 Good afternoon, everyone, and Aloha. Thank you for joining me on Think Tech Hawaii. I am Shanta Park, your host for Money Talk. I am a business owner and investor, passionate about helping people understand how money works. Today I have Brandon Loresco, who is a certified college consultant. Brandon and his team actually helped my family when my daughter, Shayna, was a junior in high school. And with their education and guidance, it helped her to go to Western Oregon University with scholarships and financial aid. Without their guidance, without their education, we probably would not have been able to do that and do that with very little stress. And because of their expertise, again, we were able to get my daughter, who was the first in my family to leave Hawaii and go to college in the mainland. And Brandon has been a certified college consultant for over five years. And he has so much experience in this field, both personally and professionally. So he is here today to share with you very valuable information on financially planning for college that can help families go from zero to millions with financial education. So Brandon, I'm excited to have you here today. Welcome to the show. Awesome, Aloha. Thank you, Shayna, for having me on your show. It's great that I could be here to share based on my experience on how college can be affordable with looking at some myths, tips, and if there's extra time, helping those who are already graduated how we can help them out as well. Awesome. So before we get started with that, please share a little bit more about your personal background and how you got started in being a certified college consultant. Right, so I actually graduated from Campbell High School, class of 2016. And through that time, I was attending some programs that helped me with college planning. And I just wanted to seek other resources. And that's when I came across a program where I am now certified. And through that process, I was able to get accepted to HPU and in total from all institutional scholarships and other outside scholarships, I was awarded more than $400,000. And what I used was $100,000, including full tuition to attend Hawaii Pacific University, which I now graduated from past of 2020 with a marketing and a finance minor. So today, I am very proud to help families look at how they can tackle college planning and career planning. And I'm glad I could see how this program has helped myself and now be able to help people as a consultant. Yes, and one of those people were my daughter. So thank you so much for that. And being awarded over $400,000, that is fantastic. And that's such useful information that so many families need to know because I'm sure not only you, but many other people could really use that kind of help. So, and like you said, you used over $100,000 for Hawaii Pacific University, correct? Right, so I was able to use $100,000 from HPU as well as have extra outside scholarships. But what really happened is that even though I had full tuition to attend that university, I still had to take out some loans. And now I wanna share with people, even though having full tuition is great, college can be very expensive because you gotta think about adorning books, technology and other fees. And I wanna be able to be a resource and help people understand that if I can help them be able to get just enough scholarships or even get more financial aid than myself, then I'm happier helping them out. Yeah, most people wouldn't think, including myself that if a person got full tuition, that you would even then still have to take out some student loans. Yes. And you did study abroad as well? Correct, yeah, I studied abroad in Korea studying business at two different universities. And that's why I actually chose Hawaii Pacific University because they could allow me and even use some of the financial aid and scholarships to help take care of those costs. Okay, so two different universities in Korea? Correct, yeah, I went to the countryside. You learned Korean in South Korea? No, just all in South, so countryside. All in South Korea. So share a little bit more about that, not too many Hawaii students study abroad. Mm-hmm, yeah, so I saw that attending Hawaii we're in a melting pot of different cultures and I wanted to really experience another country, especially in Asian country. And it's all about what you could get qualified for and what you could test into getting. And Korea had some great universities and they had some awesome programs that gave me a stipend, covered my dorm. So this has allowed me to not just get an education here, but extend and broaden my horizons in another country. And I loved it so much after one semester break attending back here, I went back again. Oh, nice. I've never been only to the airport, so I would love to travel there with you. That's a good plan. Okay, so tell me about how we can tackle paying off college. Mm-hmm, right, so we could take a look at the first slide, but if you look at the different costs and way to tackle it, we all understand that college is rising in cost. And we could pay in scholarships, loans, work study, grants and other programs, but really the bigger one that you wanna look at is financial aid. Because at the end of the day, one area that we probably don't wanna use to pay for our cost is probably our auto pocket, our own money. That could be a big headache for some of us. And that's why I wanna shed light and looking at how there's different types of financial aid, one being financial need-based and the second being merit-based. And today we will highlight and look over how financial need-based and how we can qualify for that. Okay, great, thank you. And according to a new national college attainment network analysis, it shows, statistics show that the high school class of 2021 left an estimated 3.75 billion in Pell grants on the table by not completing the free application for federal student aid. That's crazy. So, how would this affect families today? Right, it's crazy to see that there's unclaimed grants and just aid that's available. And if we were to look at the average student, they could receive in Pell grant about 4,500. So what does that billion dollars make up? There could be about 800,000 families and students who could have gotten this aid. And just doing this free application for federal student aid, this allows you to be eligible for it, but many families may have not submitted applications simply because of not believing in it and not having enough information and maybe just having some misconceptions that had led them to not fill it out. About 800,000 families, that's so many families that were left behind not applying to get this grant. So explain how does the family become eligible for this financial aid? Right, so when they, we see that over time, there's a lot of decreasing number of students applying for FAFSA. And if we know FAFSA in this next slide, we will see that when we fill up this application, it's all about, what are we gonna get in financial need? So we have the cost of attendance minus the expected family contribution equals financial need. So what we learn over here is that, of course, you're looking at colleges and you're gonna see the cost of attending it from tuition, dorming meals, books, other such. And then the expected family contribution or the EFC, this is where the FAFSA comes into play, where you are able to input your income, your assets as a student and parent and will determine how much you are expected to put into school, leaving you with just this financial need. And this financial need will give you a student aid report, award letter when you, what kind of loans, grants, scholarships you could get from the federal, state side, institutional and other programs. So there's a lot of opportunity there just filling out this FAFSA application alone. It sounds pretty simple. So will you share some of the reasons why families don't submit this application? Right, so there are some three myths I wanna go over and the first myth in the next slide will be myth number one, my family makes too much money. Simply we may think that, hey, if my parents or myself altogether, we make about $75,000 or $100,000, we may not be eligible, but in the end, there is no income limit that will set you apart for submitting this application. So I wanna encourage families that regardless of what income you make, just submit an application because there's other factors that come into play to being eligible for financial aid. Like, see how families would think that they make too much because usually there is an income cap. So you're saying no matter what your income is for the student themselves and for their parents, no matter what their income, every single family that's applying for college should also fill out and submit this FAFSA application. Yes, correct. And this kind of leads into the next myth. So myth number two, we see that we believe that once I completed my FAFSA application and in my senior year, I probably don't have to do it again. But really, you have to do this for every year for that next academic year, you're gonna attend college. So at the end of the day, you're probably gonna fill this out four times while you're attending college. Every October 1st, they have that new application open and that's when you can submit it as soon as possible because the sooner you can get it, you could be getting some financial aid that's on a first come first serve basis. Wow, that's awesome. Okay, so some families think that you only have to fill it out once. So that's another reason why money is just left on the table because once they do it, they don't realize that you have to keep submitting it year after year. But then you can continue getting awards every single year that you apply. Right, and that's correct. And I wanna cover the last myth that we have. So myth number three, we see that people submit faster only to schools you are accepted to. So in the application, they're gonna ask you, what 10 schools you wanna get connected to? And I say put as much as options as possible. If you have any interest in this school or university, put them on the application. There is no penalty for not putting them. And really, when we see this, this is October 1st. You're submitting your application in October for FAFSA, but you probably haven't been accepted to any colleges yet, right? Because that admission is gonna be in January, February, and you're not gonna get your award letter till later. So I say, hey, if you have a strong interest in a school, put them on there. You don't know what kind of aid you could get from them. And if you have a strong desire for a certain school, especially a school that you're gonna attend to in your state of residence, put them on the top of the list because there is like a order of what kind of aid you can get in the priority. Okay, so it's okay for seniors in high school to just go ahead and list their top 10 schools because at this point, they're still not 100% certain where they're going. They can list 10 schools. Right, so of course this can give you time to appraise each option that comes from each school and then the 10 different college bears and the 10 different college tours so you could make a better decision at the end of your senior year. Okay, awesome. That's really good to know that they can, they don't have to feel the stress of narrowing it down to just one school or maybe their top three. They can just go ahead and just think of any college that popped in their head that they're considering even if it's 10 schools and make sure that they fill out their application starting October 1st. So I'm sure if people already were educated about the FAFSA, as soon as October 1st came around, you filled it out. However, for some of the viewers here, if this is the first time that you're receiving this information, it's still early, you have the rest of the month to apply, just don't wait, just get on this right away because Brandon, is it first come first serve basis? Yes, first come first serve basis and you do have some time to fill it out till a couple of months or so after, but the sooner the better. Okay, the sooner the better. So mark your calendar that every single October 1st that you should be applying for the FAFSA because like Brandon said, it's something that you have to do every year. And can you imagine for some people who go to school more than four years and we have some lifetime students? I wonder if there's a limit on how many years you can apply for the FAFSA if you can apply year after year. You can keep applying every year. I mean, there's also for those who are going through undergrad and their graduate years, but just make sure that you stay up to date. You sign up for subscriptions to get updated by the student aid because it wasn't always October 1st was the opening, but right now it is every October 1st, the FAFSA will be open. But I think that is just a great way for you to be reminded and stay up to date. Yeah, thank you for that. And thank you for sharing the myth about why families are not filling out this FAFSA application. So now do you have some tips for families? Yes, I have two tips right now. So the first step being is begin financial planning sooner. Because as you see on the screen, there is, these are some screenshots from a portion of the FAFSA forum today. So for example, you are a senior and you want to go to college next academic year 2023 to 2024. But what they're gonna use is to see if you have filled out your 2021 federal tax return. So parents and students, you're gonna connect that and put that information on your FAFSA and this will help determine that financial need that you're eligible for. So what can we look at this? Oh, it's another perspective that if you are a, if you have or you are a high school sophomore or junior, this is the most critical time to start looking at financial planning for the parents and the student so that you can be prepared for that upcoming FAFSA application. Now this doesn't set apart those who are already in college or who are senior today, you guys can start working with a financial professional or your tax preparer, but whatever information that you put in today and what you do for your taxes will kind of affect more so your following year is applying for FAFSA. Okay, thank you for that information. Anything else that you can share about that because I know when it comes to, especially taxes and tax returns and all of these financial planning, it can be very confusing, burdensome for families and a lot of times people don't want to even look at it. So how can families simplify the most for themselves? You know, I would say, you know, just work with someone you trust and someone who's experienced, but this kind of leads to the next tip and just tip number two would be you are, you can be able to write a financial aid appeal letter. So, you know, I wanna ask you Shonda, did you know that when you get an award letter from a school telling you that this is the aid that you're eligible for that you can actually negotiate with them? I had no idea because who would even guess that when you are awarded financial aid, I mean, it's already free money. So who would think that you could negotiate the free money that you're getting awarded? Right, and that's crazy. So it's all about the appeal letter. You know, we say that the FAFSA application is based on that 2021 tax returns, for example, but we can all agree that things can change anytime from that 2021 till today and when you're gonna attend school because don't you agree that within the last few years with the pandemic, we have seen such huge economic changes especially in our homes? Yes, I completely agree. Right, so that FAFSA application is only, you know, a portion of understanding your situation for our colleges. Now you can work with someone you trust, you know, there are financial aid departments and they are there for you to work with maybe a counselor there and find someone who's experienced whether it's outside or there to help you write a letter to say, hey, you know, I have this much financial need, but you know, I see that I'm not getting, you know, the award package that kind of meets that, what can we do to work it out? But you know, really, if we think about the changes over time, many people can get laid off. There could be a reduction in income. We live in the age of mixed families, so people who have parents who they stay with at certain times and all of these are factors that you could address in that appeal letter. So you know, again, find someone who you can trust who can help you raise your chances of making that negotiation in a way, but you know, just try it out, simply ask and you know, try submit a financial aid appeal letter. That's right because if you don't ask, you never know. And anything can happen at any time and people's situations change drastically, right? And it's inevitable that changes will happen, whether it's positive or negative. And it's good to know that if someone is awarded, for example, $5,000 and now something drastic has happened that their needs has significantly changed and maybe their needs are doubled out. Maybe their needs are 10,000. It's really wonderful to know that there is a process that they can actually write an appeals letter to be able to get what their need is now and not what it was when they applied. Right, because you know, even for myself, I have seen that I had to go to a point of asking and doing a financial aid appeal letter. So in my about my third year in college, I saw that there are some changes in my package that I was awarded something, but I wasn't able to fully utilize it in the academic year. So I asked and worked it out on what can we do? Would it be work study? Could it be changes between subsidized and unsubsidized loan? So it's all about working it out and just simply asking. Yes, just simply asking. That's all you have to do. Again, if you don't ask, you never know. So here's another area that you can ask. And here's something else that I did not know. And I got this information from Brandon as well. And I know all the viewers are gonna love this information too. What can people do who have already graduated from college and they still have outstanding student loans? Right, so that's a great question. So for those viewers who are already graduate from college, maybe have some student loans, be aware that yes, there are some forgiveness, debt forgiveness plans out there, but you probably have heard of the Biden administration and their plan to forgive loans. So two things I wanna address with this Biden plan. The first thing is they wanna forgive up to $20,000 of student loans. And all of this will be determined by an application. So not everyone's gonna automatically be eligible and you're not gonna see this magically disappear from your account, but you have to submit an application and maybe with due to some income and other factors, you could get $10,000 paid off. And if you're eligible for a Pell Grant, you could get around $20,000 paid off in zero. So again, the application are open the same time as the FAFSA. So October 1st, find someone. I could maybe help you guys get directed to that website and you guys can fill out the application. And I would say the deadline, I believe it might be the end of this month. So at least just submit it as soon as possible. But the second tip I wanna lead into is, we have those who have already paid off their loans or started making payments to that, right? So we know that there's from forbearance that they delay the interest bearing on our loans. But some of us, we probably had already made some payments. So if you had made payments, I believe it's March. So March 13, 2020, if you made any payments on or after that, you could be eligible for a refund. So there is some example of those who probably want to pay off their loans because there's no interest. Maybe they just made more money in the past couple of years and they want to get rid of their debt. But now they are looking into the idea of refunding. So the best thing to do is to stay updated on what they can address. Things can change. So follow on the student aid website and be able to read upon the most recent details of what you can qualify for. Okay, great. This is really fantastic information because my daughter, Shaina, had paid off all her student loan debt in full. And I believe it was this year. So you said anytime after March 13, 2020, anytime on March 13, 2020 and after. Yep, March 13, 2020 and then until right now. Okay, so she is eligible. I'm gonna make sure that she watches this episode and also I'm gonna have her contact you so that she can have your assistance. And it's possible that she may be eligible to getting a refund of 20,000. So I'm not too sure what would be the limits of what you could get as a refund, but 20,000 is separate of loan forgiveness for those who have a loan currently and then the refund is a separate thing. Is there any last-minute tips or myths that you would like to share with the viewers today, Brandon? Oh no, Mahalo, thank you for letting me come into today's show and to talk about financial aid. Again, I just wanna re-emphasize that college can be affordable. Every college is built differently and we may not know that attending the least expensive school may not be the most cost-efficient first. So do not limit yourself to the opportunities that are available out there. Be able to look into different options. And I hope that I could expand more another time on the different ways that we could tackle financial aid. Since you brought that up, I wanna touch on this last subject. A lot of times people look at cost first when they're looking at college, but that is not the correct order that you should be looking at, right? Right, it would be cementing your career ideas first, what you wanna do, then looking at the college that can provide the best programs and then look at the cost last. So the cost should be the last thing you should really be worried about and that's how we should plan for college. Great, great information. Career first, then the college and then the cost. Don't think of the cost first, right? So there's so much information as you can see regarding college planning. So Brandon has agreed to be on the next episode of Money Talk. Until then, feel free to reach out to him with any questions that you may have and we will see you on the next episode of Money Talk. Thank you for joining us, mahalo. Mahalo. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.