The rising cost of college can put significant pressure on a family’s finances — and paying for it should not come at the expense of your financial future. Our college planning experts provide proven strategies to help families reduce the cost of college while protecting their long-term wealth.
Prepare for the cost of school strategically, without putting your retirement plan in the way of it.
Ask about college planningPaying for college is difficult, but it is not unpredictable. The number grows on a schedule, and the families who look at it early have far better options than the ones who look at it in the spring of senior year.
We help you prepare for the cost strategically, without putting your retirement in the way of it.
College Solutions is delivered by Thompson & Thurman. On admissions strategy, school selection and financial aid, we work alongside Elite Collegiate Planning, who specialize in this work.
You stay with us for the financial plan. They bring the depth on the application and aid side. One conversation, two sets of expertise.
Elite Collegiate Planning produces a podcast covering admissions, aid and the parts of the process families usually find out about too late. Worth an episode or two before your first meeting. Ask Landon for the episodes worth starting with.
Listen to the podcast
A college admissions and funding firm. We handle the financial plan; they bring the depth on applications, school selection and aid. Landon Morgan leads this work here.
Set the school type and your child’s age. Add what you have saved and what you can put aside each month, and the shortfall appears.
Illustration only. Assumes 5% annual cost growth, 4% growth on money set aside, and four years per student. It ignores aid, scholarships, tax treatment and every other detail that makes a real plan a real plan. Not a projection of results and not a recommendation.
Three patterns we see over and over, wherever the family lives.
Assets held by a student are weighted far more heavily in aid formulas than the same money held by a parent. Well-meant gifts can quietly cost more than they give.
There are loans for college. There are none for retirement. Sequencing matters more than most families expect, and it is recoverable if caught early.
By then the aid picture is largely set by income and assets from prior years. The useful planning window opens well before applications do.
Bring the rest to the first conversation.
Earlier is cheaper, but the more useful answer is that the planning window for aid strategy opens around a child’s sophomore year of high school, because the income and asset picture from those years is what gets assessed.
No. A 529 is one tool with real tax advantages and real restrictions. Cash value life insurance, taxable accounts and family gifting each behave differently in aid formulas. The right mix depends on your income, your timeline and how many children are involved.
Then you have a funded plan and a surplus, which is a far better problem than the reverse. We would rather build for the full number and redirect what is left over than assume aid that does not arrive.
It should not, and that is the whole point. Protecting the retirement plan while funding education is the balance we are trying to strike.
Landon runs sessions for families working through school selection, applications and aid. They are free to attend and there is nothing to buy in the room.
Registration is handled by Elite Collegiate Planning, our college planning partner.
How aid is actually calculated, what schools look at, and the decisions families make two years too late. Bring questions rather than paperwork.
Parents of students in the last years of high school, and anyone who has been told to fill in the forms and hope for the best.
Tell us you want the next date and we will put you on the list. No cost, and nothing is sold in the room.
Tell me about the next oneLandon Morgan leads this work, and we partner with Elite Collegiate Planning on admissions and aid strategy.
