our families and so well, we love both equally. I don't know something like that, but yeah, because we love beer, we're we're happy to sporge on really good

beer right now while saving for the future. Today on the show, we're drinking a beer called hot Food by North Park Beer Company, and a listener John sent that one our way. So what's your kind of craft beer equivalent? What what do you like to sport John in the here and now even while you're saving and investing for the future. Traveling. Traveling is a big one for me. I lived abroad for many years and I've backpacked almost

thirty countries, So the big traveler. Yes, I know people are like, oh, I like to go travel and I went on a cruise. Like no, I'm I'm a real traveler and I have no problem spending money on that while you know, also saving for my future. Very cool. If if you could snap your fingers right now and kind of transport yourself to to any country that you've been to, where would you go back to you right now? Thailand? Thailand has been on my mind a lot lately. And when you travel like I do, I have a lot

of places I can couch surf, if I want. So my friend called me and was like, hey, I just bought a three bedroom villa on the beach and pouquette. You want to come crush my spare bedroom. I was like, yeah, I will do that. So, yeah, that's that's something I'm willing to spend money on. Although it's cheap, it's cheap to do and somewhere like Thailand, so it's not actually a very expensive thing to do. Yeah, Thailand is wonderful

to food, everything so cheap here. You've been there, right, and that where you wrote on the elephant and have I didn't ride on an elephant. I walked with an elephant. Oh, and you walked with it, but then you were in the river with it and you're talking about how it's like it was this like surreal experience. You talk so much about that elephant bath. I've done that. I have done it too. It's crazy, isn't it. Yeah, it's so fun. Yeah. And holding the tigers, that's like definitely one of my

favorite things to do. I didn't hold a tiger. I'm not that crazy. I did. I held a tiger and by the time we got there, the baby tigers were like taking a nap, and so I told the monk, I'm like, I really want to hold a tiger, and he's like, yeah, I have one you can hold, and I have a picture of me. But this thing is like a move faster like for a live tiger, Like this was like a daddy tiger, And so I'm like, really,

that's like I wanted to hold a little baby. Gave me like this massive tiger to hang out with and snuggle with. But I took it because that's the only shot I had. I like the sound of your your tiger orphanage. That sounds amazing. I know, it was fun. Alicia, how let's let's talk something about you know, our topic at hand here, like how did you get started in the world of academic advising and admissions? Like basically all

things college related? How did how did you get your star? Yeah, so that's actually a super long story, but the fast story is that, I mean, I've been in education for but fifteen sixteen years now and kind of started in everything and just took the opportunities that came my way. And so I'm not I'm a kind of person. I'm not afraid to try things and kind of mess things up,

as long as my bosses were cool with it. They're like, oh, you want to plan this camp, or do you want to plan this curriculum, or how you should create this class? And I just kind of took everything, and so it ended up giving me this very general expertise of a

lot of things. But I had graduated college from grad school in two thousand and eight and I was actually going to law school when the economy crashed, and so I kind of had an early midlife crisis, like what am I gonna do with my life and just decided, Okay, I'll go back to law school, but I'm not going to go back unless I can figure out how to come out without debt, because I had undergrad and graduate

school debt. And so I went to Korea. I worked my way up the ladder there and was figuring out how to pay for law school, and you know, as a default, I figured out how to not pay on my own student loans and get them forgiven. I figured out how to get to law school for free, and then I ended up kind of just helping other people and just fell into it, and I really enjoyed the work, and so I kind of ended up starting a business

on accident. Honestly, over time it's grown and now I have a lot of good data on how successful these kind of trick tips, tricks, you know, strategies work, and now it's kind of at the next phase of growth. So I it was seriously an accident. I fell into it. Well, that's cool, and I love that it worked for you in order to kind of curb your student loan debt, Like what what aspects of consulting and specifically helping people

navigate the admissions process where you drawn to? You know, for me, it was you know, I came from a pretty poor family and my like my parents didn't even graduate high school. So when I was going through the process myself and I was sixteen when I went to college, I just didn't know what I was doing. And I tried the best I could, but you know, I really

didn't have support. And what I mean by support is my parents were, you know, gung ho, we'll we'll back you up, but like they didn't know what to do. They couldn't edit my essays, they didn't know where to look for schools, and so I kind of had to figure that out on my own. And then I just kind of had that passion of you know, there's a lot to this process, and being in education for a long time, I understood it very well, you know later,

but not when I was a kid. So I just kind of had that passion of really helping really middle class families, you know, lower income kids. They qualify for a lot of a lot of free staff, there's all kinds of nonprofits. Wealthy kids have always paid for it, as you've seen now in college admission scandals that are coming up. Um, I don't do that illegal stuff, but you know, well, yeah, but wealthy people have always paid consultants. And so what a middle class families do and what

help do they have? They have nothing. So I just kind of had that passion to help help kids that were like me, very cool. I mean, well, yeah, speaking of the middle class, like, there is such a price disparity from school to school, right, so how how would you recommend for folks to determine if an expensive school is worth it? So I'd see that's very you know, case by case, but generally an expensive school honestly is

only worth it if you can pay cash. Period. There's not really an exception because there's four thousand universities in this country, like, you can't find one that will fit your needs and be affordable. Now, you might not know where to look, which is why people hire me. But I have clients Like I have a client right now. Both of his kids are at public schools out of state,

and it's sixty grand year, and he's very wealthy. He owns a lot of property in Seattle, and so he has no problem writing a sixty dollar check every year. That's fine, he can afford it. That's buying a happy meal to this guy. Most families, I'm not going to send them to those schools. It's totally not worth it to get a public school degree for sixty grand a year. That's crazy. So for most people, I'd say, if it's over priced, if it's that expensive, it's it's not worth

it unless your family can write a check for it. Sure, And as we've seen kind of the costs of college tuition creep up and up, and by creep, I mean skyrocket. Yeah, right, they've gone. It's gone up so fast, and it's become so daunting for people when they are choosing what college

to go to. Do you ever recommend for folks to go to for students to consider choosing a community college instead for the first couple of years to kind of keep those costs low, and then like transferring to a college that maybe is a better fit for those final two years. It can be. It really depends on this student. I mean I see students. I mean one like me. There was no way I was going to do that. I really wanted that for your experience, and I do see the value in it. Now. Do I see the

value of coming out with two dollars in debt? No, So, like there's wiggle room there. And it depends because you know, some community colleges are not that affordable nowadays, So it just depends where you're from and where your your costs are. But for some people, yeah, I have a lot of students where they just have no idea what they want to do. They don't even know what they're looking for in a college. Yeah, maybe it's a smarter move to just stay home and go to a community college. Um,

we have somebody in our family right now. This is a great example. She didn't know what she wanted to do, actually got a sports scholarship to go play at a community college, ended up not wanting to stay there, but her boyfriend was out of college. Um, he's at Western, which is a school here in Washington, so they're doing a long distance thing. Well, she took some time off and now she's at a community college near her boyfriend who's at Western, and it works really well for her.

You know, she still gets the experience of the four year um, the four year experience and friends and you know, interacting with students at that school. Isn't paying the price and she still gets She lives in an apartment with a friend who is at Western there and so she's still getting that experience but without the cost. And then

you know she'll probably transfer there at some point. But you know, there's ways to have that experience without paying that cost if you're kind of in that middle ground of not knowing what to do. So there's definitely validity to it. So on the other end of that, right, you know, with a four year college like that, you're getting that experience. But do you ever think that that it makes sense for a high school or to not

even considering going to going to college at all? Right, Like, like we said, like we are seeing the cost of college become prohibitively expensive, and like a lot of recent graduates are even in jobs that don't require the degrees that they've just worked so hard to get or that they've spent a ton of money to receive. So do you ever have clients that come to you where, you know, sometimes you even advised them that, you know what, like maybe college isn't for you. Oh yeah, all the time,

and I'm advising it more and more. Um now, Like obviously there's students, you know, like I have a bunch of clients this here. It's just kind of odd it worked out that way. But they want to be doctors. Okay, well you want to be a doctor, you want to be a teacher, like you have to go to college. There's an yeah. But then there's people who even like my my nephew who's nineteen, you know, my sister was like, what do we do. I'm like, he's not going to

go to a traditional four year college. He's going to go to a vocational school or get do some sort of like trade. That's just what's best for him. That's the kind of like he's that person. I could see him being an electrician or something. And that's fine, that's great. Um, if you can go to a great trade school, or go through an apprenticeship program. I mean here in Washington, we have such a shortage of electricians. They're making like a hundred hundred twenty grand a year, and the training

for it is really good. Like you can be making and not have the debt and be making six figures. I mean, why not, you know it is for some for some students, it's it's a great option. So for for high schoolers or parents of high schoolers who are mechanically inclined, what direction do you push them in when it comes to trade schools? How like what's the best way for them to kind of go about pursuing work

with their hands or work in the trades. Yeah, I usually recommend because usually a lot of times they don't know what they want to do, and that's kind of where they get stuck. So I'll usually a guys and I have a lot of relationships here in our area and be like, hey, can you job shadow this kid for a couple of days, like let them tag along and see would he be a good electrician or you know, commercial plumber or welder, you know those kinds of things, and see if they like it, you know, if they

have a skill at it. And if that's something they want to do, then you know, we'll hook them up with those mentors and kind of send them down down that path and get them going that way. I love that. I think it's amazing that, Like you mean, your company is called College Insights, But at the same time, you're also keeping in mind that sometimes like the best path for some of these students to take isn't one that actually involves college. So yeah, I think that's that's smart.

So well, Alicia, we are actually going to talk some more about college. We're gonna talk about kind of the admissions process and how to pay for college, and we're gonna get to those topics right after the break. All right, we're back from the break. We're talking with Alicia Howard, and we're talking about navigating college decisions. Okay, and Alicia, let's say that our fictional student here is has declined to go to a trade school, that they're interested in

a traditional four year degree. Let's talk about navigating the admissions process. What are the biggest things that most folks applying to college don't even consider during the process that could actually end up really hurting them. Oh man, so I have a perfect case, right now with the client. What I'm about to tell you is going to save

you about so you're gonna yeah. So what most parents don't realize because most parents went to college thirty years ago, right, and they applied to one school and it was a little application and it was easy. It's not like that anymore. It's so competitive that we have all these essays and all these little pieces of paperwork that have to be submitted, all this financial paperwork, like just a lot of stuff. So I recommend that you probably need a solid year

ideally to really get through this process. My average students writing essays, there's multiple applications, the applications more complicated. There's just a lot of stuff that goes through this process to really navigate it and make sure the family and the kid are meeting their goals right. So it's a

long process. What most people do is they lollygag or they don't realize it's important, and they end up submitting their applications in January February March when it's that's the later deadline often called the regular decision deadline mine most laws. So in seven states there's actually this is actually by law. I will tell you if it's not by law in most states, it's definitely a practice by most universities. What happens is once you get your admissions letter, that kind

of triggers to the Financial Aid Office. That thet the next step kicks into place, so your offer letter comes. Well, at every university there you know, tied on funds. There's only so much funding and that gets awarded basically in order. So the sooner you've submitted all of your applications, the sooner that goes to the Financial Aid Office, the sooner

you're the more money they have, et cetera. When you wait until like February to submit those applications, there's only so much money left, and so a lot of kids wait till like July to do their fast fut and stuff. Well money's gone. There's no money left. There's no money left, even if they like would have qualified for something. So the earlier you get your applications and I am seeing a difference of about twenty to thirty thou dollars and

offer money. Remember most of those applications, the scholarships are offered freshman year, So if you don't get it freshman year, and there's exceptions to this, but if you don't get that money freshman year, like you're not getting it all four or five years. So if you don't get that five thousand dollar scholarship freshman year, that's twenty thou dollars over four years. Why because you didn't get your stuff

in on time. You waited till January February March. If you would have gotten that in by the like November one deadline, you get significantly more money. Now, my students, I aim for a deadline of September, which don't tell, don't tell the kids, But that's actually because I I know I'm not going to get their work until October, so like I tell them in September fifteen, that's not

actually what happens. But my kids who get their stuff in in September October man they get acceptance letters usually within a week or two because there's not a lot of kids doing it at that time. Mission staff doesn't have a whole lot of a whole lot to read right the right then right, yeah, but prove Yeah, so my admissions rate, so I have a hundred percent emissions rate over my what eight years doing this? Because what happens your admissions officers in a better mood, like they're

getting through them faster. Again, it depends on the school, but they're getting higher acceptance rates. Plus their offer letters are significantly higher. So the easiest way to save money on school is to get your stuff in early and don't wait like everybody else does and call me in like November or October ary. Yeah, you're not going to

get any money. There's no money left. It makes me think of like when we go to the grocery store and it's the beginning of the month in our budget resets, and we have a fridge or not a fridge, but we have like a you know, a full gallon of milk. When I'm making my coffee, I pour a lot of milk into my coffee because there is a lot of milk. But you know what, once we're getting towards the bottom of that jug and I'm like, oh, you know, there's just a little bit left. And so I tend to

be more conservative. But but yeah, I had no idea that it had that much of an impact when it comes to financial aid, just getting getting your foot in the door, getting your name in the door, getting on their list, and then earlier, like the compounding effect of getting a freshman year and then and then getting those Yeah, the recurring funds for years on end, that's huge. Yeah, especially middle class families, that's super important. Again, it's different

if you are pelgram eligible or different things. That's a different set of rules. But if you're a middle class and you're not going to qualify for a bunch of grants, man, your best bet is to get those scholarships, your departmental scholarships, your university scholarships, your academic scholarships. But the best way to get those is to get them early. By February March, a lot of stuff's gone, so the only their best bet was to do it early. But because you just

couldn't get organized, it's just so sad. I see so many families. I'm like, man, you just like couldn't get organized early enough, and you like cost your kid thirty grand. Well, so you know, at least you're talking about how it's like a year long process, right just basically applying to school. You're talking about the importance of those essays. What about

just other extra curriculars in high school? Like what are most college admissions departments looking at are Like, are they looking you know, for you to be involved in a bunch of clubs like I was in high school, even though I barely went to them. I was that girl totally. I was a part of a ton of different clubs and I had minimal involvement in every single one of them. Or are they looking for maybe more initiative. Are they looking for a student who's maybe like the presidents you

know of a certain club. Matt was the kid in chess club playing checkers. Yeah, all right, yeah, So it depends on the school. And now if you're going I V S, that's a very very specific profile you're looking at. But most schools, I mean, they do kind of want you a little well rounded, but they want you more focused than they tell you. Like most people will say, oh,

be really well rounded. But the truth is is, like most people who are experts, and we all know those people, you're good in one thing and you're really, really really

good in that one thing. Ing. So like a good example of a good profile is like, be really good and you're you know one to three things, right, You're really great in football or maybe a couple of different sports, or you're really strong in your key club because you're a great volunteer, be specific and if a couple of things, Now, it's okay to round that out with you know, maybe you do want to do a couple of clubs, that's fine, but don't join like twenty clubs. It's a little bit

of both. Be really good in two or three things, rounded out with a couple little things. But do something you enjoy. Don't do something like you're gonna hate for your college, your high school and college career. What about the academic side at leastia like AP honors classes, Like how important are those in kind of factoring in where you fit in the hierarchy when you're applying for college.

That really depends on on the student. But the more competitive of a school you're applying to, the more important it is to have those you know, A p IB classes. There are certain schools if you're going to, honestly like it's not very competitive, so it's not going to make that big of a difference. But the more competitive of a school, the more important it's going to be to

have those A p I B classes. Now, as an educator, I will tell you it's great to have those just because high school classes are so much easier than high than college classes, and you're gonna get your butt kicked in college if you don't have, like, if you don't learn steady skills, if you don't learn note taking, if you don't learn just those skills you need to develop. So it's really good to have at least some of

those classes just for the experience of it. But if you're going to IVY or highly competitive schools, I mean even here in Seattle, the University of Washington, it's like a thirty three percent acceptance rate or something like, yeah, you better have those school those classes because every other kid does, versus you're going to a school that's not very competitive. Okay, one or two a P classes is going to be fine. So you have to learn how to balance it with what your long term goals are.

Got it? So how also, how would you recommend for students to call their selection of potential schools. Obviously certain schools have different strengths, but yeah, like how would you recommend that you know, students go about kind of figuring out what schools are kind of hone in on. Yeah, that's actually a long longer process than most people realize. But just a few things would be one go on tours.

I always tell people to go on tours. Now you can go tour schools that you're not even interested in, but they're close to your house. I don't care. Just give me something to work with, right, Because a lot of people, like here in Seattle, they're like, oh, yeah,

I want to go to University of Washington. I'm like, have you sat in on an English one oh one class at the University of Washington, because there's like eight hundred people and if you can't focus in a room of that many students, it's not going to be a good fit. Well, that's good to know. It's almost like shopping for a house where you gotta go visit fifty houses to kind of even know what you're looking for. Yeah,

they just they don't know. Um, a lot of students you tell them it's a private school and they're like, oh, that's like my high school. But like kids don't know. They're like, well, my high school has eighteen hundred students. They don't know what that means to go to a college with five thousand versus a mid size with like fifteen thousand versus a large with thirty thousand, Like they don't understand what that means the only way you can conceptually get that in your head of what that looks

like is to go to those schools. So I know, if you go to a midsize school and you're like, I love it. It was big enough, but small enough, Okay, now I know I'm looking for a midsize school. You need like a launch like a launching point almost yeah, Or it's so funny. I've worked with students. I had a student I worked with. Once she was set she had to go to California, and I was working with her, and I'm like, this girl is always in a sweatshirt.

She loves ugs. She's always wrapped in a blanket. And I'm like, like, you know, you could tell she she likes to be snuggled, right, And so I'm like, um, are you sure you want to go to California? Well, sure enough, she's in Colorado. So I love that you're looking at it down to that detail though, like she wears us. Maybe maybe Colorado is a good spot. I mean, like always, I mean I have students that it's very obvious and like, you're not a California girl, like you

want to be by the mountains and stuff. But they don't know right, well, all my friends are going to California, Like I must want to go to California. So you know, you just got to pay attention to those things and what's available to them. Sure. So yeah, what are some of the other factors then that are helping you decide

what what schools people should be applying to? UM major is a big one, which sounds really simple, but most students don't know what they want to major in, and so how do you choose a school and you don't even know if they're going to have the program that

you might want. So we do a lot of career coaching and you know, a lot of assessments to figure out, Okay, this kid doesn't know what they want to do, but based on their personality, they're probably going to go into something of this sort, and what are some good schools that would support them through that. UM we might be looking at larger universities that have so any program offerings versus you know, smaller college which is going to be

more limiting. So you're kind of looking for those things. Major a lot of things students might be interested in. For example, in Seattle, we have a big obviously big tech industry. Well, if you're wanting to be a computer science major but you don't want to stay in Seattle, you know, we do need to kind of take internship

opportunities or career opportunities into into that equation. Obviously, the big one is the finances, and there's so many myths and misconceptions out there where you know, they think, oh, I have to go to a public school or in state school because that's going to be more affordable. It's

actually completely not true. I'm actually starting to send a lot of students out of state because Washington State just doesn't fund our schools very well, and it's so expensive to live here that it's actually been so much cheaper to go out of state, um than it is to stay here at an in state school in Washington. So all those little factors of like the finances and major and you know, personality, all things have to go into making that list of schools. Yeah. Well yeah, let's let's

let's keep talking about the finances and money. Um, let's talk about how to pay for college. So, Alicia, how would you recommend for folks to make college more affordable? So Number one I would say is start early, like we talked about earlier. The earlier we start. Now we're not rushing the process. We're getting more money and by default we're giving you more options. Right, and now we have choices. The other best way to make college affordable. And again this is going to save you, guys, a

lot of money. Maybe not because you have you have to know what colleges are more affordable, but the list. The easiest way to save money is by the list. And that means which schools am I applying to that are going to give me the best offer or have a lot of components that are going to make school affordable for me. So let me give you an example of that. So, like I said, in Seattle, colleges not only a little bit more expensive, but so expensive to

live here. Um, the average one bedroom in a bedroom, not an apartment, a bedroom near the University of Washington and Seattle. There's a bunch of schools in Seattle, but all these Seattle schools, the average bedroom is going for a month like a bedroom. You can see how expensive this is about to get, right, And so most schools here are going for about thirty dollars a year. That is in state tuition. Guys, that's why I get really mad when people are like, oh, you guys just you know,

spend money on beer and like blah blah blah. I'm like, you guys have no idea. It is so expensive to go to school here, even in state. It's ridiculous. So it's just expensive. However, like a good example is, I was I just sent one of my kids to a school in the Midwest, out of state public school. However, if you're a good student and have good grades, um, and they're not even super high it's like a three four or something, they will basically give you a scholarship

to make it the equivalent of in state tuition. So it's like nine thousand or ten thousand a year in state, which is pretty normal, um, lower than what it is in Washington State. However, a bedroom is going for two and fifty dollars a month. Yeah, this school in particular also has one of the best honors programs. They have tons of basically the same options, um that you would have here at some of our larger state schools. But

you're paying two or fifty bucks for a bedroom. So the cost savings, I mean when you do the math on it, I mean, it was saving like fifteen grand a year or something like that. So it's just so worth it to send your kid out a state. They're gonna have more opportunities. The other difference being Seattle so competitive, especially if you're in like tech or nursing or like medicine. Here it's just so developed that it's just hard to get internships and paid positions. Well in the Midwest not

so competitive in in those industries. So I'm actually having students it's cheaper and they're getting a lot more opportunities for internships by going to some of those schools versus trying to stay in state. So that's just one example. There's a million like that. There's a lot of ways to do it, but choosing the right school, having a strategy for what that list look like, that is a

very good way to save money. Yeah, So so it sounds like keeping the cost slow obviously crucial, and and that going out of state can help with that, especially you know, if you live in an expensive state like Washington. But that's one side of the value equation. If we're talking about like what your degree is worth when you graduate, how how much are you taking that into the equation too?

For these students who you know, like, what are they potentially going to make in their first couple of years out of school? And how important is that in the decision making process. Oh, that's huge. Um, we run the numbers on that when we meet, and you know, we'll

recommend different things. So like, for example, if you're going to be in like let's say you're gonna be a mechanical engineer, I know all the numbers for national averages for careers, so quick math in my head, Like, I know, if you're a new mechanical engineer Seattle area average market whatever, like the average is about sixty first year, right, first

five years. However, I also know once you're about five years out, you get a huge pay bump, right, so you can spend a little bit more money on your degree. If you're going to make good money, you know, five ten years down the road, right, versus somebody who is going to be like a creative writing major or a teacher or you know, these things that are very very

minimal increases. Marketing majors, for example, don't make good money for quite a while toor that much later down their careers generally, So if you're going to do that, we need to be very cognizant and I'm gonna honestly be taking a lot of options away from you if you're not a family that can pay cash. We need to be more strategic, because you know, it's so funny, so many pair rents. They want to be supportive of their kids.

They're like, oh, my kid got this opportunity, and so like they'll go into so much debt to get their kids through school. And I'm like, and I'm actually about to write a blog post on this where i think my headline is going to be something like, please stop supporting your children, Like stop because you're supporting your kids and I'm using air quotes and you're going and I

just had a family call me last week. They're going to go into hundred seventy thousand dollars in student loan debt because their kid got into this school and they really want to go to the school and it's like their dreams. And I'm like, you're not supporting your kid by putting him in almost two thousand dollars of debts, Like stop, Like you are not helping your child. And a seventeen year old just isn't equipped to make that

decision right. Yeah, And that's the thing. We can't blame the kid, Like again, she doesn't know, like she has no concept of how much money that is. And so mom and dad are like, well, I don't want to not support her, but you know, it's like you have to take that into the equation that's a bad idea. We can find a school that will be just as great, you know, just as great of a fit. She'll have a great career opportunity. But let's do it where she's

not going into hundred seventy thousand in debt. That's just assinine to me. Yeah. Well, so okay, let's talk about scholarships and grants right paying for school that way? Is there a best way to approach searching and applying for you know, for these funds, And if a family or a student doesn't do a great job finding these scholarships that are out there, like, how much money are they

potentially leaving on the table if they neglect this step? Yeah, So the first step is we're pulling money from many different sources. So that's why like these little things, Okay, we're going to be very strategic and where you're applying to because I know, if you go to these schools, you'll get this offer. And if you go to this school, you're going to get this offer. And there's schools that are just notorious, like I just know what your offer is going to be because it's just they're like the

always the same. And so we're being strategic there. We're pullying money in those ways. Now we have a gap to fill. So let's say the school is going to be a hundred thousand dollars including all living expenses, all in over four years, and they give you enough to cover half, so we need to come up with fifty dollars and other money. Lots of different ways to do that, but the private scholarship route, people don't realize how much work it is, how much time it takes. We actually

have like a full scholarship program. But just to give you an example, we just finished a scholarship list for a student. It's a hundred scholarships that they qualify for. It took our research team almost thirty hours just to find a hundred scholarships. So that's not even the application process,

that's just finding the ones. That's just finding scholarships that you qualify for that are customized to you, that took thirty hours, So yeah, I used to I have to do all the work, but yeah, I'm not trying to go to jail this year, so um yeah. But yeah, it takes a lot of research time, and so what happens is kids give up and so it takes a lot of time. However, like once you find those scholarships, now you're just writing the essays and that kind of stuff,

so it becomes more manageable. But still I think so I just did a video on this a few months ago, so I have to remember the statistics. But it's like enough scholarship money goes unclaimed every year where it would pay full tuition, room and board for fourteen thousand students a year. So it's it's a lot of left So I always tell students start local. Go to your counseling office.

Usually there's like a bulletin board or a book or something that they'll have scholarships, you know, and and applied us a lot of difference. It takes a lot of time, So don't just apply to like five scholarships and think that's that's okay. Invest in it. But the national statistic is you're going to get one intent that you apply for I will tell you in practice, it's like one in fifteen and the average scholarship award is like about and that's tax free, and you guys know what that means.

That's a lot of money for a college student to get tax free. So it's definitely worth it to go through that process. Are there any online resources that are super helpful in your opinion for people who are trying to dig up scholarships for themselves? Honestly, no, not really really wish I wish I had a better answer for you, but I mean there's definitely a lot of online resources.

There's obviously like fast Web and apps like scholar. The problem is you're really having to like search and find them, honestly, Like if you know how to bullyand search, like bullyand searching is the best way to really start digging into them. So much good information here, Alicia, and you know, we've got a few more questions for you, including kind of how to tackle student loans on the flip side when you're out of college, and we'll get to that right

after the break. All right, we're back from the break. We're talking with Alicia Howard about navigating some of these tricky college decisions. And at least, you know, we we just talked about some of the different ways to pay for college. We've talked about scholarships, grants. Um, is there like any type of funding basically for college that, yeah,

that you feel that we haven't covered yet. Yeah. So one other little trick I use for students, and something they really don't think about, is just being cognizant of where you're working and where you're applying to jobs. And so when you're most students are starting to work while they're in college. Um, I'm actually seeing a huge downward

trend in that. It's really amazing me at how many parents don't want their kids to work ever, But I really encourage students to work in school for many, many, many reasons, and research actually supports that it's actually significantly better for students in many ways to work while they're in school. But one thing I didn't know, because I I did work my way through school. I is averaging um about thirty hours a week in school. Sometimes I

dropped down to twenty. But I always always worked when I was in college, and it wasn't until I started getting into this line of work that I started learning I really screwed up and that because I was working, but I was making minimum wage and you know, trading time for money. And there's so many companies that offer you know, education benefits and you don't have to be

a manager or high up. Like if you're working and you're working whatever, twenty hours a week, thirty hours a week, whatever it is, they will pay for a lot of your college. And so like one example of this here in Seattle, we have T Mobile is based here, as is Dick Strive In, which is like our it's like our in and out Burger. But even at Dick Strive

In it's a fast food restaurant. If you work there in college, you make right now the wage of seventeen an hour, So it's two dollars over minimum wage in Seattle. But if you work there, I want to say, it's twenty hours a week, don't quote me on that. They will pay it's like six thousand dollars a year or something tuition. Yeah, so they have really low turnover rates for for fast it's like a six gave bonus that goes towards school. Every single This is every year, I

think it's is it every year? No, it's quite a lot, because I think it's like twenty thousand for four years or something that's incredible. Yeah, it's it's quite a lot. And then like, again don't quote me on this, but like I don't see mobile. If you work thirty hours a week and it could be call center, it doesn't have to be in like the stores. They also give you it's like whatever five six, seven thousand dollars in in tuition assistance as well. And so I ran the

numbers on this once for myself. Obviously I went to college like ten fifteen years ago. But when I ran the numbers on it, one think about it. They paid more. Like I was a hostess at a Mexican restaurant, so like it was a minimum wage, so they got paid more, and on average it was like whatever, sevent eight bucks an hour more. So it's significantly it was more pay. Plus you got you know, the tuition reimbursement. Plus People don't think of this, but like, how much better would

my resume have been? Patted not just being a hostess but actually working for a corporation where I learned more skills. But I didn't. I didn't know that. Yeah, and half the battle is knowing. And that's why we wanted to have you on is because there are these things that people need to know, and yeah, where you work is one of those things that people need to know, right and and so yeah, that's a great tip. I love that.

I wanted to ask you to. I've seen some videos that you've created at Lasia and you've talked about how that there are additional challenges that immigrant families face. And you're an immigrant yourself, how is the college application process different? And what do immigrant families need to be aware of when they're applying to colleges? Yeah, so immigrant family, So it's interesting. So I'm American, but I lived in South

Korea for six years and wasn't higher read there. So it's interesting because I've been on that side where like I was working in higher ed in Korea, and like I had to learn a new system even working there. And then you know, like I worked with my families here and a lot of them, you know, are really well educated. I have a lot of families, like their parents work at Microsoft, and you know, they're very well educated. But they're like I went to college in whatever India

or Japan or like wherever I'm from. It's just a

very different system. So for immigrant families, it's just very important to really spend time learning the system um and what you see a lot, especially in certain families is especially people from like Asian countries, and I use that term loosely, it's very test score heavy and so it's very like steady, get good grades, get a good s, a T score, and then what happens is like students kind of fall off in other areas, right, Like they're not as well rounded, they're not as involved, they don't

have the leadership skills, and that really hurts them because again, like if you're applying to Harvard and everybody has good grades and test scores, how are you going to stand out? And that's just we're seeing that at every school of every level. So it's just certain things of like really learning the system in the US and what that means.

And that's really hard for parents because like in you know, your culture impacts you're parenting, right, and so it's really hard for a lot of families to be like, oh man, I might need my kid to maybe doesn't take that extra a P class or whatever, because I need them to do this this other thing to be more more

well rounded. Um, you have a lot of cultures who don't value education as much, and so it's really hard when you have a kid who wants to go to school and you're working with the family who's like, what are you talking about, just like go get a job

as a dishwasher. So you're kind of balancing those different cultures and those different those different issues, and so it's just it's finding that balance of ultimately the end of the day, I work for my kid, right which a lot of parents don't like to hear, but I want what's best for the kid, and so navigating like the cultural issue, the language barriers, all those things, it's just helpful for them to get a good understanding of how

it works here in the US. That's crazy. Yeah, there's so much more to it than just what the parent wants. And you know, there's just like the cultural expectations of the parents. I'm sure that you also have to kind of deal with. How about like military families as well. Are there some specific hurdles that you feel that they

have to face. We we recently had an episode with Doug Nordman and we kind of talked about the g I Bill and just kind of the different benefits that military families can experience, but what about some of the hurdles, some of the obstacles. So for military families, So I did a lot of this when I lived in Korea because I lived across the street from the main military base. So I actually started my emissions career with a lot of military families. So the big thing one is especially

if they've been abroad for a long time. I mean, you go to the school on base, so they have the like kind of American education system. But the truth is is like they've kind of been out of this system for a long time. Um, and it's it's different when you're abroad. It's a different feeling, it's a different I mean, ex pats, if anybody any of you've been expats,

it's just a different culture. And so a lot of military families, like you have kids who have been abroad for a very long time or you know, obviously they've moved around a lot, and that creates a disconnect between resources. Right You're you're switching teachers a lot, You're switching counselors

a lot. You might not be able to get the best letter of recommendation because you you know, you've moved so much, your teachers are moved because their DoD teachers, and so those are kind of specific things from military families and it's totally doable. You just have to work

around it. So staying in communication. If there's a teacher that you really liked but they left or you left, you might just have to say, hey, would you mind if we stayed pen pals so that we can maintain this relationship because I'm applying to college next year and I might need that letter of wreck or you know whatever that looks like. But you just have to be a little bit more strategic and how you navigate the process. Hey,

let's talk about student loans for a second, Alicia. And there is of course, like a crisis is like an overused word in our country, but I feel like, you know, student loans, they definitely hate a crisis level for sure. And so do you have any rules of thumb for how much in student loan debt a potential college student should take on, because yeah, obviously you're trying to do your best to help them go to college for cheaper free, but if they do have to take out student loans,

how do you kind of help them think through that. Yeah, I mean I think the first thing is like people talk about student loans like they're bad. I don't think that they're not bad. They're bad if they get out of control and are excessive, right, Like I have no problem if someone needs to go take out ten thousand dollars, Like ten thousand dollars is doable, right, you can get through that. It's it's when it gets excessive in whatever your circumstances are. So a few things. One is I

look at salary the first year out of school. The general role like most financial issers I'm sure you guys know that is it shouldn't be more than your first year's salary. However, I will say, like I prefer it to be half of your first year's salary now sometimes yeah yeah, and but again it depends what you're going

to go into. So again, if you're gonna be like an engineer, okay, like I in your first year salary sixty thousand a year, that's actually like I don't want you to take that out, but it's survivable because again, like five years down the road, you're probably gonna be making well into the six figures. So like a sixty thou dollars and student loans. That's about a six to

seven monthly payment. That's doable when you're taking home eight thousand dollars a month, right, So it just depends what you're gonna have versus I have a client actually just talked to a client the other day. You know, they're chiropractors, married couple combined. They have over five hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt. Well, they're making seventy thousand each a year. So like when you're making seventy in a year and you have two or fifty thousand dollars in debt,

that's not doable. Yeah, So I always sit with families, We've run the numbers and we're like okay. Like again, like one client I had last week, I tried to talk the family out of it, but they just wouldn't listen to me. But they're like, yeah, we're gonna go into a hundred seventy thousand dollars in debt for our kid.

And I'm like, well, i'll tell you a hundred seventy thousand dollars is that's going to be about a two thousand dollar monthly payment and your kid's gonna be making like forty thou dollars a year, So like, I don't know how you think you're going to make a two thousand dollar monthly payment making forty tho your take home is like, you know, whatever it is. Yeah, And so that's one thing too. We're also gonna look at the

type of loans you're going to take out. So when you get to debt that high, you're going to max out your student loans, you're gonna max out parent loans most people, which means you're taking out private loans. Now, government loans I can work with, Like, there's all kinds of different tricks and loopholes and there's ways we can deal with that. Private loans. I just I don't have

the options as much, Like you're kind of screwed. So you know, we're looking at we're looking at that if we're gonna have to come out with a bunch of private debt, it's not a good idea. So we just have to run those numbers. And it's different for everybody. And then we're going to say, like I'll be the bad guy and say no, you're not going to that school. That's a bad offer based on your grades, based on all these factors you really should be getting this, so

that school is not giving you a good offer. It's off the list. Well, Alicia, So I wanted to touch on this. You mentioned on your site, how like many folks they don't know about these loopholes right to find free money to help pay back student loans. What is that all about? Are you up for sharing sharing your insights there? Yeah? Yeah, So what people not realize is um, like if you look at like taxes, right, Like tax law is very stringent, right, that's why there's tax attorneys

and cias and stuff. And yes, there are some loopholes, and of course, you know, politicians argue about closing these loopholes whatever, but for the most part, like it's fairly black and white, right, We've closed a lot of these loopoles over the years, and people who know the loopholes kind of know the loopholes student loans are. It's very new, and so there's a lot of loopholes that have not been closed. So let me gibe like an example of this,

because it's so easy. When I lived in Korea, I pay taxes and Korea, right, I was employed at a university there, and because of that, I don't pay taxes in the US, right, So I filed my taxes every year, but I got to turn in this really cool form that basically says, hey, I live abroad, I don't need to pay taxes here. Well what does that do? That means my student loan payment I didn't have to pay because my payment was a zero. But how was I

able to do that? It's because I was able to be very strategic and how I filed my paperwork, and I had so many friends that what ended up happening was, remember this was like years ago. I didn't I wasn't like an expert. I was just trying to figure it out for myself at that point. And I had worked with all these other Americans in my office, and I had so many of them with debt. Well they were still paying on their loans, and so I was like, well, I can file this paperwork for like So it was funny.

I used to sit there and like do people's taxes on the subway and stuff and file this paperwork. And one of my friends, actually, this last year, he's about to get his debt forgiven that way, so he's never had to pay a single dollar on his student loans. Um, and it's about to be actually forgiven here. Um, we just filed the paperwork for it, so you can get it forgiven. But you want to pay as little as possible, that's one strategy. It really depends what you're trying to do.

That's cool. That's so much great info in this conversation, Alicia. We thoroughly enjoyed it, and thank you so much for coming on. Can you kind of tell our listeners where they can find out more info about you? Yes? Um, so our company has called Insights, that's with an S, and they can find us at college insights dot com. Uh. They can also call us at four to five five zero seven nine zero six nine. Um. They can also follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook under college Insights

all the socials. Yeah, I was I was thinking kind of as we're going through all of this, so much of this could be overwhelming for maybe a parent of a high schooler or even high school who's realizing that, hey, there's so much more that we need to consider, mom and dad, and so this is great information. But I'm glad that folks can also give you a ring if they need that additional help. Yeah, we have tons of

free resources on there, and like my big thing is access. Right, Like again, I started this business not to make money. It's because I really love my kids. Like right, I'm a teacher, so um everything for us, like consultations, those are always free. If people are like, hey, worst case scenario, I'm gonna tell you call me back in a year or two if you're too early. So it's it's not

like it hurts to make that phone call. And then we can walk you through it and say, hey, this is what this is where you're at, this is where you need to be, these are the steps to get there, and then it's really just up to you of how you want to navigate that process. Awesome, Well, Alicia, thanks again for joining us. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you, thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks Alicia. All Right,

Joel Man, that was such a fantastic interview. We covered such an array of of information, like everything having to do with college admissions, paying for it. We covered so much. I want to know what was your big takeaway from this episode? Man? I feel like we only scratched the surface. There's like so much more we could have asked, so

much more. We could have gotten into. But the biggest takeaway from me was when Alicia said, apply early, apply really early, and it's gonna save you potentially tens of thousands of dollars. And I love that. Yeah, there's more

money there. Like it. Just it makes so much sense for you as a high school student, if you're listening to the show, or you as a parent of a high school student, to apply to your college of choice super early on in the fall, if you want to get a good offer letter, if you want that school of your choice to offer you more funds to go there than apply early. I'm totally with you. That one stood out to me. I really like that one, and

so mine. All right. My big thing was when she was talking about considering other things, other expenses other than just the cost of school. Right, she mentioned that school in the Midwest that was going to be two hundred bucks for a room as opposed to dollars. Huge price discrepancy there. That's that's massive. And I think a lot of times as students, uh certainly as parents, you focus

so much on the school. You focus on the education, you're thinking about the dreams and the hopes, just everything that kind of goes into it. And maybe you're thinking about the cost of college, but like a tertiary thought is, oh, yeah, by the way, like what is the cost of living in that town. I think that's something that a lot of folks are not considering, and if we keep that in mind, I think that's going to have a large

impact on the overall cost of college. Yeah, I mean that price that's a thousand dollars a month over at I mean you're talking twelve tho dollars a year just to go to school elsewhere, and yeah, over four years, and that's that's a huge amount of money. So, yeah, where you go to school, the cost of living there, that's a huge thing to consider, Matt. All right, Matt, So let's get back to the beer that we had

on the show today. We drank a beer called Hot Foo by North Park Beer Company, and listener John sent this one our way. Yeah, well it's written like kung fu. Yeah, I feel like I should like karate chop yours any optical glasses we quick or something? Don't hit me bro u. Yeah, well, what were your thoughts on this beer? This is a West Coast style. I p a man, it's been a

while since I've had a West Coast style. I mean, I feel like everybody's going with happy, juicy New England style I p a s. And so it was really actually refreshing to have something a little more harshly bitter, which is what the West Coast style typically brings. It was abrasively bitter, and I dug it. It's like this great change of pace from the kind of the stuff

I'm normally drinking these days. And so I really enjoyed kind of having a West Coast ip A, going back to the I p A s that I was kind of brought up on right the ones that I first got into when I first started drinking beer. So this one was a really great example of a West Coast I p A. I dug it. So this is an instance where you and I are going to disagree a little bit, Okay, bring it, because yeah, like this is

a West Coast IPEA. But for me, I felt like that this one actually was, like, was really juicy for a West Coast I PA. Like to me, it wasn't really resonie and like overly bitter, and so I felt like it had some of those New England style I p A characteristics. Really Okay, certainly it had that hot presence, but it felt really juicy to me, and so because of that, I like this a little more than I

tend to like West Coast I pas from. Yeah, West Coast ips aren't typically my go to, But maybe that's why you felt that this one was refreshing and delectable. Maybe maybe maybe because this one kind of met me somewhere in the middle. Although it did, I did feel like it was kind of more abrasively bitter, a good bit more abbrasively bitter than a typical juicy style I PA. And just because I don't drink it's very often, it

was nice. Yeah, it definitely was nice. And we're really appreciative of John for doting this beer to the show and Joel, that's gonna be it for this episode. If you want to find a link to Alicia's website, College Insights, you can head over to our show notes at how It's of Money dot Com. Yeah, man, we we've actually had some questions in the Facebook group recently about how people can find the right credit card for them, and

we wrote a piece on our website. You can go straight to how the Money dot Com slash credit cards and you can find our favorite credit cards for how you spend, because we all spend money differently, and the best credit card for you might not be the best credit card for somebody else, So check that out if you're interested, and if you sign up for a card on our website, it does support the podcast Our Buddy. Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,