Collegiate Funding Solutions, in collaboration with Financial Aid Now, offers three options - from DIY to white-glove service - for your clients with college-bound high-school juniors or seniors that want help navigating the complex, confusing and stress-inducing financial aid minefield. Successfully navigating through the financial aid process can save a family thousands of dollars on their out-of-pocket college costs! For more information, visit www.financialaidnow.com.
| Features | Financial Aid Now | Financial Aid Now Plus | Financial Aid Now Premium |
| Online Tutorials | |||
| Automated Expected Family Contribution Calculators | |||
| Merit Max College Search & Tuition Discount Software | |||
| Automated FAFSA & CSS Filing Software | |||
| Automated Federal Student Aid ID for Student and Parents | |||
| Financial Aid Now Award Evaluator | |||
| Financial Aid Now Negotiation Tool | |||
| Weekly Check-Ins | |||
| Office Hours Access: Live Personalized Group Counseling Sessions | |||
| Income and Asset Strategies Instruction | |||
| Increasing Aid Strategies Instruction | |||
| Paying For College Strategies | |||
| Financial Aid Advice | |||
| Financial Aid Appeals Service | |||
| Parent and Student Interviews | |||
| Identify target schools | |||
| Identify Leverage Colleges | |||
| School Analysis | |||
| FAFSA & CSS Profile Filing | |||
| Business/Farm Supplement Filing Assistance (if applicable) | |||
| Filing of Institutional Financial Aid Forms | |||
| FAFSA & CSS Profile Filing | |||
| Non-Custodial Parent CSS Profile Filing (if desired) | |||
| Institutional Documentation Services - IDOC | |||
| Individualized Award Analysis | |||
| Personalized Coaching | |||
| Student and Parent Loan Options | |||
| Price: | $149 | $399 | $1,999 |
Two-Part Answer:
Part 1. We don’t provide scholarship searches. The Financial AID Now™ Merit Max report will show you where 90% of the free money is and that is the colleges themselves. Most of the rest is from the government.
Part 2. Paying a fee for a scholarship search is probably not going to be worth it. In fact, most of the free scholarship search engines you’ll find aren’t really free. Your child will be asked for lots of personal information cleverly disguised as “scholarship matching” questions. But in reality, it’s just mining for data so the information they provide can be used to sell you stuff like private student loans because that’s where the real money for them is!
Short of buying a home, the investment many parents make towards their children’s college educations will be the largest they make in their lives. As long as you have a strategy to pay for college and control what you can control, you have a high probability of success. Financial AID Now™ can be instrumental in helping you in your effort to send your child to a college that is a great fit for the child and the family’s finances!
While in some instances parents may be able to obtain raw data for free, Financial AID Now™ gathers and presents information that can be more helpful and individualized for high school students than can be obtained from a library or raw statistical data without contexts. And there isn’t any free source to manage the entire financial aid process.
Many people are expecting the guidance office to do all of the things that Financial AID Now™ will do. However, before assuming they will ask your child’s guidance counselor if:
Even though Financial AID Now™ has worked for many parents, it only worked for them because they actually used the program. Throwing money away on a program you won’t use is pointless.
No. We believe we have found the perfect balance between finding colleges that will award your child the most money which can be used to leverage better award packages, managing the financial aid process, affordability, and managing a frustrating and complex system. It all works together.
There are steps when taken in the proper order and at the right time, managing financial aid is actually quite easy. And don’t forget, we are sitting right alongside you as your Virtual Financial Aid Guru. Financial AID Now™ supports each family through the financial aid process through texts, emails, videos, and webinars throughout the year.
Parents who learn of us after their first child has gone to college usually say, “Where were you a year ago?” The knowledge, technology, and best practices that have gone into Financial AID Now™ have been developed, reimagined, and recreated many times since 2003. It’s had to.
College professionals, some with as many as 900 freshman students each year license and use our professional system, FAFSAsoft™ EZ File for their clients.