PUSD College Fair Offers Info, Money-Saving Tips

It was time for parents to take notes at a Poway Unified college fair Tuesday night, with workshops on maximizing financial aid by reallocating assets, helping students pick the right college for their personality and deciding if community college is the best choice.

"There has to be a rationale for it, not just friends, boyfriends or girlfriends," Jim Lundgren, president of Access College Foundation, said about school choice during a workshop about paying for college.

Several of the workshops were standing room only in classrooms throughout Del Norte High School, while a traditional fair with about 150 booths from colleges, military academies and college prep programs was similarly packed in the campus gymnasium.

Lundgren emphasized the need for students to pick the right school for them, based on their career goals and the family's financial situation. That message was echoed in a separate workshop—"Maximizing Your Student's Potential"—led by Ted Buchan and Phil Bell of the Rancho Bernardo college consulting firm, Ted Buchan & Company.

Buchan and Bell discussed how often parents think that because they have a high income or high-value assets, such as real estate, they won't be eligible for financial aid. But that's not always the case, and there are ways for families to reallocate their assets to increase the amount of aid they are eligible for, they said.

But they need to make sure the shifting is the best choice, not just for maximizing financial aid, but for the family's overall financial picture, Buchan said.

Part of making the most of financial aid is to pick the school that's right for the student to minimize the chances of the student coming back home because he or she is unhappy, both Lundgren and Bell said in their separate workshops.

Bell said there are two key parts of the college planning process (Buchan and Bell focus on four "p's"—planning, preparing, paying and propsering):

• Profiling the Student: Determine which physical attributes of the college work best for the student based on his/her personality.
  
  • Physical attributes: Size, urban vs. rural, sports on campus, etc.
  • Student personality: Likes, dislikes, problem-solving strategies, etc.
• Preparing for College: Get ready for the SATs, essays, interviewing. Take career assessments.

At the end of their workshop, Buchan and Bell offered to cover the cost of a seminar from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday they'll teach at Palomar College—"Secrets for Making College Affordable"—where they go into greater detail about how assets and income affect grants and scholarships, and what families can do.

Buchan is offering to cover the seminar cost (about $55) for those who contact him directly (858-605-0686) and mention that they read about the offer on Patch. Space may be limited.