Education Planning

For an ever-increasing percentage of American families, saving enough for their children’s college education expenses has become the financial “Holy Grail”. Particularly for middle and upper-middle-class households, successful education funding is a difficult task to accomplish. Like many client situations we encounter at Brunette & Associates, we can help sort through and prioritize your family’s financial goals that are sometimes in conflict with one another.

When we access our clients’ needs for educational funding, there are “real-world” factors that have to be considered when strategizing for this difficult financial hurdle. Two of the main challenges include both a decrease in financial stability within the average family and an upward spiraling price on what it takes to get a child through the university of his or her choice.

Much like everything else we purchase in today’s society, college is thought to be “too expensive.” By many standards, it is. According to FINAid.org, college cost inflation is almost double the rate of inflation in general. It is difficult to save for a purchase that continues to be a moving target.

While the U.S. Government is guaranteeing student loans for more and more eligible Americans, this dynamic has had the somewhat unintended consequence of fueling the demand for college education. Today, Colleges and Universities are “marketing” themselves more effectively with campus amenities and advertising tactics that were never envisioned a generation ago. These things cost money and those costs get passed along in the form of increased tuition and fees.