Notes from Financial Planning / College Planning Seminar
November 17, 2004

5 Vernon parents (several school levels) attended a college planning seminar put on by Charles Wareham of Merrill Lynch. It was a small venue which gave everyone an opportunity for questions, etc. I do think that this would be a good session for parents with kids at all levels. He gave some very concrete info and he DID NOT concentrate on the trite - "you better start saving when you consider having a child or it's too late" and instead really talked about what to do now if you have a 17 year old senior and have done nothing. It is a complicated topic and I think that a lot of us don't choose to do enough real research because we don't like what we think the answers will be. Of course he was selling something (indirectly) but that's OK, he gave out info that you can use yourself, take to your own financial planner, or later make arrangements with him. It's naive to think that he doesn't hope to generate income from this but he was good in that he definitely did not make it a requirement that you had to sign up with him to take home useful information.

What I took away from it were the following points -

• several websites to refer to (fastweb.com, finaid.org, salliemae.com, and nasfaa.org).
  
  
• the best ways to pay for college are: grants, loans, scholarships, and work study (in that order).
  
  
• assets in children's names are viewed with a higher percentage of availability than parents' funds, so try to keep money out of kid's account (for example - avoid UGMA accounts)
  
  
• utilize upromise.com, it's not much but it's free money.
  
  
• you don't get financial help unless you ask for it.
  
  
• submit the FAFSA form as soon as possible after January 1.
  
  (all the above is my view of what he said, no financial decisions should be based on my comments)
  

He said that he would be happy to tailor a program to our school.