Using AI to Help Pay for College

Final week, our son graduated from center college. He’ll begin highschool in a couple of months. Wow, the place did the time go? It appears like he simply began preschool a couple of years in the past! RB40Jr is a teen now and he’s taller than I’m. That’s nuts. Mother and father, take pleasure in your kiddos whereas they’re small. They’ll go off to school earlier than you recognize it.

Speaking about school, it’s time to research FAFSA. We plan to assist pay for school, however some monetary help can be superior. The estimated price for 4 years of attending an in-state public school in 2029, together with tuition, charges, room, and board, is roughly $140,000. Yowza! We saved for school in a 529 planhowever we don’t have that a lot.

Immediately, I’m utilizing the Google AI to assist determine FAFSA. The method is now extra sophisticated than ever following the 2024 rework. I discovered the Scholar Support Index (SAI) and Pell Grant Eligibility Information on-line. It has all the main points, however it’s 60 pages lengthy. You possibly can have a look if you want to see the innards of FAFSA. Nevertheless, it’s a lot simpler to make use of AI to determine your private scenario. Lastly, AI impressed me. As a mother or father, the AI was approach higher than the web for this job. I browsed by many websites, however they weren’t useful. FAFSA is troublesome to summarize as a result of there are such a lot of circumstances and exceptions. The AI might reply again as I slender down our monetary scenario. It was extraordinarily useful. As a blogger, what can I say? This is the reason blogs are out of date. The one factor I can add is the human factor. Okay, let’s wrap this up shortly.

FAFSA

FAFSA stands for Free Software for Federal Scholar Support. College students use this way to use for monetary support to assist pay for school or profession college. When you haven’t checked out FAFSA for a couple of years, you’ll be stunned at how sophisticated it’s now.

First, I went to fill out the Federal Scholar Support Estimator at studentaid.gov. It was good, however there was no element on the way it received the end result or what I can do to maximise pupil monetary support. The essential quantity I received again is the SAI. The SAI estimate is 0 for RB40Jr. Apparently, 0 is excellent. It was surprising, and I’d prefer to know why. That is the place the AI got here in helpful.

SAI (Scholar Support Index)

SAI is an index quantity utilized by monetary support professionals when creating an support provide. This was one of many adjustments made in 2024. SAI is just like the outdated EFC (anticipated household contribution), however not precisely. It could vary from -1,500 to 999999. A damaging SAI signifies the best stage of monetary want. Zero signifies a robust probability of getting pupil monetary help.

Formulation: Value of Attendance (COA) – Scholar Support Index (SAI) = Monetary Want

Since RB40Jr’s SAI is $0, his Monetary Want might be equal to the college’s full Value of Attendance.

AI was useful

I went to Google Gemini and requested about FAFSA. Listed below are my questions. Every time I typed one thing, the AI gave an in depth reply. I’ll put a small abstract on the finish. We received there fairly shortly.

>I’m researching FAFSA

>I’ve $1,000,000 in a taxable account. Can I get pupil support?

>My agi is about $25,000

>Taxable account is mother or father’s asset. Household dimension is 3.

>Married mother and father. Dwell in Oregon

Reply abstract

For married mother and father with a household dimension of threeutilizing the 2023 poverty ranges (which apply to the 2025-2026 FAFSA):

• The AGI threshold for a Most Pell Grant (and due to this fact an SAI of $0 and asset exclusion) is $43,505 (175% of the 2023 federal poverty stage for a household of three).

Your AGI of roughly $25,000 falls effectively beneath this threshold.

Subsequently, for federal monetary support (Pell Grant, Federal Supplemental Academic Alternative Grant (FSEOG), Direct Sponsored Loans, Federal Work-Examine), your mother and father’ $1,000,000 taxable account ought to not impression your eligibility, and you ought to be assigned an SAI of $0. This is good news for federal need-based support.

The important thing piece of the reply is the AGI threshold. Now that Mrs. RB40 is retired, we will fine-tune our AGI throughout the school years. FAFSA disregards belongings in case your AGI is beneath 175% of the poverty stage. This is the reason RB40Jr’s SAI is 0.

What if our AGI is $45,000, simply above 175% of the poverty stage? In that case, the AI stated we’d be anticipated to contribute round $65,000 per 12 months to school primarily based on belongings. The AGI threshold makes an enormous distinction.

Mrs. RB40 ought to keep retired

In conclusion, Mrs. RB40 ought to keep retired whereas our son is in school. We will management our AGI to maintain it beneath the essential 175% stage. To arrange for school, we should always transfer a few of our investments to money to reduce capital beneficial properties throughout these years. That’s just about it. The AI was very useful right here. When you’re FAFSA and making an attempt to determine totally different eventualities, attempt the Google AI. This can be a good use case.

Have you ever tried AI? This was the primary time it proved itself for me. This is the reason many entry-level white collar jobs are disappearing. Good luck, younger folks. I’m positive you’ll adapt to the brand new world higher than we outdated of us.

Picture credit score: The AI overlord.

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Joe began Retire by 40 in 2010 to determine retire early. After 16 years of investing and saving, he achieved monetary independence and retired at 38.

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