Jonathan Hughes: [00:00:00] At MEFA, as we say, we help people plan, save, and pay for college and career readiness, and there’s a seasonality to that work. Students and parents have their own seasonality and milestones, of course, and we’re close to one of them now at the time of this episode posting. It’s back to school time, and I’ve often found that when their kids go back to school, it’s a natural time for parents to think about the road ahead, especially when children reach certain ages, like entering high school or middle school.

That’s when they first start to think about what’s coming up and what they need to do to make sure their students are well prepared. They have general questions. What should I be thinking about? And then of course, the students near the end of high school, they have much more focused questions and sure, anxieties So I thought it would be a great time as families head back to school to capitalize on this mood of beginning to let you know how you can stay on track, no matter the age of your child.

We’ll talk high school seniors, juniors, middle schoolers, [00:01:00] and even younger. And to do this, in this theme of returning, I’m so excited to welcome back to the show MEFA’s Senior Director of College Planning, Education and Training, though no title can contain her, our friend Julie Shields-Rutyna. Julie, it’s my great pleasure to welcome you back to the MEFA podcast.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: I’m so glad to be here, I love doing this with you, Jonathan.

Jonathan Hughes: Yeah, it’s been too long. So we’re here talking about the return to school, right? And so this is one of these times when we know we get calls or people have the future in mind, ’cause they’re at the beginning of a new chapter, and we thought, wouldn’t it be fun to just give them three things to keep in mind and things that we can help them with as they’re moving through their first couple of months.

So why don’t we start with our, probably our most frequent, our most captive audience, the parents of seniors, incoming seniors in high school, or the seniors in high school [00:02:00] themselves. What three things should they keep in mind, and what three things can we help them with?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: So I’m going to say the first thing that they should do, one is to finalize that college list.

So hopefully the student’s been doing some research about colleges they might like to attend, but once, once they start back senior year, they really need to move on that and decide, okay, have I… Can I narrow that list down? What are the schools that I’m actually going to apply to? Most colleges have, early admissions processes as well as regular admissions processes and the early admissions processes can start as early as November.

So again, that’s right at the beginning of the year, so really focusing on that as soon as they get back to school.

Jonathan Hughes: What’s a good list number? Oh. Do we have guidance on that?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: I know, it’s hard to give a specific number. But more than a few is- Okay … usually an answer I like to give.

Okay. Because I think students really want to have a balanced list, [00:03:00] a list that’s balanced both on the competitive side, so that there are schools that they’re definitely going to be accepted to, schools that they’ll probably be accepted to, and then maybe some of those reaches that you never know.

Just to make sure that they have enough schools on that list so that in the spring they have a good decision, they have decisions, and they have choices. So I don’t know, six to eight If I had to give a number maybe. And they also probably want to make sure that that from an affordability perspective, there’s some balance, too.

Do they have a, a college on that list that they could commute to that might reduce costs? Things like that. And so we do have an article about early admissions, early decision, and that might be a good one for the student and the parents to read, because I know they sometimes ask, “Should I apply early decisions?

Should I apply early admissions?” And that article that MEFA has will break down all of the details of [00:04:00] that and help them.

Jonathan Hughes: And where can people find that?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: On mefa.org.

Jonathan Hughes: Okay, great. Now number two.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: They should learn everything, everything about financial aid, and an easy way that they can do that is to register for one of MEFA’s Financial Aid 101 webinars.

We do a number of those every week in the fall, and that webinar will take the, the family through what is financial aid, how do you apply for it, and all of the nuances associated with that. Students and family can start applying for financial aid October 1st. So watch one of those webinars and learn everything, and you’ll be very well prepared for that financial aid process.

Jonathan Hughes: Okay, so that’s curate your list, learn about financial aid. What’s number three?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: And number three is to actually apply to college and apply for financial aid. So from all you’ve [00:05:00] learned then you have to do those applications, and deadlines and timing are super important. So if you make sure that you’re meeting the deadlines, you want to look at all the deadlines for both admissions and financial aid at the colleges that you’re applying to, and then you want to make sure you meet those deadlines.

And on the financial aid side, if you apply for financial aid early, around October 1st, then you’ll be sure to be meeting all of those college deadlines for both early admissions and regular admissions. I’ll give the websites of fafsa.gov, so the FAFSA is the main financial aid form, and some colleges also require an additional form, which is the CSS Profile, and so cssprofile.org is the website for that.

Jonathan Hughes: Seniors definitely have a, a busy year ahead of them. You can see why they’re our most sort of frequent customers, [00:06:00] but- Taking back a year is where it really starts, this whole process, right? So what about the parents or the families of incoming juniors and those students themselves?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Yes. So similarly to having a great financial aid 101 webinar that covers everything, we also have a college admissions webinar.

And I think that’s a great webinar for students and families who have- when the student is a junior, that’s the way to go. And that is, again, one of those soup to nuts, all about the admissions process. And you can find those webinars at mefa.org/webinars.

Jonathan Hughes: And we’ll put all these links in the show notes as well, ’cause as you’re saying that it occurs to me.

So that’s college admissions. What else do we have?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: That, that webinar goes over a number of things, and one of the things it goes over is standardized tests. SAT, ACT, and just questions about when do I take those tests? Do I have to take those [00:07:00] tests? And we encourage students to take those tests starting junior year as long as one of the schools that they may apply to requires that- that test. And ma- and many do. But I will share that there are 2,100 colleges in the United States that do not require a standardized test. So that’s okay, and that’s okay too. So maybe a student won’t end up using the scores from the SAT or ACT that they take, but early in the process as they’re just starting out, it might not be a bad idea to take one of those tests in case they want to apply to a school that requires it.

Jonathan Hughes: And what’s our final tip?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: And the final tip, I would say, besides just watching the webinar, is to really start that college or career search. And so really start exploring in a fun way learning about colleges, thinking about themselves as people and what they might [00:08:00] be interested in pursuing next, and then learning about colleges and careers so that they can just begin to think about what they want that step to be.

All kinds of things like, do I do I want to go to a large public university, or do I want to go to a small private college? They probably don’t know the answer to that- … as a junior, but if they start to visit campuses and learn more about a number of different colleges, they can start to have better understanding of that.

Jonathan Hughes: And how can we help them with that?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: A couple of things, but one article that we have that’s really great is called Removing Pressure From The College Search, and we have one of our colleagues Drew Carter from Holy Cross, who has been on the podcast and shares a lot. He was interviewed for that article and has a lot of good tips for families.

Jonathan Hughes: Now, a frequent call that I get is [00:09:00] from parents whose students are just beginning high school, and college is in their sights, so to speak and they wanna know what they need to do to prepare. How can we help those folks?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Yeah. It’s funny, I was talking to someone recently who said to me, “You know what I wish ninth and 10th graders understood is that their grades really count.”

I thought that was a good tip, is just to know that once you start ninth grade those grades and your high school transcript is a big part of the college admissions process. So that’s not to scare a student. It’s nothing scary, but just to be aware of that you want to work hard in high school, and the end result is the better your grades, the, the better your high school transcript, the more options you’ll probably have as to what you want to do, what types of colleges you can go to.

And even sometimes merit aid is based [00:10:00] on high school transcript and some of those higher grades. So just an, an important thing for a student to know.

Jonathan Hughes: And what about number two?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Just to get to know your school counselor. That might not be something that occurs to a student, especially in ninth grade. And it’s not urgent to do that in the first month of school or anything, but d- your school counselor is someone who can really give you great advice about the types of classes to take to explore, you know, your thoughts about the future. So i- it’s a great idea to get to know your school counselor at some point during those early years of high school.

Jonathan Hughes: That’s great advice. Okay. Oh-

Julie Shields-Rutyna: And we do have, we have an article that’s how to work with your school counselor, that can hopefully give you those tips of how to make that happen.

Jonathan Hughes: Oh, excellent. Okay, great. Yeah. What’s our third piece of advice then?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: And that is to, I guess I’m going to call it, get your financial house in order.

Jonathan Hughes: Oh, yeah.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Sure. And that could be a number of things. One, we’ll talk a little bit about savings in the, in a few minutes, [00:11:00] but if you haven’t started saving for college it’s not too late, even the ninth and 10th grade, to begin to save some money, and we’ll talk about all the reasons that savings will be something you’ll be happy that you did.

But also something maybe understanding what credit score means, and do you have good credit? Because that could affect the type of w- loan you might need to borrow for college. So if that’s another piece that, that parents can start thinking about, maybe saving, learning about my credit score.

And we do have an article on mefa.org about using, about your credit score, and how that could affect future borrowing.

Jonathan Hughes: Now, all of this makes sense. I think people maybe are surprised to know that this may begin all the way back in middle school for students. So we also have things for middle schoolers and middle school parents, right?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Yes. And in fact, MEFA has something really terrific for middle school students and it’s our free [00:12:00] web portal- called MEFA Pathway. And that is actually over, well over 300 schools in Massachusetts are now using MEFA Pathway as their tool for students, and that, that’s growing every single day.

And this is a tool that allows it’s in a, done in a fun, engaging way for students at that age- … for students to go in, and they can take some, I’ll call them assessments or tests, but they’re fun, so that they can find out what are they like w- what are they interested in, what are they good at, things like that, and they, done in a fun way.

They take those tests, and then they get information back about themselves, and get ideas for future careers, and then ways that you could do that career, future paths through college or non-college ways. And then there’s a whole lot of other information in there that they can [00:13:00] just keep track of so that- Each year, freshman, sophomore, as they get to high school, then they’re bringing some of that information with them so that they’re continually learning about themselves, learning what’s out there in the world and finding a good path for themselves.

Jonathan Hughes: MEFA Pathway has so much within it that I feel a little, foolish asking about what else we have to offer but let’s go with our tip number two.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Yes, and that would be I’m going to go back to savings.

Jonathan Hughes: Oh, good.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Because actually, I said it’s not too late in ninth or 10th grade. The earlier the better, to just allow your money to have time to grow. And MEFA has two college savings programs, the U.Fund and the U.Plan. The first being a 529 plan, the second being a prepaid tuition plan. Educate yourself about those and really start saving. I guess that’s one of the things that you and I are usually not shy about telling people, “Yes, this is a good thing to [00:14:00] do, and you won’t be sorry that you did it.”

So I would say also find out that information on the MEFA website, and there’s lots of information about why that will be a great thing to have some money saved.

Jonathan Hughes: In fact, I think that’s probably not the last time we’ll be talking about savings is how important it is. So let’s go with our final tip for middle school families.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: It’s not too early to begin looking for some scholarships. Of course, there are more scholarships when a student gets to be in high school and nearing the end of high school, but there are scholarships even for middle school students. And so we have an article about that on mefa.org, scholarships for middle school students, and it’s just worth, again, part of the growing education around all of this to start searching for that early on.

Jonathan Hughes: Yeah, I was surprised when I found that out- Right? … too, yeah. So now let’s go back to the beginning. Families with very young children, what do we have for them?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Number one, you really should [00:15:00] start to save for college. And the truth is, however you save for college is a good thing. But MEFA has a couple of plans that really have some special benefits.

And I mentioned the U.Fund 529 plan, which really is a a savings program of choice for a lot of people because of the tax benefits people have and the flexibility. There’s just so much flexibility. But in general, the way 529 plans work is families save and they, the, the earnings that they earn on those 529 plans are tax-deferred, and then when they take the money out, as long as they use it for an eligible expense, then they never pay taxes on any of those earnings.

And those eligible expenses continue to grow. Yep. There are just so many ways to use that money, and in a tax-free way.

Jonathan Hughes: As quickly as you can, how many?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Tuition fees, room and [00:16:00] board, books and supplies. But now you can even use some of those expenses for K through 12 expenses, and you can even pay off up to $10,000 of a student loan.

And also, you can use them for things like apprenticeship programs, not necessarily what someone would have thought of as college in the past. And at the very end of all of it, if your money doesn’t get used on one of those expenses, there’s even a way that you can roll that money over into an IRA. Really, the flexibility continues to grow.

Jonathan Hughes: What else do we have for savers?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: And I, and then I also mentioned the UPlan- Yep … which is the prepaid tuition program. And I’d say go to mefa.org, look at that. But that is really a unique way that families can save for college by outpa- trying to o- outpace the inflation of college tuitions rising. And that, it, there’s a lot of detail in that, but the MEFA website has so much information about the UPlan. [00:17:00] Yeah,

Jonathan Hughes: It’s a great program. I love the UPlan, but you’re right. And I think the, this, the website is the best place to go to read up all about the UPlan. But we do have some specific ways to help families with young children grow their savings, right?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Yes. In Massachusetts, we have Baby Steps, and that any, any child born or adopted here in Massachusetts can open a MEFA U.Fund and have $50 put in that account as starter funds from the state. It’s o- sort of automatic- … where fam- mothers learn about that in the hospital- sometimes when they’re having a baby, but then as, then they just have to go and open a U.Fund, and as long as it’s within that first year, they will receive that $50 starter which is really terrific.

Jonathan Hughes: Aside from Baby Steps, too, there’s the Next Steps program, right?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Yes. So if a family was not able to take advantage of Baby Steps in that first year, which we understand how that can happen, there’s a lot happening [00:18:00] at that age, that that they still have a couple of years, two years, to be able to put money, open a U.Fund, put in their $50, and they can be matched $50 three years, one through three.

Jonathan Hughes: Okay. That’s, the child has to be from one to three, they open the account, put in $50, and then they’ll get a $50 match.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Exactly.

Jonathan Hughes: Okay.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Exactly.

Jonathan Hughes: And that is if they need to put the $50 in within that first year of opening to get that $50 match. Okay. Okay.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Yes.

Jonathan Hughes: Those are two great programs. We’re down to our final Tip-

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Yes

Jonathan Hughes: for a student. So chronologically, maybe our first. We’re worked backwards to our first.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: What is it? But you know what? This final tip is a good one really at any age, but always better the earlier the better. I would advise that a family sign up for MEFA emails. As, as soon as you want to get connected to MEFA, go to our mefa.org, s- scroll down, join our [00:19:00] community, and it will ask for an email address and the age of your child.

And then MEFA will send you emails twice a month that will be targeted exactly to the age and stage of your child. So it’s going to, it’s going to promote things that are going to be relevant to you all from when you have a baby to middle school to early high school to getting ready to go to college, and I have never had a parent say that they didn’t love our emails.

We all get a lot of email. It seems like you might not want to add another email. This is one that y- I think parents will really like.

Jonathan Hughes: That’s a good point. I’ve never heard that either. So it’s almost like this podcast episode every other week, right? Exactly. Three things at the age that’s important.

Julie, is there anything else you want to say before we go?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: No I think we’ve given them a n- a- … given people a lot to think about,

Jonathan Hughes: so it was great to have you back here, and we’ll do it again soon.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Thanks, Jonathan.

Jonathan Hughes: And listen, everyone, we mean it. If you [00:20:00] have any questions related to planning, saving, and paying for college and career readiness, you can find tools on mefa.org, and of course, you can always follow the show for more information.

Until next time, my name is Jonathan Hughes, and this has been the MEFA podcast.