Falling for Learning Podcast

Cutting College Costs: Moves to Make Now | Episode 79

TD Flenaugh Season 2 Episode 79

Send us a text

Don't overpay for college! Buy The College Cost Cutter's resources now!

OrderThePlaybook.com
CollegeCostCutter.com
FinancialAidByDesign.com (FAFSA workshop on Jan. 12)

Connect with LaTonja Muhammad on Socials:
www.facebook.com/CollegeCostCutter
www.linkedin.com/company/college-cost-cutter/?viewAsMember=true
www.youtube.com/@CollegeCostCutter-k3r

LaTonja Muhammad is a guest on Falling for Learning Podcast episode 79. Muhammad is a certified college funding specialist, on the Falling for Learning Podcast to discuss strategies for paying for college. LaTonja emphasizes the importance of starting early, even in ninth grade, to plan for financial aid and student positioning. She explains the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) process, highlighting the Student Aid Index and strategies to lower reported income and assets. LaTonja's upcoming workshop on January 12, titled "Financial Aid by Design," aims to help families maximize financial aid eligibility. She also mentions her book, "The College Funding Playbook," and her comprehensive program to help students identify their best-fit colleges and secure financial aid.

Support the show

We drop new episodes every Saturday at 5 p.m. Pacific Time.
Follow us:
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/fallingforlearning/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/fallingforlearning/
https://linktr.ee/falling4learning

TD Flenaugh:

This episode of the Falling for Learning Podcast deals with the numbers, right? We have an expert here, the college cost cutter, to help you address how you're going to pay for college, right? Because we know the college costs are rising, and we want to know what to do to get started early, and we're all about helping get your children and your family the competitive advantage. Stay tuned like subscribe as we get into it. Hi. Thank you so much for joining the Falling for Learning Podcast. We have this podcast to help parents and caregivers with having the resources, strategies and tools needed to make sure that their children are on track for learning and to stay on track for success. Latanja Muhammad is a certified college funding specialist and education loan analyst. So Ms Muhammad holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Tuskegee University, and has worked in the aircraft and automated industry, excuse me, automotive industries for almost 30 years, while her career time was always allocated for community service, she has served on the boards of directors for the cast Tech alumni association and black United fund of Michigan, and leadership role. Ms Muhammad is a proud and thankful mother of two sons. Sultan is a graduate of Howard University and is currently working and living in New York. Tariq is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University. Throughout her son's young lives, she was a very active and involved parent, is this combination of dedication to her children's success and community service that led her into the college financial planning Arena in 2016 ultimately obtaining the necessary credentials to help other families navigate through the complicated and often misunderstood college admissions and financial aid processes. So everyone, please welcome latonja Muhammad. We're so glad to have you here today. How are you?

College Cost Cutter (LaTonja Muhammad):

Thank you. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me. I'm doing well. I'm doing well. I'm enjoying my holidays with family while also getting a little work done. But all is well. Thank you. How are you good? Awesome, doing great. You know, had some extra rest now because I'm on break and I'm not juggling all the things that I'm doing in court in in addition to my podcast and earning a living, obviously. So that's awesome. We really are so excited to talk to you so many of my parent friends and parents that and part of the community really want to know about how to get our kids, you know, their their college paid for how to make sure they're on the track. We you have two college graduates, so we are definitely wanting to hear from you. So obviously, your kid's success has something to do with you. And what was it that thing as a kid, or, you know, in your, you know, learning span that really helped you fall in love with learning? I really don't remember when I didn't love learning. I've always loved learning. As a little girl, I loved reading and learning new things, and I remember reading all the books in my kindergarten class. I remember we used to have these learning books called the Sullivan books, where they were almost like formatted, like standardized tests, where you would read and then answer questions. And I remember going through all of those, like several grade levels ahead. I went through all of the Sullivan books. I just love learning and and I love playing school. So I love learning. I love teaching. It's just in me. It's just been there. And, you know, I instilled that into my sons, you know, I was reading to them in the womb and when they were babies. And so they love to read. And, you know, so it's just, it's just a part of who I am that love for learning. So another thing that I really recognize is that your commitment to service, right, like you have all this, the service that you've done for the community, and like, where does that come from? And tell us more about that? Well, it's hard to say where it comes from, but it's just when I hear about someone or see someone, if, if, if the situation moves me, you know, if I recognize the need, I just want to help. And so a lot of the the projects. That I've been involved with. I just, I just really feel strongly about serving and helping. You know, in the capacity, whatever capacity I was in, or giving back, like the Cass Tech alumni association, you know my high school alumni, you know, I gained so much from that high school. I'm so grateful for having attended that high school. So for me, it made sense to give some some years back to help the current students at the high school. You know, organizations like the black United fund is an organization that at the time that I was involved on the board. We were a grant funding organization. They do a lot more programming now, but we were a grant funding organization, and I was over the the committee that reviewed the applications and made recommendations for funding. So it was rewarding to help new startup nonprofits get their footing and then see them grow and blossom and help help in the community. So I really felt like being a part of buff helped me to support multiple organizations because we did through funding. So it's just, you know, just it, just it just seems only right to me to give back and to and to support and assist those you know, who have a need so much to whom much is given, much is required. So I believe in that, and I tried to live that that's awesome.

TD Flenaugh:

So can you tell us now, getting into the college cast cutting, right? We've all heard of like the FAFSA will many parents who are in that getting their kids ready for college, or they've had multiple kids the you know, can you explain what the FAFSA is and how that plays into some of what you do? Okay, so the FAFSA is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, and it's so important to the to the process. A lot of parents and students, I think they just see it as, oh, this is this document that we have to fill out, and people dread filling out the FAFSA. And even though it's been simplified, this is the second year of the simplified format, people still find it intimidating and confusing, and people make a lot of mistakes and so but that is the form. When a family completes the FAFSA, the information that they provide will be used to calculate a number called the Student Aid index. That number is sent to every college that the student lists on the FAFSA. The colleges are going to use that number to determine how much financial aid, they will award that family. And so if families don't know how they can influence those inputs, if they don't know that there are strategies to help them to maximize their financial aid eligibility, they'll, you know, they'll, put those numbers in. There won't be any active or conscious planning involved. Instead, they will just live with the outcome. They'll just live with what the student aid index is. But families don't realize they can influence it. But it takes planning and it takes time. Hold on one second. So you're saying that there's something that they can do to change it, and you're here to give us that tea about some strategies that they could do so they don't just have the input there's okay get help us with

College Cost Cutter (LaTonja Muhammad):

Right, right? So I have a workshop coming up January 12, and I call it financial aid by design, because you can actually design your your financial aid package practically. And so some of the things that we'll cover is things that parents can do to lower their income reporting, lower their asset reporting. And you know, of course, everything is, is legal and ethical and all of that, but the information that parents put on the FAFSA is coming from their tax returns from the prior year. And so it takes, it's going to take planning, advanced planning, you can't you can't have the FAFSA in front of you and then say, Oh, let me plan how to complete it, because the tax year is done, the filing is done, and you weren't able to influence those inputs. But if you plan earlier, the. And definitely, there are things you can do to to minimize the income that you have to report, and minimize the assets that you have to report. And the the more broke you appear on paper, the more financial aid you'll be eligible for on the need based aid side. So let me just ask you. I know there's some people who, you know, they are low income, so there's no challenge there. They're already low income, but there's some people who are kind of in the middle. They're not very wealthy, but they're also pretty high income, owner income earners. So are you able to help them? Especially like those two parent households. You know, the mother and father both work, both college graduates, you're able to help those kind of families, definitely, definitely, though, those are the families that benefit most from the strategies, because they have income and assets. They've they have investments, they have properties, they have, you know, all these different things, savings and they have income and assets to reposition, to to re strategize. So, yeah, those families are, are, can definitely benefit from the from the the FAFSA workshop, yes.

TD Flenaugh:

Okay, so, all right, so you're gonna help them. So, okay, let's say so. I know some people who have ninth graders, is ninth grade too early. I know that a lot of schools in my area, they really focus in on the seniors, and they help them fill it out. They have a completion rate like, you know, out of our, you know, 50 out of our 500 seniors. You know, 40, you know, 450 have filled it out or whatever.

College Cost Cutter (LaTonja Muhammad):

So same here,

TD Flenaugh:

which age that they should be starting? All over the United States, 75% of children don't know how to write well. Add that to the fact that so many people out there are trying to silence the voices of those who have been oppressed and trying to prevent them from telling their story. Who's going to tell your story if your child doesn't know how to write? Well, I have two books to address this issue, the rewrite method and the rewrite method workbook pretend to make sure that parents know what to do, that educators know what to do to get their children to write better and just not write better, but love to write. Make sure that your next generation could tell their story and they won't be silenced. Go to falling for learning.com today to purchase your set. Because what you're saying is, so maybe 11th grade year or or wouldthat ninth grader, ninth grader's family benefit. What do you think?

College Cost Cutter (LaTonja Muhammad):

I think ninth grade is an excellent time, because our process is not just the what we call the financial positioning part. There's the student positioning part two. And what I see a lot of times is students may not start out on their best foot as freshmen. Let's say, you know, sometimes High School is a big adjustment. And your first semester as a freshman, oh, you got a 2.7 or a 2.9 and when you do the math to see, oh, my goodness, what do I need to do to get up to a 3.5 3.6 you've got to get 4.0 the rest of the time. And so you put yourself in this difficult deficit as a student. And when I meet with administrators, you know, I meet teachers and counselors, they say, Oh, can you come and talk to my fresh to my seniors? And I say, Well, of course I can come and talk to your seniors, but I'd rather talk to your freshmen and their parents on freshman orientation night. That is what will really be ideal, because we've got a whole process that starts from freshman year, that walks the student all the way through walking into the door at college. Now, most of the time we get families that are juniors and seniors, because people are not conditioned to think, to be involved in this process earlier. We're trying to we're trying to change the thinking for families to get started earlier. They'll say, they'll, they'll, they'll save so much more money if they do

TD Flenaugh:

LaTonja and like, I just want to highlight this, because that is just the way, right? Um, I'm here in California. You're in the Michigan area, and I think, like, nationwide, this is how it's done. You start your senior year. You know, even as saying 11th grade is not really something that's done either, right? It's 11th grade. I mean, it's 12th grade, and you're wanting to change all that. Like to turn that paradigm, you know, do a paradigm shift, and say, our ninth graders, the families at orientation, so we're just. Maybe ninth graders, not even the end of the year, really need to think about what they can be doing and position themselves in a way. So the kids need to position themselves what you're saying, as well as the families need to financially, think about what they can move around. And so this is really exciting. You're going to help a lot of families tell us, like, a little bit of the work that you've already done to support families already with your workshops.

College Cost Cutter (LaTonja Muhammad):

Okay, so, yeah, we've done, Wow, lots of workshops, and we've worked with with various organizations as well. So we've gone into organizations and done workshops. We've done them with individual families. I just finished my first program in one of the Detroit Public Schools. Just finished that program in October, and it was an accelerated version of our student positioning program. We did it for six weeks, and it's and it was for seniors. I'm, I'm going to be pushing to do this same program junior year, though, because senior year is so busy. Seniors have so much going on. Their parents have so much going on, and I think this program would be great starting like second semester of junior year, and when they walk into senior year, they already have their list of colleges. They already know exactly what they're going to, where they're going to apply. Um, so, but so, so we've done we've done it with groups, organizations, individual, families. You know, I've done FAFSA workshops for groups. Just did one in Lansing a month ago, and then a couple weeks or so ago, I did one for a group, a local group here in Detroit that serves, that serves young ladies and so, yeah, so we're, we're doing

TD Flenaugh:

so tell us a little bit about the program. Like, what does it like? How many sessions is it or because you're saying you want to do it second semester of 11th grade, which program are you referring to, and what's the structure of that?

College Cost Cutter (LaTonja Muhammad):

So the six week program that we just did for the seniors, that I would prefer to do for juniors. It begins with a very detailed career and personality assessment. Because what happens is, over a third of students get to college and they change their major. Why did they change their major? Well, they thought they wanted to do something, but they really want to do something else. Or they got to college and realize, oh, I don't like math, you know, being an engineering student, I saw a lot of students transfer out of engineering. They didn't know just how much they did not like math, or they didn't like physics, you know, or whatever, so, but in high school. And again, this goes back to why freshman year is a great time to start. When students start to get assessed in high school, they'll even change through high school. So if a student starts getting assessed as a freshman, and then there's another assessment, maybe junior year, they might come up with a totally different list of career of career interests. So nailing down the career interest, and there are other activities that go along with that, like Job shadowing and, you know, career exploration, but when they can narrow that down and then pick their major it's it's more likely that they'll stick with it, because there's been a little more research into it and a little more of finding themselves throughout the high school years, and so transfer, I mean changing your major, and transferring and things like that. All of those are things that delay graduation on time for college students.

TD Flenaugh:

All right, so I really want to pause, like, because you really sound like you have a comprehensive program, like, not just about the financial aid, but also getting them to and through college, right? And getting it paid for at the same time, right?

College Cost Cutter (LaTonja Muhammad):

Yes, and that's just the beginning of student positioning. And then, you know, the research, our proprietary system is so powerful. It's I read reviews online. It's like the most powerful system. It helps the students to match their best fit colleges. Best Fit meaning, okay, from my academic profile and from my family's financial profile, you know, based on academics, they can look at hundreds of colleges if they want right, or dozens. They can see side by side where they fit, what's their probability of admission. They can look at demographics and pick out all the things that are important to them. Sometimes students get to kind. College, and they're miserable. They don't like the city, they don't like the size of the college, they don't like the faculty, student ratio. There are so many, so many data points that we help the students to identify and use to narrow down their college choices so that they build a list of colleges that are all colleges that they would want to go to and where they can thrive. So the student positioning tool is very, very powerful. When we see families they come in. You know, people have the same few colleges, you know, largely based on name recognition. You know, where somebody else went, you know, even the football team, you know. And there are 1000s of colleges that we help students to explore, and sometimes they realize, oh, this college that I picked, I don't even have a high probability of getting in, or I don't have a high probability of getting money. This college doesn't even award students like me a lot of money. And so this process uncovers so many things and helps them to find those colleges where the money is for them, because the money is not in the same place for everybody.

TD Flenaugh:

Okay, so you're really bringing up some great Okay? points. And everybody, if you want to know more, right, you gotta, you know, click the link in the show notes so you could really get in contact with latanja Muhammad, so you could really get a hold of her proprietary system to help get your kids, not just to college, but through college, and get it paid for at the same time. Amazing, alright, so if so you know quickly, if they want to follow you on social media or kind of get to know you a little bit more, where can they find information on you?

College Cost Cutter (LaTonja Muhammad):

Okay, so our website is collegecostcutter.com, for anyone interested in the FAFSA workshop on January 12 is going to be at 10am Eastern Time, that website is financial aid by design.com, and I'll make sure I send you these to financialaidebydesign.com socials, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. You can just look up college cost cutter. You'll find us on all three of those.@Collegecostcutter - Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube, and if you just want to shoot me a message, ask a question. All right, that's so awesome. And then before we, like, finish everything up, I noticed that you told us about a mistake. Can you just tell us, like, one of the mistakes? Because you said sometimes parents make mistakes when they're filling out their FAFSA. And what is one of those common mistakes that you can tell us about? Of course, there's many mistakes, but what Admin@collegecostcutter.com. is like one main one you can tell us about? Okay, so a common mistake when the FAFSA asks for asset information, there's like a category where it's, you know, for your savings and checking balances, and you put those balances in there. And then there's another section where it asks about your investments and and, you know, things like that. For some reason, a lot of families, even though the directions say, do not report your primary residence as an asset, a lot of families will report the value of their primary residence and it counts against them. You know, you've got this home that's got$250,000 in equity in it, and you put it on the FAFSA, and you shouldn't even put it on there. Now, if you've got investment properties, they ask about those, and you put but so that's that's a common mistake. Do not put your primary residence, the value of your primary residence, on the FAFSA, because it counts against you.

TD Flenaugh:

Good grief. Okay, that is a big mistake people make, and that really, you have so much more in that student aid index. What is that? What it's called, The Student Aid Yes, Student Aid Index, pay now, right? Because you made this, put those,

College Cost Cutter (LaTonja Muhammad):

it's going to make your 68 index higher. Yes, you want it low. You want it low.

TD Flenaugh:

So that is such a gem that you just dropped. I know some people are probably like thinking back, like, I know I did that. I knew that I did that for my older kid or whatever. Right? So it. It's her workshop is, you know, coming up January 12, you know, it's going to maybe even cost you money if you don't go so you better, you know, get on it, right? Get on it. Get that competitive advantage. Okay, it will most likely cost money. Most families overpay for college. They just do. They really do well we thank you so much, LaTonja Muhammad, and bringing to our attention your service that you provide the College Cost Cutter program. So I know that you have your workshop, you have your financial... Is it a FAFSA workshop? You said right on January 12, it is. It's, it's the workshop, right? The FAFSA workshop. Then you have your six week program. What do you call that program? We called it the Best Fit Program. Okay, I'm thinking about changing the name, but that's really what it is. It helps the students identify their best fit, but we called it the best fit program at the school we did here. Okay, alright. And then you also, you also have a book, right on this?

College Cost Cutter (LaTonja Muhammad):

I do. I have a book. I have a book.

TD Flenaugh:

Alright?

College Cost Cutter (LaTonja Muhammad):

It's called the college funding playbook. College Funding playbook, seven proven methods for funding your child's education without breaking the

TD Flenaugh:

Excellent. All right, so lots of resources available. You know, get in contact with her, get those resources, that information, either through the book, the FAFSA workshop on January 12, or the six week program can be either brought to your school, maybe a local organization, and also, I know she's working out some things that she could do with homeschool collectives as well. All right. Well, again, thanks so much for joining us. Everyone. Make sure you do something today that your future adult children will thank you for! bank. New episodes go live every Saturday at 5pm. You can watch us on youtube.com/@fallingforlearning, or listen on all major podcast platforms such as Apple, Google, Audible, Spotify and much more. For more resources, visit fallinginlovewithlearning.com. We really appreciate you. Have a wonderful week.

People on this episode