College planner Kim Schroeder has some advice for high school students and their families who will be launching into the college search this year, and it starts with this: Take deep breaths.
With the average budget for undergrads at in-state public colleges rising above $25,000 per year in 2018—and topping $50,000 at private institutions, according to College Board—college enrollment is an expensive undertaking.
At the same time, technology has transformed the search process in rec
Kim Schroeder
ent years with new resources to keep students well informed and digitally connected in their quest for college admission.
Helping students sort through it all to find the best school is the mission of private college advisors like Schroeder, who co-founded Lexington-based AGS College Planning with partners Ingrid Allen and Brad Goan.
Like many in the college planning field, Schroeder and her colleagues amassed years of experience in college admissions and counseling offices at public and private schools before launching their own business. As more students and their families look for guidance in navigating the complex terrain of the college admission process, the number of professional college planners in private practice has also grown.
“Our main goal is to help students and parents understand what their options are and to try to guide them along the path,” said Sean Smith, founder of the College Project. “We try to help them to make themselves as marketable as possible and make sure they aren’t missing out on any opportunities along the way.”
Facing financial aid realities
Keeping track of all the collegiate options out there isn’t easy, Smith said, even for those who make doing so their livelihood. Today there are well over 4,000 de
Sean Smith
gree-granting postsecondary institutions in the United States to consider. And understanding the associated costs and financial aid options for each can be a challenge for families as well.
“I feel like there’s a lot of inaccurate information out there about scholarship money and financial aid,” said Ingrid Allen of AGS. Part of the role of college planners, she said, is to help families separate the misconceptions from the realities, in terms of what aid is available and what families can afford.
Understanding how a college’s financial aid package is structured is critical, said college planner Tom Pabin, who launched College 101 in Lexington two decades ago. His company, which has since grown to include 31 locations, was recently named as one of the 100 top-growing franchises in the country by Entrepreneur magazine.
Merit-based scholarship money has dwindled in recent years, Pabin said, and the opportunities that are out there have become more competitive. As budgets have tightened at public colleges and universities, financial aid has also felt the pinch.
“The vast majority of families that are having children go off to college are looking at these price tags, and they are not what they had planned for,” Smith said.
College planners work to educate families and help them to approach the cost of college realistically, Smith said, while also ferreting out aid options to abate the initial sticker shock.
Preparing for everything
In addition to helping students navigate the process of college selection, many college planning companies offer up a bevy of additional services, ranging from SAT and ACT test preparation to college essay reviews and interview practice. Some can provide career aptitude assessments to assist students in determining a major, or even aid the family in setting up a workable budget.
In addition to providing a full menu of advising services, Pabin said he also sees it as a college planner’s job to inspire students, to serve as an example and to make the overall experience enjoyable.
Colleen O'Brien and Tom Pabin of Class 101
“You hire a college planner to help your kids through the process, to save money and to have things done for you,” Pabin said, “but you also want to put someone in your kid’s life who is going to be a good role model and help them move forward.”
Ultimately, said Schroeder, the goal is to enable the students themselves to lead the charge in determining their own post-secondary destiny.
“Throughout the process, we are looking to move the student into the driver’s seat,” Schroeder said. “We want to empower the students to take charge.”
One way to do that is by helping clients harness the available technology. Social media and online platforms have changed the way that students research and apply to the colleges of their choice, and how college planners connect with them.
“It’s dramatic how much it’s changed, even in the past five years,” Schroeder said. “I feel like every day, there’s a new platform launching.”
With the advent of the Common Application, students can apply online to multiple schools with one submission. Colleges and universities have also leveraged the power of social media to reach today’s tech-savvy audience of prospective students through popular platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. College planners are using new technologies in their own interactions with clients as well, by maintaining web portals to organize their clients’ data, for example, or arranging meetings by Skype.
Finding the right planner
The cost of enlisting a professional college planner can be substantial. According to the IECA, the average hourly fee for independent educational consultants is roughly $200. The cost for a comprehensive package of college planning services ranges from $850 to $10,000, with an average cost of $4,100 in Midwestern markets. In Lexington, a package deal with most experienced college planners will cost between $2,000 and $4,000, but most also provide less expensive, streamlined services for clients looking for limited help or advice.
In selecting a college planner, it’s important to find someone who understands your priorities
Jane Shropshire
Shropshire, who founded Shropshire Educational Consulting in 1996.
As the college planning field has grown, the expectations for the profession have risen as well, Shropshire said. She said she has seen an increasing emphasis on professionalization in the industry, with associations such as the Kentucky Association for College Admission Counseling (KYACAC) setting ethical standards and guidelines on good practices for all members.
“More people coming into educational consulting are already qualified or are taking the appropriate steps to become qualified,” Shropshire said.
A little extra guidance
For most college planners, the majority of their clients come through recommendations, or sometimes referrals from high school guidance counselors, who still play an important role in the college search process.
“Parents often overlook the great value that the school-based counselor provides for their children,” Shropshire said. “I don’t view myself as a replacement for the tremendous work they do. I see educational consultants like myself as a second valuable resource for their students.”
Smith agreed that guidance counselors are vital partners in the search process for college-bound students, although they are often overloaded. The average public high school student-to-counselor ratio in Kentucky in 2014-2015 was 453 to 1, Smith pointed out, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education.
“It’s not that they aren’t good at what they do; they are just overwhelmed,” Smith said.
But no matter what assistance students enlist in finding their “best fit” school, Schroeder said, they shouldn’t forget to enjoy the experience along the way.
“It is a stressful process, but college is an incredible amount of fun that students will have no matter where they go to school—opportunities to see and do things and meet people that they can’t even fathom at this stage in their lives,” Schroeder said.
Having been a first-generation college student herself, Schroeder said she understands how transformative the opportunity can be.
“To think that we have even a tiny role in someone else having that experience,” she added, “is really cool.”