College Planning for Middle School Families

Please note that this transcript was auto-generated. We apologize for any minor errors in spelling or grammar.

I'll just ask that you bear with me really briefly while I, I'm sure very clumsily, try to get this presentation up.

Okay. All right. So thank you for joining me tonight. This is MIFA's college planning for middle school families, and it'll run us about an hour tonight. And just so you know, you can enable the chat feed, not the chat feature, the live transcript feature, uh, to see My words as I'm speaking with them, if I know people like to, um, to have that transcript open while the presentation goes on and, uh, do that by clicking that button right there.

If you have a question, please use the Q& A feature and not the chat. It's just much easier for me to see the questions as they come in through the Q& A feature. And I would encourage you to actually Ask questions that you have, whether it's about something that I've said or a question that you have coming in, and I will answer those as I go.

If I don't answer the question, it's because I'm waiting, um, because later on we will be discussing that very topic and probably answering your question. So, um, there's a possibility that that might happen. Also, I'll be around later on to answer questions if you should have them afterwards. And when that email goes out with that recording and the slides for this presentation, you'll have my contact information as well.

And I would encourage you to reach out with any questions that you may have. Um, so can folks just let me know if you're able to see. My screen type that into the into the Q and A.

And as you can see, here I am looking slightly slightly younger in this picture here. And this is I'm the associate director of college planning and content creation at MIFA. And as it says, I've worked at MIFA for over 20 years. So I've helped a lot of families through this process. Typically, you know, we start to see questions from high school parents or parents with children in high school, usually the later years in high school.

But the longer that we've been speaking to these families, you know, the questions really start to arise Earlier than that and in the early high school years of the middle school years And that's what sort of gave birth to this presentation here tonight And so a little bit about me from before we get started And thank you for letting me know that you can see my screen.

I appreciate it. Um, MIFA is the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority. We were created by the Massachusetts state legislature back in 1982, and we have a public service mission. Helping families plan, save and pay for college. And we do that in a variety of ways. The first thing that we were created to do was to offer a loan.

And we still do that an educational loan that folks can borrow to go to college. Uh, however, of course, as the cost of college has continued to rise and rise, um, you know, that really wasn't sufficient to keep. Fulfilling our mission. So we added two savings programs. And we're going to talk about some of those tonight.

We're going to talk about both of them. In fact, the MIFA U plan, the prepaid tuition program, and we also offer the Massachusetts 529 plan, the U fund. So we'll talk about that. Um, that's how we help families to pay for college and save for college. But a lot of what we do in helping people to plan for college and career readiness is this sort of education that we're doing tonight, this outreach, this guidance on all topics related to, to, uh, college and career readiness.

So what I mean by all this is I want you to consider MIFA as a free resource for you to use, for you to consult. On any questions related to those topics, because we are a free resource, and that's what we're here to do. So, you have my, or will have my, contact information. I would encourage you to use it, or, you know, I'll, I'll put our information in at the end of the presentation as to where you can find us on social media and how you can reach us over email and phone and whatnot.

But as we get going tonight, just let me know if you have any questions as they go on, as we go on. So, tonight's agenda, what we're actually going to talk about tonight, First of all, academic planning for college. So this is all about college planning for middle school families. So how can you start to actually plan for college?

And the first thing that you probably will encounter is academic planning when your child gets to high school, really. And I think freshman year of high school is when families really start to kind of look down the road in a few short years. Their child is going to be applying to colleges, or they believe that their child is going to be applying, or their children are going to be applying to college.

Um, so, the first thing that you want to think about is the classes. that your child or children are going to take when they're in high school. So we'll talk about that. Looking ahead to college admissions and what that means is, you know, how you apply to college, what colleges are looking for, how you can search for colleges, how you can start to compile a college list, um, and what are the types of things that colleges do look for when they're admitting students.

Um, and then secondly, you know, the, the, The thing we're going to be talking about next is college as an important investment. Now, I know that you think college is important because you're here, uh, in this presentation tonight talking about college planning, but, um, I want to sort of circle that word investment because that's what we're going to be talking about.

An investment suggests that you put some investment into it and you get something out of it. And we're going to be talking about that. Now, it's important to know How much that investment is going to cost you up front. Right. And so there's a lot of Talk in the media and among families themselves. It's a huge topic for us how much college costs and so You might hear sort of big scary numbers You might have them in your head and you know, that might be reality for some families But how much is college actually going to cost for your family is something you probably won't No, until you're applying for financial aid applying colleges, but there are some ways that you can sort of get an idea how much you might be looking at for a year of college after you apply for financial aid.

So we'll definitely talk about that. Um, because that's really going to help us to determine how much you should maybe think about saving or how much you should be looking to finance. Um, when we talk about paying for college, you know, as a, as I said, I've been at me for over 20 years and I think the most common question that I've gotten over that time is how do people pay for college?

It's very simple and and parents and students want to know how This can be done. How do families do that? So we'll go over how families actually do pay for college and I want to close that sort of by talking about Savings because right now if you have a child in middle school You know, you still have a fair amount of time before they start applying to colleges and go to college So you have a lot of time to say save still and saving is probably if you can do it You know, the, the way that you can best prepare to handle college costs, um, and to give yourself some peace of mind throughout this process, we're going to talk about strategies for saving and talk about those specific programs for savings that MIFA offers the U plan and the U fund.

Although again, I want to stress that. I'm not here to sort of sell you on these particular programs. Any way that you can save is a good way to save. So any way that you actually do end up saving is better than not saving at all. However, there are some ways that go a little bit further, um, when used for college.

So these programs definitely fit that description where you're talking about those. And then finally, what you can do, you know, the minute after this presentation to, to prepare. So what can you do from now on to set yourself on a good path to going forward? Okay, so that's all the stuff we're going to talk about.

We're going to be talking about a lot, as you can tell. If I can move us along. Okay, so first of all, we're going to be talking about academic planning. And I mentioned this earlier, this is sort of planning out the courses that your student will take when they can start to choose their own courses, which for most kids really starts in high school.

And so, in Massachusetts, you may be aware, there is a curriculum that was approved by the State back in 2007 amended in 2018 called mass core. And it's essentially, um, all of the courses that a student needs to pass in order to graduate from high school. And so, um, they'll be working with their high school guidance counselors when they get to high school to make sure that they're choosing those courses and that they have all their requirements in place.

If you wanted to take a look at what the mass core guidelines are, you can look at them at DOE. Dot mass dot edu. But essentially it's four courses of math, four courses of English, three courses, and by courses, I mean years of history and science, and I believe two in, in a, a modern language. Um, You know, there are other sort of requirements, but generally that's what that is.

And closely related to that, you'll be able to check on that mass. edu site, um, admission standards for Massachusetts State Colleges. And, and they, they follow closely. So, um, you know, you have to have fulfilled your mass core guidelines in order to be admitted to a public college or university in Massachusetts.

And when I say that, I mean, colleges like, the University of Massachusetts system. So UMass Amherst, UMass Boston, Lowell, etc. And colleges like Fitchburg State University, Bridgewater State University, uh, the four year publics, um, are what I'm referring to. They, you have to pass your Mass Corps guidelines as well as your MCAS, um, to be admitted to those colleges.

Now, in addition to that, they're going to have their own Sort of, um, admission standards, right? So in order to be eligible to be admitted to one of these colleges, you need to have a 3. 0 GPA, although that is a sliding scale. So if you're under 3. 0, you can overcome that with high SAT or ACT scores. Um, so if you wanted to review those admission standards, you can do that at mass.

edu. Um, now. Also, when you're choosing courses in high school or when your student is choosing courses in high school, they're going to have some opportunities, right, not only to pick the subjects that they want to study, but also the level and the level of intensity and difficulty. So they can pick honors courses, uh, which of course, you know, is, is going to look good for, for admissions and college transcripts or high school transcripts to college as part of your college application.

But also there are There's sort of a rung above that as well. So there's AP courses. And many of you, I'm sure know what AP courses are. They're advanced placement courses and students can start to apply for those. Uh, I believe it's in their junior year and they can start to apply for AP courses. Um, and so the way those work are, it's an advanced course and it ends in with you taking an AP exam and depending, you know, if you score, I believe it's on a one through five scale, uh, for, for AP, if you score three, four or five on, on your AP.

test. Um, you can send that to colleges. Of course, AP looks good on college transcripts as well. And certain colleges might take that score on the AP test and, and take that and apply that score, whether it's a three or four or five to your college and use those as college credits. So that's a great thing to AP courses that you're taking.

Um, some colleges will do that. Some colleges won't do that, but AP always is. Something that is going to look really good on a college application. Uh, there's another track that is similar to AP, it's called IB, International Baccalaureate. And this is actually where AP is, is strictly for the United States.

IB is an international program, as it says, so it's global. It works a little bit different where AP courses, they're in specific subjects, and you take a subject test. IB is its own course and you don't take a test, but you're awarded an IB diploma. They can also be used for credits, college credits at certain colleges, but again, are not always up to the college to determine that.

But again, something that always looks impressive on, on college applications. And then finally, there's dual enrollment. And dual enrollment is when high school students actually take college courses at a college. Um, and so that is something that is offered sort of, I think, increasingly these days. And so, obviously, that has a huge benefit of exposing the student to college and, and sort of the rigors of a college class, and they can really see.

How they feel about number one, being a college student and studying the number two, studying the call the course that they're studying, but also is for college credit. So, um, those are some of the choices that students can make when they're going through their four years of high school. And again, they should be working closely with their high school counselor when they're a student to determine We're You know, which one of these may be options and which are appropriate and, and, you know, which is if the students sort of spreading themselves too thin or should be taking on more, they can, they can consult their high school counselors with those questions.

And it's a very important relationship that, that they're going to have with those counselors because they're going to really sort of work on. all of that as well as their letters of recommendation and applications to college and helping them compile college lists as well. Uh, also you can check out our academic success tips at MIFA.

org slash high school academics. There's that and a whole lot more over there, a lot of, um, article postings and tools and tips to help you out. And that's the case with, with a lot of the topics that we're going to be talking about here tonight. So that is academic planning. And again, that's really going to take shape when your student enters high school.

Um, just to give sort of zoom out and give you a broad view of what's going on in college admissions right now. What are the trends that we're seeing? In general, I think you can look at it as just more. This is more of everything with, with one exception, which we'll get to. Um, but students are applying to a greater number of schools.

You know, I remember when I was applying to, to colleges, you actually had to go out and fill out every single application and mail it out. Um, you know, and, and it costs money to apply to a college. Um, So you can imagine, you know, as it is now, where you can fill out something online called the Common Application and sort of use that online template to apply to various schools at once, it's a lot easier to do that now.

So students are applying to a greater number of schools. Schools are seeing a lot more applications come in. And so they really have to, um, do their best to admit. A class and may end up being more selective, but one of the things that comes from that is certain colleges use demonstrated interest as a factor.

So what does that mean? It means that colleges are going to be more likely. Some colleges are going to be more likely to admit a student that they can tell really wants to go to their college, you know, um, so a lot of colleges or some colleges track Conversations and contacts with prospective students.

So if a student arranges to visit campus and take a guided tour, if they email the website, if they follow on social media, um, you know, certain colleges will keep track of that and that may look. That may speak well to the student's chances of being admitted if they apply because the college wants to say yes to a student that it, they think has a good chance of attending that particular college.

So that may be an interest. So as your student starts to look at colleges in high school or even before high school, possibly, um, you know, it's not a bad idea to, to have them reach out formally and email and ask a question or take a tour. Um. And that's important just for their own sort of edification, but also to demonstrate that interest, um, schools have really increased social media presences now, and that's a lot.

That's a great way to keep in contact and to learn more about colleges. Um, I again would sort of stress the demonstrated interest there, although I did speak with somebody recently who said, you know, she thought that demonstrated interest for social media is a little bit overblown and that really this is for students to, to keep tabs and to, to find out more about colleges.

So that's certainly an option too. And that's, that's, you know, gone are the days when people would just sit in guidance counselor's office and open a big book. Like I did and just start looking for schools, always beginning with Hawaii, of course. Right. Um, you know, it's a much different process now also since the cost of college has gone up, uh, in recent years and, you know, sort of not just recent years, um, cost is a bigger factor.

For folks when they are applying to colleges and we'll we'll get to that a little bit later on. It should be a factor at a certain point throughout the the college application process, maybe not right at the beginning, because we're going to talk about financial aid a little bit later on. But cost is a factor where students are concerned.

And you know, a lot of students, a lot of families, um, you know, that does influence it. their decision to apply to a certain college if they think they can afford it or not. Um, there are more test optional schools. And so what this means, and this is the, the sort of, when I said everything is more except for one area, it's this one, although I think this could be changing back.

Um, some colleges, when they are admitting students, Look for a certain GPA and they look for a certain SAT or ACT score to be admitted. Well, a lot of colleges in recent years have gone to test optional, which means that, you know, you can send your SAT scores, your 80s, ACT scores, but they're not required for admission into a college.

Um, there have been some. Colleges that have recently gone back to requiring standardized tests. So I don't know if that's going to be more of a trend, but in general, these days, there are more colleges that are test optional, uh, than were before in years past. Um, that was exacerbated by the COVID 19 pandemic where folks, you know, had a hard time taking the test.

A lot of colleges had to go to test optional. Also, more ways to interact with colleges virtually. When students couldn't get to campus to take tours, they couldn't make visits. You know, colleges really stepped up their sort of digital, virtual, however you want to call it. Um, outreach to students and offering virtual tours and connecting folks with, uh, students or alumni.

So there's a, and that's something that, since the pandemic has receded and, and on campus tours have resumed, that's still an option, you know, that doesn't go away. So colleges have really Um, stepped up their virtual interactions with students, which is good news. Um, more applications that test optional schools resulting in more selectivity.

So yeah, uh, colleges who did go test optional are going to see more applications and also something to understand about that is that, um. If a college does go test optional, they're not looking at test scores in their admissions decisions. Uh, the weight of those test scores is going to have to be filled somewhere else.

So, often times that means there's even more weight on the GPA of the student. In terms of whether or not they're going to be admitted or not, and GPA was already sort of the most important factor on whether or not a student would be admitted to a college. And then unfortunately since we have more students applying to more colleges, and not necessarily more spots, longer wait lists, and more frequent wait lists, I mean more colleges are using wait lists instead of denying students, they'll be placed on a wait list.

And so that's something that we're seeing. I think the most recent. The statistic I've seen is somewhere around 40 something, 42 or so percent of, of colleges using waitlists. And so if you're on a waitlist, you know, that, that means you might get in, it means you might not get in. It also just means that you might stay on a waitlist and never hear one way or the other.

Um, so that's sort of its own topic, but, um, but that's something that's happened. more frequently lately. So those are the trends in college admissions. Now, when you're actually starting the process, the very first thing students are going to do is start researching colleges and see what colleges they may want to attend.

Again, Hawaii is big in this, in this area. I think, um, I know it was the first one, the first flight satellites, but, um, I'm going to go back to that because again, this is not the world that I grew up in where you had your gigantic phone book. Um, You know, size guides in guidance offices where you just sort of look through them.

No, there's a lot of course, uh, of information available now online. Um, you know, a lot of information. It can be overwhelming how much information that there is. And so, but there are a few sources that we wanted to, resources that we wanted to highlight in terms of where you can really begin to start taking a look at colleges.

There's a couple of federal sites. The first one is College Navigator. And that really is a clearinghouse of all sorts of data. Any kind of data that they measure, you can look up in College Navigator. So you can search for a particular college. You can search for an area of the country and sort of search for all the colleges around there.

You can search for types of colleges. And see, filter all the, you know, 2, 800 colleges or so in the country and see how they fit so you can look for admissions information like what percentage of applicants get admitted, look at male to female ratio, class size, um, types of college, you know, is it a religious college, is it a four year college, a four year public, a four year private, what degrees are offered there, etc.

There's all sorts of, anything that is measured. Will be found through College Navigator, which is great, but again, there's so much information there. So it can, it can be sort of overwhelming at times. This next one is, is uh, college Scorecard and that image that you see on the right there is from College Scorecard, and we're gonna actually zoom into that a little bit later on.

But what College Scorecard is designed to do is, is really take that investment aspect that we discussed, like college is an important VE investment is. this particular college a worthwhile investment for you as a family. So that's what it's supposed to help you decide financially. Does this make sense?

And so you can look at, um, average net price. So, you know, there's a sticker price to a college, which is what the tuition is listed as and what the room and board is listed as and whatnot. Um, but then that's, that's all before aid. We're going to talk about that a little bit later on, but. What does the average family actually pay for a year at this college?

That is the average net price. And a lot of times, especially at the more expensive private colleges, the average net price, I typically think of it as working out to about half of the sticker price at a lot of colleges, certainly not every colleges and certainly not for every family. Um, but you'll see the average net price.

The student debt, the graduation rate. So how well does a college do graduating their students? Um, and then also what the average salary is for alumni, 10 years out, 10 years out of enrollment. So about five years after graduation or so. So all of those things are supposed to be able to empower a family to take a look at this and say.

Yeah, that's, that's a, I like that. That's gonna, that's gonna result in a good outcome, or that is, um, um, and, and, and go from there. Also, Big Future is a site that's run by the College Board. The College Board is the company that does the SAT and the AP courses. So they're, they're big in this space. Um, and MIFA Pathways, our site, and actually, You may be familiar with it.

You may not. Um, this is a college and career portal. Uh, it's free for everyone to use. We'll talk about, well, you'll see a slide on it in a minute, but, um, it's for students beginning in middle school and in middle school, you know, they can, they can start doing fun things, but they can, it can get more sort of, um, Utilitarian a little bit later on they can use more things from it and when they get to high school So there are a lot of tools to be able to research begin your research and keep track of your searches and save your colleges That you're interested in that you can go and sort of look through and again your high school counselor.

I think should be, uh, an important point of contact and resource for that process as well. Now, when you're looking at colleges, how can you determine whether or not this one might be right for you? And so there's a lot of different ways you can determine that. And the first one that occurs to most students and most families is institution size and location.

Again, Think of Hawaii. That was the first thing I thought. Where can I go that's beautiful and sunny all the time for college? That's nice, right? And it doesn't happen. I ended up staying in Boston, but um, but people look for location and not just why but like You know didn't want to be in a city. They want to be Suburbans they want to be close to home In size size.

It's a big one. So and some of you might know even that you have Kids in middle school let you know, maybe my son or daughter is not gonna like a gigantic school They might prefer a smaller school They might prefer to stay close to home or they maybe they want to go out and and you know Have all sorts of adventures out there.

So that is Probably the first metric that people sort of know or have an idea. Yeah, this is for me, or this isn't for me. Like I remember when I visited my brother in Syracuse, Syracuse university, and I. I, um, I went out to visit him. I wasn't in college yet. And I thought, Ooh, I don't, I don't know if this is for me.

I think I like a more of a city and more of a sort of urban vibe. So I stayed in Boston, uh, because I know I wanted things other than, other than the college. And this is where college visits really do pay dividends. You'd be amazed how often colleges, uh, students have a certain college in mind that they, they're convinced they want to go to, they step on campus, and they know it's not right for them.

So, institution size and location. Academic fit is, is a huge one. So, can a student academically succeed at this school? Do they have the GPA to be admitted, the test scores to be admitted, and are they able to handle the workload? Um, and especially if it's within their intended major, right? So, if a student is lucky enough to sort of have a demonstrated interest in what they want to do, and they know what they want to study.

Is this a good college for that? Do they have programs? Do they have resources? Do they have internships, um, or, or career services that can, that can sort of go into that field, that they can parlay to, to entering the field that they want to go to? Learning style is a big one. Is the student comfortable in a class, a lecture hall with 500 other students?

Or do they want smaller class sizes? Do they like those colleges where you don't even grade yourself, you just do your directed study? Um, are there study abroad opportunities? What's the campus culture like? Is it a sports school? Is it an art school? Um, again, campus visit is a great way to determine what the culture on campus is like.

Just walk on colleges. are public. You can walk onto the campus. I can't attend a class necessarily, but you can just sort of walk on and get a feel for, for how things are and then what activities are, are offered as well. Do they have things that you're interested in? And sometimes that's, that's, uh, uh, the sort of thing that, that makes the difference for students.

And finally, of course, um, affordability, though I wouldn't put affordability, um, I would always consider affordability, but just know I wouldn't take any school with a high sticker price off your list to begin with. Uh, because again, there's financial aid and, and you know, you don't really know what you're going to get until you apply for financial aid and apply to the college.

So, um, but those are the important factors that you can use to determine whether or not you may want to apply to a particular college or not, whether or not a college may be a fit for your student. Now, I said we were going to talk about MIFA Pathway in a slide or two, and here it is. It is our, again, free college and career planning tool.

for students in grades 6 through 12. So, starting in middle school, grade 6, You can start taking tests and quizzes, fun things, not, not, nothing stressful, like, to test your, your interests, or your abilities, or how you learn, or what you might be interested in, and sort of just use that to, to start thinking, and you can use this as a student, you can use this as a parent, you can use it as a school counselor, it's for use in some school systems, uh, but you as a, as a parent, as a student, whoever, can just go in for free and create an account and just, You know, kind of mess around on it and see if there's anything that interests you.

As students go into high school, they can start keeping track of their courses, they can keep, uh, they can keep track of their letters of recommendation from. Um, they're, they're teachers for college applications. They can do college searches and save their searches. They can do so many things on MIFA pathway.

Um, you know, you can research career options that have nothing to do with college, or you can, um, you know. Compare prices through different programs, uh, at public colleges versus private colleges and whatnot. Um, you can actually, when the time comes to apply for college, you can use your Common App through MIPA Pathway.

Uh, so there's a lot of different things you can do. Oh, and also create your resume. That's something that's really handy and really useful for students to be able to do. Um, now that is some of the things. Once again, those are some of the things. That you can do through MIFA Pathway. I recommend that if you're interested in anything that I just said about MIFA Pathway, that you go to mifapathway.

org. And create an account. Again, it's free. It shouldn't take long at all to do. And you can just go and search and look at all the tools that are available. To begin your either college search or, again, just to have fun and to see, you know, what a student may be interested in and what they may want to study or do.

Now, we're talking about education as an important investment, right? We're going to talk about costs in a minute, but right now we're going to talk about the benefits of education and specifically the monetary benefits of college degrees. So, um, you know, this is, I'm going to be careful when I talk about this, uh, because I don't want to give you the impression that there's.

No way to make money without a college degree because there are, uh, there are plenty of lucrative careers that do not require college degrees. But this is from a publication called trends in higher education that's put out by the college board, that organization that does the AP and the SAT exams. And so every so often they, every three years, in fact, they, they put out this.

publication called Education Pays, looking at the value of college education. So, um, starting from the bottom here, these are median earnings of, uh, tax payments of full time year round workers age 25 or older by education level. And this is from the year, uh, 2021. This is the most recent year that we have.

Um, from this study. And so you can see down the bottom here, people who earn less, have less than a high school diploma, the national average here is 35, 800, 7, 000 in taxes. High school diploma, that goes up to 44, 300. The next one, some college but no degree. So if you started college and you didn't actually earn the degree, but you do have some college, even that, sort of, Benefits in my results in a, uh, a salary bump up to 50, 900.

Again, these are averages. So every situation is different. And in this particular one, I want to make a caveat here with some college and no degree. You may see some earnings increase, but depending on how you pay for those college courses, you know, it could also have a cost associated with that, especially if you borrowed loans and you're paying those back.

Um, so it's important if. You know, you are starting college, the best thing that you can do is to, to graduate, um, as soon as you can. Associate's degree, that's a two year degree. That's, um, something that is offered at community colleges. Uh, that results in a slightly higher salary as well at 52, 100. So just looking at the difference between a high school diploma and going on to that two year, uh, degree change, there's a, there's a fairly substantial increase there, uh, in averages of earnings.

And then of course the big one, when you get to bachelor's degree, that goes up to 73, 000. Master's degree, 87, 000. Doctoral and professional degrees, your doctors, your lawyers, that, uh, the average earnings there are 120, respectively. So again, these are all averages, but I think this is why most people Believe that college is worth it.

You probably heard the, you may have heard the phrase, the college, uh, was that the college dividend or, you know, basically that people who have college degrees earn more throughout their life on the order of something close to a million dollars throughout their life. Um, So that is a statistic that has been bandied about for quite a while.

There's open question about, you know, how well that's, that's surviving. I think it's, it's not necessarily, um, you know, it, it matters how you achieve that college degree. Let's save that. Um, But also, you know, it doesn't take into account that you have to go to a four year public college or an expensive college to do it.

This is just college level, you know, it could be public colleges, um, any type. So that's why most people believe that college is an important investment, right? So great. I remember hearing a counselor say, remember guys, the more you learn, the more you earn. So again, every case is different, but this is the average.

The flip side of that, of course, is the cost, right? And so this is from the same company, the college board, and this is from that same publication, Trends in College Pricing. Oh no, it's a different publication. I'm sorry. Trends in College Pricing. And this is again, a national average of the cost Of colleges.

Um, and so the first thing that I want you to take a look at and notice is that there are four different types of colleges here, and they all have really different costs associated. So again, let's start from the bottom, because when we hear about college costing 60 70 80, 000 a year. Um, you know, these are the colleges that they're talking about, and this is the private, non profit, four year colleges.

So, private colleges, meaning, you know, if you're in Massachusetts, as I am, and I'm assuming many of you are, these are not public colleges, they're private colleges, you know, Harvard, um, Boston College, Boston University, Emerson College, Emanuel College, Simmons College, these are all examples, not public colleges, private colleges.

And so, these are national averages. for the year 2023. Um, I'm sorry, 2024. And so private nonprofit for a year, you can see the average national, the national average, I'm sorry, cost for a year is 60, 420. Now, if you're in Massachusetts, like I am, or the New England area, the Northeast, You're probably looking at an average that's, mm, higher than that.

Uh, but when you, people think about those big numbers, these are the types of colleges that they're thinking about. And you can see here, all the different things that are, are a part of this overall cost. You got tuition and fees here, 41, 540. Housing and food, so if you're living on campus, you have a meal plan.

That's that next biggest number here, 14, 650, average. Books and supplies 1, 250. Books are expensive. Uh, transportation to and from school. Throughout the year one thousand one hundred and then other expenses living expenses throughout the year eighteen eighty for a total of sixty thousand four twenty So again, these are national averages and this is everything included.

So, you know, you may Or may not be living on campus, in which case you may or may not be paying for housing and food. Uh, so these things are a little elastic, but generally these are the, the averages. Now, if you go to a public versus the private college, so a public college tends to cost less, especially if you go to a public college in the state that you live in.

And for that reason, we're going to skip over this next one and go to the second one from the top. So again, if you live in Massachusetts and you go to UMass Amherst or UMass Boston or Fitchburg State or, you know, a public college, um, as an in state resident, you get a discount on tuition. So, average, for the nation, an in state student pays 28, 840.

For a year. This is for a year of college at a public college or university in the state that they live in. Not that that's peanuts, but it's a big difference between 60, 000, right? 60, 000. And again, I think I can say that in, in Massachusetts, I have the feeling that we are closer to this national average.

I don't say we're at it, but I think we're a little bit closer than we are with the, with the privates. Now, if you go to a public college or university outside of the state that you live in, you tend to lose that discount. Um, so we're going to drop down here to the, to the third one from the top. And you can see the difference though, is somewhere in the middle here.

So if you're a Massachusetts president, you go to University of Vermont or, uh, University of Rhode Island or UCLA, whatever it is, um, you know, your average cost would be around 46, 730. And then of course, the, uh, oftentimes least expensive, options being the public two year colleges, the community colleges, uh, where you can get your, earn your two year degree, your associate's degree.

Um, now you see here 19, 860. That's for everything related. I will say that I saw that and I said, well, that sounds very high to me for, for, um, what I know of community colleges. And that's because every call, every community college in Massachusetts is a commuter college. They don't have Um, housing and food available.

So you can just lop that 10, 000 and so right off the cost. And it's about 000. And that's, that seems to be more accurate to me, at least locally in Massachusetts to, to the cost of a two year public college. So what I want to tell stress here is that there are different types of colleges, different costs associated, and also really important point, which we'll return to.

This is all before financial aid, right? So these are sticker price college, this is all a sticker price. And the fact is that almost every family is going to be, it's going to qualify for some level of financial aid. So it becomes important to sort of know what you maybe asked to pay. For a particular college, and there are ways that you can estimate that you won't know for sure until you apply to that college.

You apply for financial aid, you get your decision and you get your financial aid offer, but, um, there are some ways that we can estimate. So important to you. Maybe a number called the student aid index and you can take your student aid in to get your student aid index from a calculator on mifa dot org.

What the student aid index is is when you're filling out your financial aid forms. Whether it's through the federal form or a college's form, they're going to ask you to put financial information in income assets of the parent, income assets of the student, uh, family size, you know, all this sort of information, and they're going to come out with a number that they feel was that the formula calculates that you have the ability to pay for a year of college.

And then anything that's not covered by that, you're eligible to receive financial aid for that. Now that you're going to necessarily receive all of that aid, but you're eligible for it. So your student aid index, while it's not a perfect predictor of what you'll pay is, is important. Now to figure out what that is, it does not take long at all.

It takes a minute or two, seriously. And so that's something that you can all do and should all do now, MIFA. org. If you want to take it a little bit further and see at a particular college what you might actually get for financial aid and what your resulting bill would be, every college is required to have a net price calculator on their site and that should be more specific to their college.

You may be able to get a pretty good idea at a particular college what you may Uh end up paying and also college navigator college scorecard has some of those options as well Mifa has a college cost projector on our site as well. If you've got, you know students in middle school age like you do Um for far out what tuition may increase to be by the time your student goes there But remember this is not including aid.

So so don't don't freak out too much I want to take it back for a minute to college scorecard. Um We can see here again once you have that number or know what a particular college may cost you, um, you can see here, Boston College for example, 9, 797 undergraduate students, it's a four year college, it's a private non profit, whoops, private non profit college, it is in a city, it's a medium sized college.

They do very well with graduating their students, their, for their freshman year class, they graduate 92 percent of their students. The average annual cost Uh, is about 38, 418. Now I can tell you that the sticker price is much higher than that. I don't know what it is off the top of my head, but I would guess it's almost, if not twice that.

Now the median earnings of students, 96, 325. So that's what students are earning 10 years after enrolling. Again, these are all averages. Um, but it's just something to give you an idea. This is an example of the net price calculator. That thing that we were just talking about where it should estimate your financial aid offer.

Uh, for UMass Boston, so a much different type of school than, than Boston College. So, it works, uh, in this way. You would put in your income, your assets, uh, the student's income, the student's assets. And they would start to total your costs. And then, well, they would start to total your costs at the beginning, and then as you put this information in, they would start to itemize your financial aid offer, and then subtract that offer from the costs and leave you with a balance.

So, here we can see direct costs, tuition, and fees. Ooh, can I read that? Let's zoom in a bit. 15, 172. Room and board, or food and housing as it's called now, taken all together 33, 680. The student is eligible for a total grants and scholarship package of 11, 000. Your costs after grants and scholarships 22, 680.

Now there's some other items of aid here that they didn't list that you can still take like your direct loans, federal direct loans, which for freshmen, freshmen are eligible to get 5, 500. If the student takes that, that's deducted from their bill. Their remaining cost is 17, 800, and there are some additional resources.

So a student may be eligible for work study, which is money that they can, a student can earn by working a job on campus. And they may be eligible based on what they put in to earn up to 3, 500 throughout the year. Um, and then the parent plus loan is a loan that the parents can get to cover the remaining balance.

But generally speaking, yeah, you're looking at about 17, 180 in this example from UMass Boston per year. And now I think I have a question. Ah, yes. All of this information will be sent to you tomorrow or Friday. Uh, the recording as well as the decks. So thank you for that. So every college is required to have one of these on their site.

So you can go to any college Take two minutes and do a net price calculator. See how much college may cost. It's all an estimate So it's not written in stone and some colleges have done I've been a little bit more precise maybe or or put a few more bells and whistles on their net price calculators than others Um, you know if a college does a lot of merit based aid that is scholarships based on gpa or test scores or something They may ask for a student's gpa Some colleges won't because they don't do that.

So it really depends. Um But I think in general, you know, I was around when these came out and I thought, well, that's a good, that's a good idea. I can't wait to hear all these, uh, stories from people saying my net price calculator said it was going to be 10, 000 and it's 30, 000. And, you know, to be honest, I have not really heard that.

Um, and I'll, I'll tell you in my own life, I used one of these, um, for when my wife went back to school, we used the net price calculator. And it ended up being very accurate, um, to what we ended up paying. So in general, you know, I can't speak for every example or every person, but in general, I think they're a really good tool to use.

Wanted to highlight this option here. This is, um, the mass transfer and the tuition break option. So basically there are programs that were developed at the state or regional level to help families, students earn their four year degree through the public college route. With little to no debt, you know, this is important on a civic basis.

So these are things that that have been developed at the state level. And so the way that mass transfer works is students can apply to a two year public community college, again, almost always the least expensive options, earn their two year associate's degree and then transfer in to a four year college, have all of those credits to transfer over to the four year program.

And then only have two years at the higher, you know, cost to, to accumulate those costs and, and, and get that degree. Now there, there are levels to this program. So, um, you know, maintaining certain GPA is kicking, uh, other triggers. So it may be that, uh, with a higher GPA, you can be guaranteed admission, admission, you can be.

Um, admitted without, uh, an essay, you can be eligible for a tuition freeze and actually even a tuition rebate. If you maintain that GPA, you can be rebated 15 percent of your tuition as you go. Um, this is something that you should look into. I can't give you all the details. Now there's not enough time, but it's a great, great program to learn more about it.

You can go to mass. edu slash mass transfer. Tuition break is a new England regional program. Um, that basically you, you don't have to do anything for it. If you fit the bill, you just kind of get it. And essentially what it is is if you want to study. And, um, if you want to study a certain course, and you want to study in a public college or university in your state, in New England, so let's say, you know, you're a Massachusetts student, you want to go to a public college in Massachusetts, uh, to study astronomy, but let's say they don't offer astronomy at a public college or university, I have no idea if they do or if they don't, by the way, but just using this as a totally hypothetical example, um, So you can't study that at a public college because it's not offered here.

But let's say it is offered at the University of Vermont. Well then you could attend University of Vermont and pay a reduced rate. Through the tuition break program. This is for public colleges and universities in New England, um, and I believe that program is expanding, so you can go to nebhe. org slash tuition break.

So it stands for New England Board of Higher Education, NEBHE. They're the agency that oversees this program, and it's a fantastic program. Um, And again, you don't really even have to apply for it or do anything. If you qualify for it, you're just going to get that reduced rate. But it's something to be aware of when you're compiling your, your college list.

Okay, now financial aid. Financial aid really is important. Very, very important when you're applying to colleges and when you're considering paying for college because, um, it's why you shouldn't take sticker price into account right away in the college process. You shouldn't look at a college and go, Oh, it costs 40, 000.

I don't have 40, 000. I'm not gonna apply. Um, the fact is, is that most families, as I said, are going to be eligible for some level of financial aid. And financial aid comes in three main varieties. Grants and scholarships. Gift aid, the best kind of financial aid, does not have to be repaid, okay? It's granted, it's gifted, it comes off the bill, it's not a loan.

Work study, which we discussed briefly, but it's a job that, it's basically an award, an amount of money awarded by a school to a student, and the student can earn that amount of money by working a job on campus throughout the year. Typically, you know, they get paid in a paycheck, just like any other job.

And they can use that to pay tuition, or they can use that to pay living expenses for themselves, whatever the case may be. And then finally, student loans. And when I say student loans, I don't mean MEFA loans, I don't mean bank loans, I don't mean any kind of loan necessarily that you can get to pay for college.

I'm talking about one specific program called the Federal Direct Student Loan Program. Virtually every student who files a FAFSA, if they're eligible, you know, will be eligible for these loans. You need to be U. S. citizens, um, you know, in making satisfactory academic progress. Other than that, there's no credit check to be approved.

These are really the only loans that students can get in their own name without a co applicant to apply for them. Um, there are loan limits associated with them. So students can only borrow a certain amount. That's why we saw in our net price calculator. that the student was awarded 5, 500. That's the loan limit for how much freshmen can get.

It goes up to 6, 500 for sophomores and then 7, 500 for juniors and seniors. And the reason that this loan is considered financial aid when others are not is because number one, there is no credit check to be approved. And number two, there are a lot of benefits associated with these loans, easier repayment, more flexible repayment, loan forgiveness.

Forbearance, deferments, that just aren't available with other types of private loans. In fact, it's the one thing that we say at MIFA, if you're going to be borrowing anything at all, to get through four years of college, that you should start by taking these student loans first, before moving on to private loans, because they really are the best options for students.

To give you an idea of how much financial aid is granted every year, That's the most recent number that we have. 177 billion dollars. It's a lot of money. And so I like to point that out. A lot of people get the idea, not necessarily incorrectly, that, that colleges cost a lot of money. Uh, but what they're not aware of again is how much financial aid is granted in a year.

So there's a lot. Uh, and it's awarded on two bases. First, Merit based, so that's things like your academic scholarships, athletic scholarships. These are not awarded based on your finances, but based on recognition of student achievement. Right, so some colleges give out a lot of merit based scholarships, some colleges don't give out any.

All of their award is based on need, um, so it really depends from college to college and colleges will have different practices based on the capabilities or just their policies. Some, some colleges that have a lot of money don't do merit based aid, uh, so it just really depends. And then, you know, you can, you may be able to renew these scholarships from year to year.

You may not. Most financial aid granted in a year is need based and not merit based, so mostly when we're talking about financial aid, it is going to be based on the family's financial need, determined by those financial aid applications that they file. Now, even though, um, it's not based on academics or student achievement, students do have to be making satisfactory academic progress through their program in order to continue to qualify for need based aid.

And so, you know, most aid, like everything that the federal government does is need based. They don't do any merit based aid. Most of the things, at least in the state of Massachusetts, that the state does is need based as well, though they do have some, some merit based programs. And, and, you know, colleges also have their own institutional grant programs as well.

So those are the two basis is there. So how families actually pay for college after financial aid, there's only three ways past income, present income, and future income. Past income meaning savings. Present income meaning their salary that they're earning while the student is in college. Um, you know, most families cannot, of course, pay for the entire thing that way.

But it is worth it to pay what you can out of pocket. Most colleges do have payment plans that you can get on. And if you can pay a few hundred dollars a month, Every dollar of that goes against tuition. So that can lower the amount that you have to borrow because everything, anything left after that point is going to be borrowing, right?

Future income. Um, and so this is where a lot of parents, grandparents take on debt because students already have their student loans that they're eligible for that they got with no credit check. Anything after those programs is going to be based on credit. Or, or credit and income. And most students just don't have the capability to be approved for those things without a co applicant.

Um, so, just know that. A lot of people are, are surprised when they get to that point because of the way we talk about students racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. And they can't pay, you know, a lot of the focus is on the students. Um, so people are surprised that students can't just borrow whatever amount they might need.

And just pay it back later. They can really only use those federal programs in most cases to do that. And again, they have loan limits associated with them. So any MEFA loans, any Citizens Bank loans, any other types of loans that you may get to pay for college, are going to be based on credit. Just a quick slide here about the benefits of saving versus borrowing.

So the idea being, If you have a 10, 000 bill or a goal to finance, if you borrowed that full amount, you know, over it was a 7 percent rate of interest, which is. You know, pretty, pretty, um, representative these days over 10 years, you're going to pay back 3, 920 in interest. So that'd cost you a 30, 13, 920, almost 14, 000, but the same rate of interest over 10 years to save 10, 000.

You know, you'd have to save basically 6, 960 to earn 3, 000 of interest to come up with that. So again, you're putting away, your total cost to you is almost twice borrowing in this example than it is saving. And so, you know, this, this was supplied to us by Fidelity and they feel that 7 percent over 10, 10 years is, uh, plausible or likely.

So it's a real cost. It's better to save and earn interest than it is to borrow it and pay it. And so when we come to savings. People get worried about savings because they think if they have saved, it's going to hurt their financial aid that a college is going to see, well, I was going to give you this 10, 000 in grants here, but I see you saved 10, 000.

So, uh, we're not going to do that. And it doesn't really work out that way. Truly. I mean, you know, we talked about merit based. Uh, aid that certainly doesn't impact your savings. Doesn't impact that at all, right? It's got nothing to do with your finances. And when it comes to need based aid is most financial aid is need based.

Um, you know, they might ask you to list your savings for your child, but parent savings are not taken into very heavy account, at least in the federal formula and mostly in the institutional formulas as well. The main determinant, the biggest factor when they're looking at how much you can afford to pay for college is typically parent income, not parent assets.

So I don't want to get too in the weeds here, but for a parent asset, if you have a 529 account, for example, for your, for your child, they're going to take the balance of that and look at about 5. 6 percent of that. And that's that 5. 6 percent of whatever you saved is going to, that's how much it's going to increase your, your student aid index by, um, whereas income can be anywhere from zero to 47 percent of your discretionary income, depending on how much you earn.

So parent income is the main determinant there. And then the other one is it's not worth saving for college if I can't save the entire cost. Now, the fact is that. If I'm looking at a four year private college for my son, I can't save that, that entire cost. It's probably more than I make. Um, but, I know I'm not going to have to pay that full amount.

There's financial aid that's going to take care of some of that. Um, what's left? If I have some savings to take care of it, great. If I have some savings to reduce the borrowing or eliminate the borrowing altogether, great too. Um, so I can tell you that I've worked with savings programs, our savings programs, for 15 or so years.

And I, it sounds like a line, but it's absolutely true. I've never heard of a parent. Saying I wish I didn't save this money. They're always glad that they saved what they have saved. So your college savings will help you Gives you more education options again to me. The biggest thing is reduce or eliminate that need to borrow loans.

And it does motivate your child. We know that, uh, from studies that if a child knows that money is set aside for him or her for college specifically, they're much more likely to attend college and to graduate regardless on the amount that's saved. So it really does, does motivate your child. Um, so looking at this, I got a couple of case studies here to look at.

And essentially Kyle wants to attend a four year public school to study business. The full annual cost is 22, 500. Uh, if his adjusted, I'm sorry, he has an eligibility of, uh, Actually, did we know his eligibility here? Uh, it doesn't, doesn't actually matter. So, his financial aid offer, he's got 13, 000 for grants and scholarships, 2, 000 for federal work study, and 5, 500 in his federal loans.

His total aid is 20, 500. So, a four year public, his out of pocket cost is 2, 000. Which is fantastic. Contrast that with Lisa, um, Lisa here wants to attend a four year private college to study nursing. The full annual cost of the college is 60, 000. She is not eligible. Her expected family contribution, that's the old SAI number, okay?

That is, they're expected to pay, based on their income and their assets, 47, 000. Um, yeah, 47, 199. So her eligibility for aid is that 60, 000 minus that 47, 000. So she's only eligible for about 13, 000 in need based financial aid. So she doesn't really have any. Um, but she does have a merit scholarship.

Because that's not based on need, it's based on student achievement, so she's got this merit scholarship of 20, 000, she's got a nursing award, another merit scholarship it looks like of 2, 000, and her federal student loan again, of course, at 5, 500. So she's got a 27, 500 package. Actually more than Kyle's, right, 7, 000 more than Kyle's.

But her cost is going to be so much greater. So her family will need to pay 32, 500 out of pocket. Again, each year for college. So, just go through what savings may offer each family here. For, for Kyle, who's got 2, 000, very little savings is going to go a long way. But for Lisa again, uh, who has parents have a much higher expected contribution because they have a much higher income, supposedly, um, it's just as important, if not more important to save, right?

Because they're gonna have a much higher out of pocket cost based on the eligibility. So going the saving. We know that, uh, certain things work for families. Uh, start saving as early as possible. And I know you have a good amount of time to save here. The, your children are still in middle school. Uh, take advantage of unexpected funds, use automatic transfers.

We know that families have a lot of success when it just automatically comes out of their checking account. This is a page here from, uh, the MIFA U Fund, and that really illustrates the next point, which is get the word out to family and. Uh, they can gift money into your U fund account into your 529 account.

Possibly this, uh, image here is from, uh, the, the U fund page where you can set up a gifting page with the picture of your child, the date that they're entering college, and you can email this link out to family and friends. For birthdays milestones, and they can gift money directly into that account. So it's a great gift when, especially when you have babies and then they don't know they're not getting a tangible gift or a toy, um, when kids get older, it's a good gift.

And in between, I think it's a good gift for parents, right? I, I used to have an aunt who would give me 25 every time I saw her from my son's youth fund account. And she'd take a picture of it with your phone and you could deposit it in that way. So, you know. It's not something that you have to do on your own.

And then finally, involving your child in the process. Just telling them that that money is there is going to have an impact on their, uh, attendance and their graduation for college. And kids get sort of energized seeing if they got a few thousand dollars saved for college. They get really excited about that.

So our savings programs that, um, that we can highlight here are the MIFA U plan. The U Plan is a prepaid tuition program, and so, uh, it takes a bit of explaining, but it's a fantastic program. Basically, you put in a certain amount of money, and depending on the amount of money that you put in, that is going to pay a percentage of this year's tuition at every participating college in Massachusetts.

And when the child goes to college, you're going to have whatever percentage of tuition you bought the year that he goes. So, that's essentially how it works. A bit more complicated than that, but that's the idea. So let's say that you put in 1, 000 this year. And he said, okay, this is going to be for my child's freshman year.

This freshman year is eight years from now. Okay. That's going to buy 10 percent of tuition at a college that costs 10, 000 this year. If by the time that child goes to that college, it's not 20, 000 in his freshman year, then you've got 10 percent of 20, 000 or 2000. So your, your investment is keeping pace with the increase in tuition and participating colleges.

All the participating colleges are about 75 or about 70 of them. I think, uh, over 70 at least. Um, they're all in Massachusetts, their public and private colleges. The big question, of course, what if a child doesn't go to one of those participating colleges? Well, you can transfer those funds over to another student, or you can cash out and get what you put in plus the interest.

The money is invested in general obligation bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the commonwealth, so they're not invested in the market. Um, it's, it's a, it's a great program. We used to administer the accounts directly at MEFA, so I have a lot of first hand experience with the E Plan. The U Fund, uh, works different.

It's the Massachusetts 529 plan. And the way that works is you put money in, it's invested in the market by Fidelity Investments, it grows with the market with no taxes. And when you take the money out, as long as you use it for a qualified educational expense, you don't pay taxes on the earnings. So it's a tax advantaged, uh, college investment vehicle.

And so what are eligible expenses are things like tuition fees, uh, food and housing. Um, book supplies, equipment, any accredited college in the country, or, you know, outside of the country if they take U. S. federal funds, um, can be used for vocational training programs as well, as long as the institution itself is set up to take U.

S. federal funds. Very flexible, um, both great programs. And both carry a tax deduction for Massachusetts, so you can deduct up to 2, 000 from married filers on your, of your contributions on your state income taxes, or 1, 000 for individual filers. This is the list of the participating UPLAN colleges and universities.

You can see there's quite a few of them here, and they're a mix of public and private colleges. I know we're running really short on time, and I apologize for that. Um, one final thing before I go, um, we used to get all these questions about how much do I have to save every month. In order to, to have college pay for it.

A lot of times, parents of newborns, or really young children, they've just had the baby and they're like, How much do I need to save every month? Really tough question to answer. I love that they want to do it, and I want to help them, but it's a really hard question to answer, because there's a lot of things we don't know.

We don't know where the child's going to go to college. We don't know how much financial aid they may be eligible for, we don't know how much those colleges are going to cost. Well, we have a tool that can help people to do that now. It's our college planning tool, and you can go in and access that, create a profile for your family, and based on the age of your child, the first thing it's going to do is estimate how much tuition will be at a particular college or college type.

Like how much does sticker price tuition given increases in tuition throughout the years? What is it projected to be by the time your child gets there? Then you can put in the amount that you've saved and the amount that you are saving on a regular basis and it will estimate What you are likely to have to pay for college saved by the time you get there And then if you put your income in, it will estimate how much gift aid, not loans, gift aid that you're going to be eligible for.

So cost, aid, savings all together, and then present you with the shortfall, how much money you need to, uh, finance after all of that. So we can see in this example here for one year cost 59, 995, gift aid eligible for 7, 073. This family is on track to have 32, 000 saved for college, their shortfall is going to be 20, 920.

So, and then they can receive guidance on meeting that shortfall, they can apply for scholarships, they can adjust their savings, right, if they need, realize they need to start saving more, they can look for less expensive colleges and save those choices as well. Uh, that's again, one, a few of the many things that you can do on that, but to me, that's the heart of this whole tool right there.

So things to do, you can sign up for me for emails. If you haven't already, um, you can consult this presentation again. When you get it, look at the decks, you can look for more webinars and more content that we have on mifa. org. You can reach out to us, um, with any questions that you might have here is our.

Social media information. We're posting on there all the time, videos, podcasts, um, articles, scholarship opportunities, even for you in middle school, there are scholarship opportunities you can apply for scholarships for students in middle school, believe it or not. It, I've seen scholarship opportunities as young as third grade.

So, uh, they are out there and, uh, you should cast as widen net as possible a scholarship so it's not too early to start applying. Now, I know I have some, at least one question here. What is considered a high income for financial aid? That's a tough one to get into. It's not quite as simple as a tax bracket, uh, because they do take a lot of things into account and different types of income.

My advice for you would be. To go to an SAI, go to the SAI calculator on MIFA. org and, um, you know, I would say I like ours a lot, so I'm going to say to go to it. Or you can go to a particular college's net price calculator and use that. I know I went a bit long, so I apologize. It's a struggle for me to be succinct.

But, um, I want to thank everybody who stayed, and um, wish everybody good luck. And again, if you take a look at the slide deck, or if you see this again, and you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. Otherwise, if there's no other questions, I'll hang on for another minute, but if there's no other questions, um, goodnight.