COLLEGEINVEST
Look Before You Leap
The Problem: Many people are overpaying for education beyond high school and most households don't have the financial training needed to properly analyze a long term investment - like secondary education. The financial pain of overpaying can be felt by students and their families for decades.
What We Do: CollegeInvest has taken widely accepted investment principles and created a trusted tool for students - the Go/No Go Tool. A student brings 5 numbers to an on-line consultation session and the tool provides a look into the student's financial future based on education costs and career incomes. Our goal is to diminish the anxiety surrounding this decision and help people make sound choices about spending money on education beyond high school.
The Numbers
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$1.7T of student debt in 2021 vs $200B in 2003. Average owed per student is $34k, up 62% in 10 years.
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Graduate students hold half of all o/s student debt. Avg amount owed $69k.
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One year at a nonprofit private school currently costs $48k compared with $22k in 2000.
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Half of US schools in 2018 left the majority of their former students earning less than $28,000/year. This is less than what the avg high school graduate makes.
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23% of student loans are non-performing.
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$50B of student loans were funded in 2003. Since 2009, roughly $100B has been funded each year.
Go/No Go Tool
The tool helps you:
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Determine your tuition borrowing capacity
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Estimate how many years it takes to recover your education costs
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Validate your education costs by calculating the Net Present Value of your anticipated career income
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Look at the wealth building potential of your plan
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Identify a more efficient use of your available resources
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Assess the overall viability of your plan
College Investment
The pursuit of a degree involves an investment in a person. In exchange for tuition a university grants a student access to its facilities, staff and curriculum. In turn, the student looks to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for a desired career.
This investment is often characterized by a material financial outlay in the early periods - the education phase. The return on the investment is often times realized over an entire life span - the career phase. The amount of the outlay during the education phase is typically known. The income generation and living expenses realized during the career phase are anticipated and influenced by many factors, including: the graduate's personality, industry entry point, economic cycles, technology changes, consumer trends, global resources - to name a few.
The CollegeInvest Go/No Go Tool helps to reconcile the investment in the education phase with the income potential of the career phase. A consultation session with a staff member can help you bring balance to your secondary education investment.
