FPA Course Teaches Advisers to Provide College Funding Advice

The Financial Planning Association is offering the eight-module, online course in partnership with Capstone College Partners.

The Financial Planning Association (FPA), in partnership with Capstone College Partners, has created The Financial Planner’s Guide to College Funding Advice, an eight module, self-study online course that helps financial planners advise families on how to pay for college.

The new program is part of the FPA Professional Development Learning Center. The guide explains the scope of the student loan crisis, covers financial aid, uncovers tax strategies for college-bound families and more. It covers a variety of college funding strategies, including:

The College Pre-Approval Process: This module explains the basics of financial aid policy, introduces the College Pre-Approval process and helps students avoid taking on unnecessary and inappropriate student loans.

Demystifying Financial Aid, Scholarships and Admissions: This educates planners how to properly plan for and pay college tuition bills and analyze financial aid policies at institutions. It includes detailed education on both the federal and institutional formulas used to determine a family’s expected family contribution.

College Lending Strategies and Special Circumstances: This provides a comprehensive overview of different types of loans available for undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs. It also covers loan repayment options and loan forgiveness programs, including options for military veterans and other populations.

Scholarships, Financial Aid and Choosing the Right School: This describes the process and strategy around the College Pre-Approval Process and covers college funding from setting a budget, determining a maximum student loan amount and evaluating financial aid.

Tax Strategies and Advanced Options to Cover the Shortfall: This outlines tax strategies that mass-affluent and business-owner clients can implement to increase their college funding and widen the list of schools that students can attend without taking on inappropriate levels of student debt.

Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2018 Update: This covers the new tax laws passed in 2018, including how it impacts tax saving strategies and tactics.

“College education can be one of the most important investments a family can make,” says FPA Executive Director and CEO Lauren Schadle. “FPA’s partnership with Capstone College Partners helps financial planners build their expertise in this area so they can provide families the advice they need to save and plan for the rising costs of higher education.”

The program is available for $599 for FPA members and for $999 for non-members.

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New York Life Program Aids Advice Across Gender Lines

Coinciding with the publication of a new survey showing women regularly feel patronized by financial advisers, New York Life Investments has launched a program to help advisers better serve women in their client base.

New York Life Investments has launched a new value-add program for advisers, designed to help them work more effectively and responsively with clients who are women.

Firm leaders say New York Life Investments has spent the past year designing, developing and reimagining how advisers can engage and partner differently with their female clients to help them achieve financial success. The new value-add program leverages proprietary research and perspectives combined with practical tools that enable advisers to address their specific needs, the firm says.

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To help explain the need for this type of program, New York Life Investments has also published survey data showing 31% of women who have recently separated from their husband or partner, or who have divorced or become a widow, feel that their financial adviser patronizes them. Of this group, 51% said they might not work with an adviser again.

According to Ian Forrest, global chief marketing officer of New York Life Investment Management, one key survey findings is that women investors can be segmented by their life objectives, risk profile, interest in financial education and type of relationship with their financial advisers.

“These nuances, coupled with women living longer than men, provide the insight and opportunity for advisers to engage differently with women investors to increase their overall satisfaction,” Forrest says.

The four main sub-segments of women investors, and some of New York Life Investments’ findings about these groups, include the following:

  • Suddenly Single – women that have been recently separated, divorced or widowed in the past five years. In this group, 32% feel patronized by financial advisers and 51% may not work with an adviser again. 
  • Married Breadwinner – professional women that represent the primary source of income for the household. In this group, 44% feel that financial advisers treat women differently.
  • Married Contributor – professional and non-professional women whose primary contributions to the household tend to be non-financial. In this group, 32% feel excluded in conversations with financial advisers.
  • Single Breadwinner – professional and non-professional women defined as living alone or as a single-family unit. In this group, 27% expressed a desire for greater financial education.

More information on the program is available here.

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