If you attended my seminars this year, you probably will recall me refer to the planning phase and the execution phase.  The planning phase takes place for all families prior to January 1st of senior year.  Thus, now that we are in December, if you are the parent of a senior, this is the time to take advantage of all of the benefits available with net price calculators.

After January 1st, your focus as a parent will be centered on the completion of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.  I will be writing about this document in great length after January 1.  At this point however, it is imperative that you feel comfortable in knowing your results at each of the colleges that your son or daughter has applied or will apply to sometime this month.

Here is my question.  If you are considering applying to more colleges this month, why not be sure that these school options are affordable to the family.  You might be able to save yourself the cost of  application fees if you use the Financial Fit College Search method first.  This method necessitates that you establish what you can afford as a family.  Using the net price calculators of one college in each of the 7 college categories, you should be able to determine which college categories match or fit your affordability threshold.

If you find a category that does not seem to fit financially, but it is a school category that your son or daughter would like, check out the net prices at several colleges in that category before you come to a conclusion to eliminate it from your list of options.  If you do learn, after this analysis, that a college category appears to be unaffordable - especially if it is significantty higher than your affordability threshold, you may have just saved yourself the application fee and the time that you otherwise would have used continuing to investigate the features and benefits of that college.

At the same time, perhaps the net price comparison chart on the myfinancialfit.com website will help you search for colleges in certain affordable categories that appear to demonstrate bargain options.  Time and time again, you will find families who save thousands of dollars in college costs simply because they did not limit their college options to one or two schools.  These families took similar colleges (ones that have similar features and benefits) and compared those net prices. 

The affordability calculator and the net price comparison chart are the two major programs on the myfinancialfit.com website. They will take some time to complete.  They do require that you gather the family's financial information and the student's academic information and use that in each of the net price calculators.  It is time well spent though...time that will save you much (both time and money) down the road.