529/College Planning

Older borrowers will be among the hardest hit when student-loan payments resume for more than 40 million Americans after a pandemic freeze, according to research by Fidelity Investments Inc.

The U.S. Department of Education announced sweeping changes to its public service loan forgiveness program.

Alumni of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are the graduates best positioned to find a job as the global economy roars back and employers look to fill open positions.

I have found great success in providing a fun, energetic learning environment to meet the needs and diverse goals of each office and advisor I encounter through deep consideration of the following three things: diverse learning styles, varying experience levels, and the importance of repetition.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. bought college financial-planning platform Frank, the latest in a string of acquisitions the largest U.S. bank has made this year to compete with both big technology firms and fintech upstarts.

As the Democrats’ budget bill takes shape, higher education policy is once more a point of contention.

In the U.S., a four-year degree is increasingly a “talisman” against deaths related to suicide and economic hardship, according to a new research paper that offers a stark verdict on the current economy.

Amazon.com Inc. said it will pay college tuition for select frontline employees, becoming the latest big U.S. employer to offer educational perks to attract and retain workers in a tight labor market.

Wall Street’s vow last year to fight racism kicked off a parade of pledges, few more specific than plans to support historically Black colleges and universities.

Young Wall Street analysts are benefitting from the war for talent among investment banks.

The best part of my job as host of the Masters in Business podcast is that I get to sit down with an incredibly talented and accomplished person each week to discuss their life and career.

With the delta variant of Covid-19 spreading across the U.S., some colleges are seeing a pickup in deferrals from international students as the worsening public-health situation adds uncertainty for those already struggling to secure flights and visas.

Last month, Senate Democrats released a $3.5 billion budget package that they hope to pass alongside a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill later this summer.

Our college-ranking system is based on the economic value created for students. It is not another rehashed list of colleges, sorted by SAT score.

Rice University of Texas is shifting classes online for the first two weeks of the semester as Covid-19 cases increase in the Houston area and on campus.

Throughout the pandemic, it’s been comforting to know that children weather Covid-19 infection better than adults do.

A summer surge in Covid-19 cases is complicating return-to-campus plans for U.S. colleges, particularly for schools in undervaccinated areas or where state laws bar them from implementing key mitigation measures.

Education can be the best investment you make, unless it's for graduate school. Students seeking advanced degrees make up only 25% of student borrowers, yet they account for nearly half of outstanding student loans.

Some of the richest U.S. colleges are declining another round of stimulus money that would offset the financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on schools.

Over the long course of the Covid-19 pandemic, one comforting fact has been that children have been at very little risk from the virus. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean they haven’t suffered.

The right incentives can encourage colleges to help low-income students succeed.

Colleges are preparing for a flood of students returning to on-campus dorm life this semester, after many spent the past year studying remotely. One problem? There’s not enough housing for everyone.

For many, paying off debt and putting money away for retirement are the first financial goals to work toward.

A consensus is emerging around an idea Americans used to scorn: That government cash payments are a good way to help struggling citizens and give the economy a boost.

A common reaction to hearing about a pregnancy is to say congrats and perhaps send a onesie. But there are other ways to celebrate and support newly expecting parents.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren warned that the U.S. economic recovery could take a major hit if the Biden administration fails to extend the federal government’s pandemic moratorium on student-loan payments past September.

Municipal-bond investors still have concerns about the future of higher education even as schools in the U.S. look to a more normal-looking academic year thanks to Covid-19 vaccinations.

Congress is aiming to hobble China’s ability to recruit scientists and academics in the U.S. as part of broader moves in Washington to confront the Asian nation’s growing clout.

Preston Fregia has wanted to be a lawyer since he was 11. For a year the Chicago native woke up at dawn every day to study for the Law School Admission Test before heading to his full-time job as a recruiter for a staffing company.

Two Congressional chairs have authorized a review of target-date funds (TDFs). The last such review was in 2009, and all that changed was that risk increased. It would be a shame if this initiative failed to produce results.

The surge in early retirements spurred by the pandemic is increasing inequality among Baby Boomers in the U.S., with older Black workers without a college degree more likely to be forced to exit the labor market prematurely, a study showed.

A California woman facing trial in the U.S. college admissions scandal said charges against her should be thrown out because she’d be risking her life if she took the witness stand.

Harvard students will return to the classroom full time and campus housing will go back to its usual density after more than a year of remote learning because of the pandemic.

With the 2021 college graduation season in full swing, there is some good news for this year’s class: Their first job’s pay is slightly improving.

The most consequential program in the financial planning world is being ignored by those to whom it matters most – aspiring advisors and the firms that will benefit from hiring them.

A few years after launching Grab Holdings Inc. in 2012, Anthony Tan got a piece of advice from Jack Ma. The co-founder of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. told the entrepreneur that life is a tsunami. When you’re up on the wave, get ready for the crash, he said.

Joel Bruckenstein of T3 and I just released the 2021 T3/Inside Information Advisor Software Survey, which includes user ratings and market share statistics (and year-on-year changes to both) for more than 400 different software products and services in 32 different categories.

A string of recent court decisions have accepted sex-based discrimination claims by male students after their schools sanctioned them for harassment or assault, potentially complicating plans for a complete overhaul of former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s campus sexual misconduct regulations.

Many high school seniors looking to attend the most competitive U.S. colleges are about to have their hearts broken after an already difficult year.

Students who received emergency financial aid grants related to the coronavirus pandemic won’t owe taxes on that money, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

U.S. colleges saw drops in undergraduate enrollment for this year’s spring semester as the emergence of Covid-19 vaccines failed to bring more students back to campus, deepening the pandemic-related financial strains faced by schools.

Two top Senate Democrats said Wednesday they will keep pressuring President Joe Biden to wipe out up to $50,000 per borrower in student loan debt after he shot down the idea of doing so by executive action or without restrictions.

The idea is to cut college costs by having an open mind and being willing to make some personal sacrifices.

Half of Americans aren’t saving enough for retirement. Blame for this problem is usually pinned on some combination of low wages or irresponsible choices, but there’s another culprit: an expensive and antiquated 401(k) system. Reforming it could put billions more dollars into savers’ pockets.

Colleges face an uncertain future as the coronavirus disrupts U.S. higher education. How should parents, especially those with younger children, set money aside for college costs when things are so unpredictable?

If you feel like you sputtered around and never got what you wanted out of your marketing plan this year, here are three tips so you can rock 2021 like Eddie Van Halen.

How do you develop a plan when you don’t know what to plan for? That is the question faced by every family with a child ready to apply for college. But that plan need not be made in a vacuum.

If you were told that someone would offer you $750 for indebting each of your clients’ children, you would think they had lost their mind. But this is how student lenders operate.

For many of your high-earning clients, 529 plans still make sense.

Whose name should a 529 plan be in? Does it matter if the owner is a parent versus a grandparent?

Weighty issues need to be considered before making expensive college commitments that could easily be disrupted in the coming months.

The recent market volatility has caused stress, fear and even panic. But that emotional toil can be alleviated by constructing what we call “dedicated portfolios,” rather than blindly following the precepts of modern portfolio theory.

This article describes the components necessary for special-needs planning.

While provisions about 529 plans within the SECURE Act are not lengthy, the implications and benefits are far-reaching, both for families saving for college and graduates with outstanding student loans.

Planning for college and determining how to fund it is difficult in the best of times. But during a recession, it can be… a blessing? We’re not kidding, and here’s why.

Putting income into a college savings account is a no-brainer. Like anything, the execution requires planning and financial expertise.

Advisors can better serve their clients on one of the most important investments they will ever make – their family’s education.

What software programs are advisory firms using, and what is the market share of each program in each category?

Like many financial planners, I hope for the day when we are accorded the same professional stature as lawyers and accountants. But the CFP Board should not be put at the helm of that future profession. That would harm consumers and erode the public trust we have worked so hard to engender.

Let me tell you about some really powerful tools that will engage clients more deeply and bring your ongoing client service to life.

Over the course of 20+ years, families have been bamboozled into spending trillions on top-end colleges, while overlooking the fact that it's actually the academic major that is far more important.

College is expensive. We all know that – and that is why parents come to financial advisors to talk about how they’ll pay for it. What you and your clients’ families may not be aware of is that the posted tuitions are rarely the price anyone pays. College tuition discounts vary widely and the methodology used to calculate tuitions is not disclosed by any college.

Clients have started commenting on the connection between my new, expensive car (which I am excited about) and their fees.

I’m notoriously skeptical, but I could actually see Amazon killing it in wealth management. And what surprises me the most is that it’s for a few very basic reasons.