Is college in your child's future?
How are you going to pay for college?
Will your retirement savings be intact?
College Money Match Can Help
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College Money Match is a comprehensive program that helps families with a junior or senior in high school who want to maximize needs-based and merit-based financial aid by choosing the right college and creating an affordable plan to pay for it.

We help families maximize financial aid and minimize college debt.

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Free Ebook - Updated with the latest information!

  • College Application Checklist and Timeline
  • All the details on your loan options including federal, state, and private options
  • Tax benefits for families with college students

Can You Answer These Questions?

Are you worried about what college really costs? 
The cost of attendance at top colleges and universities is $70,000 or more!

Do you know how paying for college will affect your retirement?
Some families borrow $100,000 or more for a single student!

Did you know there are ways to forecast the true price of each college?
Public university attendees borrow an average of $30,030 each to attain a bachelor’s degree.

Do you know how to create a budget to pay for college?
More than 2.8 million people over 60 have student loan debt. Student loan debt does interfere with retirement!

What's Included?

College Planning Software

Forecast financial aid awards at thousands of colleges & universities

Financial Coaching
 

4 one-on-one virtual coaching sessions with one of our Certified Financial Planners™

Optional Form Entry Service

We’ll complete and submit FAFSA and CSS forms for you with this extra service.

Flexible Add-On Coaching

Additional video coaching sessions available to meet your specific needs

We help families maximize financial aid and minimize college debt.

College Money Match Process

By answering a series of questions about your family’s makeup, finances, and your student’s academic achievement, College Money Match helps you forecast financial aid awards at thousands of colleges and universities.

We’ll help you choose a school within your budget and create a 4 year plan to pay for it. Our goal is to help you avoid taking on additional debt by pre-planning your college expenditures.

You will receive access to the College Money Match software and four one-on-one virtual coaching sessions with one of our Certified Financial Planners™:

  • 30-minute onboarding meeting to guide you through using the software
  • 45-minute meeting to coach the family through school selections and budgeting
  • 45-minute additional meeting to review school choices
  • 45-minute meeting to evaluate financial offers and make the final school choice

Glossary

  • COA: Cost of Attendance – Total list price of a college including tuition, fees, and room and board.
  • EFC: Expected Family Contribution – Number provided by going through the FAFSA process. COA minus EFC is Need.
  • Need: COA minus EFC is Need. Amount of aid the college thinks you need.
  • Need-Based Grant: Needs-based financial aid that does not need to be worked for or paid back.
  • Merit-Based Scholarship: A discount the student could receive based on high school academic performance.
  • Net Cost: COA minus grants or scholarships. Some colleges also subtract loans and work-study to determine net cost.
  • FAFSA: Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Provides eligibility for Pell Grants and federal student loans.
  • CSS Form: College Scholarship Service. Additional form that some public and many private colleges require to determine financial aid.

Sign up to receive our informative emails including notifications about our upcoming webinars and other pertinent information that could impact how you pay for your student’s college education.

Sample Financial Aid Report

College Money Match Program Pricing

$999

 $500 upfront and $499 Feb 1 of senior year.
50% off for additional students from the same family simultaneously or later

Add-on Services for Subscribers

+$200 for Additional coaching sessions
+$500 for FAFSA/CSS form entry service

Meet Your Advisors

Cereus Financial Advisors’ owner, David Haas, enjoys helping clients solve tough financial planning questions like “How can I send my children to college,” so you can rest easy. David has undergone rigorous training and testing to become a Certified Financial Planner™ (CFP®) and is an active member of the Financial Planning Association® (FPA®). 

Before joining Cereus, Mike got years of first-hand experience in managing many of life’s financial planning challenges, having planned for and financed college, graduate school and medical school for his daughters, buying and managing a vacation home, saving and investing for retirement, and planning for the care of elderly relatives. He enjoys providing the benefits of his experience in helping clients plan for their financial goals.

FAQs

Most frequent questions and answers

You need income and asset information for both parents and the student. The income information comes from your tax return for the prior year (For a HS Senior graduating in 2023, you need your 2021 tax return) and the asset information comes from bank and brokerage statements. Business owners will need an estimate of the worth of their businesses.

Yes you can. We can be helpful in forecasting aid based on income, grades, and test scores. Accuracy increases in Junior year.

At Cereus Financial Advisors, we help clients plan for their financial goals including paying for a college education. We can help you with comprehensive financial planning services and investment management. Please give us a call.

We often advise clients to minimize their use of loans over and above Federal Student Loans. But if you require them, we can advise you which types of loans might work best for you and what the pros and cons are for each type of loan. We do not provide student loans ourselves, but our software does have a private student loan search engine that may be helpful.

Foreign colleges and universities are not part of our expertise. Our software only supports domestic colleges.

Parent assets only count 5.64% towards effective family contribution on the FAFSA. Families who try to hide assets often find that their money becomes tied up with expensive non-flexible financial instruments and their income precludes them from getting needs-based financial aid anyway. We help you get the best deal you can legitimately get, paying for college, but do not work with you to hide assets. The biggest winner when you try to hide assets is usually the salesperson who sold you the product, not you.

We are not sports agents and sport recruiting budgets are totally outside the databases that we use for our software. We can forecast aid based on academic merit aid only. We can help your student with their college search based on needs-based and academic achievement only.

We help families maximize financial aid and minimize college debt.

Sign Up For

COLLEGE MONEY MATCH

Fill out this form to get started and we will email you a planning agreement and payment information.

If you’re inquiring about a sibling group (i.e. twins), please email us instead.

Sign up for our mailing list

Get Free EBook

Fill out this form and you will get periodic educational emails, notifications about upcoming webinars, and our 17 page EBook on student loans and other options to pay for college. 

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Sign up for our mailing list

Fill out this form and you will get periodic educational emails and notifications about upcoming seminars and webinars.

Sign Up For

add on services

Fill out this form to get started and we will contact you.

For existing College Money Match customers only

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Sign up for our mailing list

Get Free EBook

Fill out this form and you will get periodic educational emails, notifications about upcoming webinars, and our 17 page EBook on student loans and other options to pay for college.