Preparing for College: Financially and Emotionally

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In This Episode

Jeannette Haen

Education Planning Consultant, Baird

Jeannette has worked in the 529 and education planning space since 2007. She works closely with Baird’s Financial Advisors and clients, sharing her expertise in different education savings and planning strategies.
 
 

See Jeannette's full bio

Kyra Tyler​

Senior Director,
Bright Horizons Education

An expert in college admissions, Kyra works closely with students and families to help them understand the admissions and application process. She is working with her 20^th class of seniors.
 
 
 

See Kyra's full bio

Jaleigh White, CPA, CPWA®​

Director of Baird Family Wealth, Baird

Jaleigh is an expert within Baird’s Private Wealth Management business. She’s made it her life’s mission to ensure multigenerational families can access the resources they need to navigate major life transitions.
 

See Jaleigh's full bio

Moderator:

Angela Pittman Taylor

Director of Corporate Communications, Baird

Since joining Baird in 1998 as an intern, Angela has held various roles in our PR and corporate communications teams. Today, she leads Baird’s PR team and Chicago-based brand strategy and also advises on Baird’s inclusion & diversity initiatives.

Connect with Angela

Transcript

• Meet our guests, Jeannette Haen and Kyra Tyler

  Angela Pittman Taylor: Welcome to Invested. We're hosting a five-episode miniseries on the Sandwich Generation. My co-host for this miniseries is Jaleigh White. Jaleigh, how are you today?

  Jaleigh White: Doing great, Angela. Excited about the topic today.

  Angela Pittman Taylor: Me too. And we have two fantastic guests with us today. It brings us to the topic for the conversation, which is education planning. So, Jaleigh, take it away – introduce our guests.

  Jaleigh White: You're right. We have two fabulous guests. Kyra Tyler is with us, and she is a Senior Director at Bright Horizons Education and is just a total expert on this subject. And then our own Jeannette Haen is with us and she is an Education Planning Consultant at Baird and has just helped so many of our clients really find a path to achieve the educational results they want from a financial standpoint. So, Kyra and Jeannette, welcome today. We're just thrilled to have you here.

  Kyra Tyler: Thank you.

  Jeannette Haen: Thank you.

• Kyra’s role as Senior Director, Bright Horizons Education

  Jaleigh White: We'd like to start off… you all have very different roles, but important roles in the process. So, we'd like to hear from you about what your role is, and also you both have been doing it a long time. So, what do you find the most rewarding about what you have the opportunity to do every day? So, Kyra, let's start with you.

  Kyra Tyler: Sure. Thank you. I'm really excited to be here. Thank you for allowing me to come as a guest. I'm really passionate about the topic. I'm a senior director in the college coach division at Bright Horizons. I have been here for 19 years. I am working with my 20^th class of seniors in my role. And essentially, my job is to help students and families understand the college admission and application process. I think that for many of us it has changed since we went through it and it continues to evolve at an increasingly fast pace and our goal is to really myth bust and help families understand what the options are. I think what got me here is I did admissions at Brandeis University, but I also had a really excellent undergraduate college experience, and so when I think about what keeps me here, it's that I really want students to have a similar experience as I did, where they're learning, and they're growing, and they're being exposed to new ideas.

• Jeannette’s role as Education Planning Consultant, Baird

  Jaleigh White: Great. Well, we can't wait to hear more about it. And Jeannette, we're thrilled to have you here. You get involved, I'll say, a lot earlier in the process, in planning for that college education. So, tell us a little bit about what your role is and why you find it so fulfilling and it's part of your passion.

  Jeannette Haen: Yeah, absolutely. And thank you again for having me. I'm very humbled and honored that I could be on this podcast with this amazing group and expertise that we have here. I really talk to [Baird’s] Financial Advisors and then also directly to our clients – so, parents, moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, on how to save and pay for education.

  So yes, you're correct I'm on the earlier part in, “Let's talk about saving for education. That's usually typically higher education. I've been at Baird for 20 years, in the 529 education planning space for about 16 years; and I mentioned 529 because that's one of the more well-used savings vehicles to save for higher education. So, I'm kind of the expert here at Baird and I just love talking to clients.

  I'm passionate about saving for education. I enjoyed my college experience. I was somewhat lucky that college costs were a little bit cheaper when I went to college. I had a little bit of savings, but not a lot, and I had to pay back student loans after I graduated. And I think if I was a little bit more educated on the financial side, I think I would have saved a little bit better. So, I really want to share that with others, whether it's a high school student or parents and grandparents wanting to help save for their education.

  Angela Pittman Taylor: I have a daughter who's nine and a son who's six, so they're in elementary school, but we have already started saving. And I did open 529s right when they were born, and that is the benefit of being at Baird. I just crossed 25 years at Baird. So yes, we did do that as well. And it's definitely such an important topic. And I think it's great for us to talk a little bit about why it's so important.

• When should I start saving for college?

  Jaleigh White: Yes, it is critical. And it's such an ever-changing landscape as well. So, Jeannette, I'd like to start with you. You mentioned that when your children were born, you started saving for it. But when we think about having those conversations first within the family, when and how are you seeing that happen with families that have the best outcome?

  Jeannette Haen: It's a good question. I get that question all the time. When should I start saving for a child's education? And the answer is now, anytime. So, it really doesn't matter where you are in the part of life, but it really is more relevant when you have that family event. So, when you have a new child, they're born, you kind of want to have that conversation and should we start saving for our children's education now? And the answer should be yes. Most of these accounts, you only need $25 to open the account, most of the state plans. So, it's a really small investment to start and you can do monthly payments or do a lump sum at any time: bonus time, tax time, any time you have a little bit of money coming in. And others can help save for that child's education. So anyone can help contribute to your own 529 account.

  Another conversation I have is with grandparents. So, they have that new grandchild, they have a wealth that they want to pass on to the next generation. What better way is to set up that next generation is give them a head start with a college savings vehicle, a little college savings account. If you're a newly married couple and you're thinking about children, but you're not really sure yet. you can open up an account in your own name and then change the beneficiary at a later date when that child is born and has a Social Security Number. A lot of individuals don't know that. So, these 529 college savings vehicle have a lot of flexibility and there's other saving vehicles out there.

  But again, the 529s is kind of my expertise and that's what I like to focus on. But having that little nest egg now and let it grow. A lot of it grows tax-deferred will come out tax-free if you use it for the qualified education expenses.

• Which savings college savings vehicles can you consider?

  Jaleigh White: You know, I think one of people's concerns in getting started is there's still so many unknowns. They don't know what the child's going to want to do. They don't know where they're going to go to college. So, to have that flexibility, I think, is something people are unaware of sometimes and also used to think of 529s as being like state-specific or some college pre-funding plans as being even school-specific. So, are there many of those programs left where it's very specific or do most of them have flexibility to them?

  Jeannette Haen: Yeah. So, there's a difference. There's over 100 state plans out there. Some of them are what are called College Savings Vehicles. That's where you invest in the market. The other one is a prepaid contract. That's a whole different type of state plan. There [aren't] many that exist anymore. Those are restricted, you can only use those funds for your in-state colleges. So, the other side of it is the college savings vehicles offer a lot of flexibility, meaning you can use those funds in any U.S. eligible institution. So, if I live in Wisconsin, but I'm not sure where my child is going to go to college, especially if they're younger, you have no idea. You can use those funds at any state-eligible institution. So, there's a lot of misconceptions missed out there, and that's one of them I like to debunk.

• What is a 529 and how does it work?

  Jaleigh White: Another one of those unknowns is, what if you have one child and they end up getting full ride scholarships, to everywhere, is the 529 vehicles. Is it a use it or lose it? So, if they don't need it for college, what happens to it?

  Jeannette Haen: Yeah, absolutely. There's lots of options there. So, I'm mom, I'm the account owner. I control the assets. My child doesn't even have to know that the account exists. So, my oldest son, Connor, he is the beneficiary. Say he gets a full ride scholarship. What do I do with these assets? Well, a lot of individuals don't know you can actually transfer all of it or a portion of the funds to their sibling or what's called a family member, defined by the government. So that means even a first cousin, an aunt or uncle could use it for their education. So, I control where the money goes to and you can do that free from tax and penalty. So, it's a really great way to kind of transfer those assets to someone else that can use it, right?

  The other option is maybe hold on to it and save it for future use for that beneficiary. What if they go to grad school – they get a full ride in undergrad, but maybe not grad school. Or they decide to change their degree and go back to school at a later time. There are no age restrictions, time constraints or limitations on these 529 college savings vehicles.

  So, again, it offers a lot of flexibility. And the other option is, if you take a non-qualified withdrawal, that you don't use it for education expenses, really, the earnings portion is treated as ordinary income and only hit with a 10% tax penalty on top of that.

  Your principal – what that means is the money you're putting into it, your contributions – is not taxed or penalized on the back end. Only the growth in it. So in an up market, the market is doing well, you're going to have growth. That's the only portion that's going to be taxed and penalized. So, it's really not a huge downside. So, if you're losing sleep over this, “I don't know if I'm going to use the funds for education,” please be aware of those key points that there is flexibility with these 529s.

• How to start the college conversation with your kids

  Jaleigh White: Well, that should help alleviate a lot of the concerns people have about all the unknowns are out there, knowing that there's flexibility. And Kyra, when do you recommend and at what level of detail should families start having conversations about college, sharing expectations on both sides, and how do you help facilitate some of those conversations in the family?

  Kyra Tyler: So, I think it's actually – at the start, it's quite easy to create a culture around college. If that's important to your family, right? So, I live not far from my alma mater. I went to Northwestern. I lived in the Chicago suburbs from a very young age. We would take my daughter, just quite naturally to campus to see a production, to watch a football game. So, I think just early exposure like that – t-shirts, swag, that kind of stuff, right? That's easy. I think, more direct conversations… probably in middle school, because the honest truth is that sometimes, you know, if you have somebody and they're like, “I want to be an engineer,” they're in fifth grade and this tracks with the kind of kid you've always had, then they probably do want to pay attention to what kind of math they're taking in middle school to make sure that they can get to what kind of math they need to take in high school, which probably also aligns with what kind of science, namely physics, they might need to take.

  So, I think a more directed conversation starting in middle school, about, you know, “Yeah, we're planning for high school, but do you think that you might also want to go to college.” In a very sort of casual way. And so I would say that you can continue that even through middle school, even starting into like 9^th grade.

  It is hard to avoid conversation about college. Once your kid hits high school, they're likely to be in some sort of audience with older kids, juniors, seniors, you know, they may have a freshman friend who has a senior sibling who's talking about the process. And so I think it happens quite naturally that they start to get curious, right?

  And so, I think healthy conversations and not really where you want to go, but are we still thinking we want to go… maybe like, size? What kind of school might you think you want to go to? How close or how far from home? Do you have an idea of what you might like to study? I think those are nice conversations to have in the early years of high school and then they begin to transition, I would say probably sophomore year, midway, all the way through.

  Because at that point then we want families to start thinking about visits. Directed visits. So, during spring break, for example, perhaps we are going to XYZ state and we will also add in two days of college visits in the spring break of your sophomore year. So, then it starts to become much more directed and I would say that by junior year, spring of junior year, the conversation has completely shifted into much more directive language.

  We talk about testing, we talk about, you know, have you decided maybe how far or close from home, size, cost, all those things start to get – cost is usually a family conversation, but you know, it's not usually just in the hands of the child. But that's, I think, when we start to get much more prescriptive.

  And then by the time summer comes before senior year – if you haven't talked to your student about college and the goal is for them to go, I'm not saying you're late, but I'm saying you should start literally at that moment. For sure.

• How do you define the ROI of going to college?

  Jaleigh White: I love what you said in the beginning about creating that culture and exposure to college, even during grade schools of doing visits. I mean, certainly there's a lot of people that go to sporting events at their alma maters and colleges, but you really had some great ideas of other ways to expose your children to that culture of what it's like to be on campus and part of that experience is really some great, great advice and great thoughts.

  I'm a CPA so I can't help but talk about ROI and the math behind it. Sometimes I see students invest so much in their education and pick a career that – I can't make the math work. The ROI of especially the institution that they've chosen matching with the pay of the career they've chosen.

  So how do you have those conversations with students who may have their heart set on going to XYZ college, but the career they've chosen will never earn enough to make that return really makes sense? How do you have those conversations? How do you counsel people around that ROI of college?

  Kyra Tyler: I'm either everybody's worst nightmare or their shining star of success, because I have what a lot of people consider to be a useless degree. I have a bachelor of music in flute performance as my undergraduate degree. My parents proudly paid for four years of that.

  I think we put a lot of pressure on students to believe that they should know exactly what they want to do when they graduate, when the math itself doesn't work, it doesn't work out. So, the statistics tell us that just under 70% of all students in college will change their major more than once.

  So not just from psych to physics or whatever, but like, psych to marketing, to business, to economics. It's a ping pong. I did not. I'm married to an architect. He did not either, but we are very rare in that we stuck with what we did now.

  I think what's interesting is that people – there's this perception out there that like, if you go to college and you get a business degree, you're going to transition into a business setting with your laptop and your vest on and all of that stuff, and you're going to get X amount of money.

  But I think if you have a broad set of skills and you are willing to learn, musicians and performing artists are bulletproof around feedback. You could tell me anything and I'm like, “Got it. I'll see if I can change it. No big deal.” We're not precious about that and highly disciplined people don't think about that. They don't think that our theater majors, you know, or our dancers, or our tech crew on stage craft can transition into corporate communications role, or like, they don't think about that. But they actually are really primed with enough of a skill set to then get the professional skills that they need on the job or through certification.

  So I think a lot about that from an ROI perspective. I think it's really about your mindset and what you're putting into it. I see a lot of heartbreak with families who say you have to do computer science, and the kid hates STEM topics. They're not good at it and they're likely not going to get into a program.

  And so, helping people understand that – could you just listen to your child about what's interesting to you, let them explore. You typically don't have to put together a major until end of sophomore year. They'll likely figure something out where they can get a skill set that will allow them to have some job skills that will be attractive, you know, in the field.

  Jaleigh White: How many times are you really counseling the parents as much as the children?

  Kyra Tyler: More than the children. I love my parents. I mean, there's no way that I couldn't, having done this for so long, but I will say that my students often take my feedback better. But I think what I always try to remember – and I have a teenage daughter, she's 15, she will tell you she wants to be an actress, and I'm like, great, I can't wait to watch you do whatever around that. But we all do ourselves a favor around this process. At least the, you know, Jeannette has a specific focus around the financing. We should be listening to our children about that, but especially about this part. They're the ones that have to get up every day and go to school, do the reading, do the homework, right?

  We don't want to set them up to fail because they're doing something that they don't feel good about or they're not interested in. Life's too short for that. And to your point, I mean, my career did not exist when I graduated from college, and not in a way that I understood, and, you know, so I also want us to create a culture where people are a sponge, and if there's a new opportunity, they have what they need to be able to do that.

  Jeannette Haen: This is really relatable. So my oldest is 13. He's in 8^th grade. Just last night, my husband and I and my youngest and my oldest went to family orientation for high school. You know, we're midway through 8^th grade. And so the principal and the guidance counselor said, uh, “Parents, you are not going through high school. You're not the one choosing the courses. It's the students,” and so we have to take a step back as mom and dad, as parents, and think about it exactly what you were saying. It's about the students. What they want to learn about, what they want to be challenged about, what they think their career path will be, and it can change. It changes.

  So, I'm right there in there and we have to remind ourselves, “Okay, we're not the child, they will have their own career path,” and we do have to take a step back. So, I can relate to that.

  Jaleigh White: But it's so hard, Jeannette, because –

  Jeannette Haen: Isn't it?

  Kyra Tyler: It is.

  Jaleigh White: – we might know what's best for them. It's so hard.

  Kyra Tyler: It is hard.

• How did COVID impact students and the college experience?

  Jaleigh White: You know, sometimes my tongue gets pretty bloody from biting it so much, but we have to. So Kyra, one of the things, you know, when we think about the last five years and the kids that you're working with now, they went through COVID and a big part of their educational process got disrupted.

  So what impact is that having not only the ones you're working with now, but you know, this generation that's coming up that went through a pretty disruptive time in their educational journey? What impact are you seeing that having and how is that changing maybe their outlook on the future?

  Kyra Tyler: I mean, yes, for my work that I do here, I also serve on our local school board for a pre-K to 8^th grade district, and so, and I've been on that board for over eight years. And so I think about it too, from that angle, it's really fascinating. The big things are, these kids are different, and if we don't recognize that, we are doing them a disservice.

  We're also, as parents, doing ourselves a disservice. Depending on how old your child may be, if you have a high schooler right now, they did some bit of their formative instruction, 5^th grade, 6^th grade, 7^th grade, 8^th grade, perhaps. I'm not saying that's bad necessarily. I'm just saying it's different. And we sort of just slapped it on there and hope that it worked, you know, I would say that some of it worked and there's a lot of stuff that didn't work.

  The way that this shows up for me is that, I think students really struggle with deadlines. There was like a looseness around a due date. That has not gone away. And so getting kids to adhere to due dates. This is particularly challenging, I'm finding, with my students getting to their application due dates on time.

  I keep saying to them, “Y’all, this is not negotiable. You cannot call up Tyler University and say, ‘Can I get another two days, like when it's done?’” That I think has really – there's something there that is not getting better. The other thing we're seeing is there are some changes academically. My students are not as fluent writers as I have been accustomed to. And I think part of it is that they just haven't written as much. I have friends that are college professors. They see it on that end as well. Just there's a little bit more of a struggle there. I think this is also at the intersection of AI, which feels like the early days of the internet, and nobody knows what to do with it.

  Then it's very tempting if you don't feel confident about your writing, because writing is a muscle. And if your instinct is to run away from it, you'll never get good at it. But if your instinct is to run away from it, and now there's a shiny tool there that can help you get your assignment done, it's a mess.

  So, I think there's that, too. And then there's the socialization piece as well. Kids are not experiencing college in the same way that we did. I think we understood that we were there to do a job and yes, it was less expensive, but we might have, some of us might have had more financial responsibility than these students.

  So we had a different perspective on it and we knew that we were there for school. And that was our primary focus. And then the fun came second. And now, I have to remind a lot of my families, we're not just talking about how cool game day was. I need you to not really prioritize visiting the stadium, but have you seen an academic classroom? Have you seen the library? Do you know what the writing center is all about? Those things are just not really top of mind for families. And I think it's because in some ways, some parents are trying to make up for what their children lost during COVID, in their opinion, and college is a way to open up the floodgates to a more traditional way of experiencing fun.

  But what then doesn't happen is, they're not sitting together and hanging out in the cafeteria for two hours like we might have. That kind of, like, lingering is not happening. You know, there are some kids that are home on a Friday night in their dorm room alone. Like that just didn't really happen in the same way.

  There's a lot more camaraderie, and part of it is also technology. Everybody has this device in front of them. So, I think it's a confluence of events and I don't mean to make it sound like it's all gone bad. It hasn't. But I think that if you're not clear on what your student wants to have their college experience be like, or what you are hoping that they prioritize before you start to visit and really look at schools, you might, you might not be on the same page about that. I think that's what the last five years gave us.

• Saving for retirement vs. college

  Jaleigh White: You're so right. And with AI happening kind of at the same time as we're going through this huge event and with COVID and all that brought with it from a socialization and education standpoint. You're right, but I'd like to hear from both of you about a couple of things that that you mentioned. How do you have conversations and do you both have your own viewpoint on should kids have skin in the game when it comes to college?

  Jeannette Haen: I, well, personally, I think yes. Right. From a financial standpoint, let me touch on that. Like I said before, I have a college savings account for each of the children, but we, even if we had the means to do so, we're not going to pay for all four years of college.

  We made that a point, my husband and I, we have a set budget, set goal, college savings goal that we want to help pay maybe for the first year or two, we're kind of budgeting for an in-state college, not that they have to go to an in-state college. If they have a little bit more skin than the game, they'll understand how expensive college is.

  It's okay to change majors and it's okay not to graduate in four years. But you have to understand the cost is going to go up the longer you stay there. Tuition costs, room and board, expenses, it's going to delay starting your income earlier. So you have to have those conversations with your students, your children, and have those goals set as you're going into college because that will delay and then the cost is going to go up and you may run out of that college savings or you may have to make harder decisions and it may delay in starting a family, getting married, having children.

  So, you do have to talk about the financial side of it, but also again, going back to having skin in the game, I really think yes, students should really have that. And maybe they need to get a part-time job, take out those student loans and have those students pay that student loan debt back. Both my husband and I did it, and we did it before we got married. That was one of our goals is to have that student loan debt paid off before we got married and started a family. So that's my take on it. But Kyra, I'd love to hear from you too.

  Kyra Tyler: Well, when somebody asks me this, you know, like a family that I'm connecting with, I will remind them that I believe that's a family conversation. Personally, no. I do not think that... but I think part of it, too, is how you came to this. In my family, my parents were like, “Education is a given. It's the biggest gift we can give you.” My grandparents went to college. My parents went to college. And so, they were like, this is obviously what you're going to do.

  So, for us, the skin in the game is instilling a college-going attitude and a work ethic where students will see it as something that they should have fun at and be serious about. We're not playing around with mom and dad's money.

  Jaleigh White: Well, I think you all are a good example of sometimes even how parents feel differently, in the same household. And why it's so important to really talk through that early. And to share those expectations, those intentions with your children so they won't be surprised when they think it's going to be one way and it ends up being another. And Jeanette, I know you work with a lot of our Financial Advisors and also counsel on retirement goals of the parents of where might they be sacrificing their own ability to retire to pay for their children's education and what are some alternatives and what's that trade off look like?

  Jeannette Haen: So, yeah, I talk to Financial Advisors. I jump on those client calls and we talk about all of wealth planning. Number one worry is, “How do I save for retirement?” Okay. The second worry, the second question that our clients ask is, “How do I save for my child's education?” So, it's a toss-up.

  It's really hard to balance both. And then you have all those other things. I want to make sure that, you know, have an emergency fund. If I need a new roof, I want to do remodel, I want to buy a sports car and that comes later. Right? And we want to help with all those.

  So number one, it sounds selfish, but for a parent, worry about yourself first in a roundabout way, save for that retirement because you can't borrow for retirement, but you can borrow for education. Then look at, you know, education planning. How much do you want to set aside? And what we were just discussing earlier, is it two years, four years, a full ride?

  Is it an in-state school, a private college? You want to make sure that they're covered if they're going to go to Harvard. I mean, that's a huge expense, even if you do get a scholarship, you still have to maybe cover rent or computer technology books and supplies that the scholarship may not cover, or you may be only covered freshman year to get you in the door, but it may not be covered the rest of the rest of the years.

  So, you just have to have that conversation. I'm an education planning consultant. I'm telling you that retirement comes first and then look at those education savings.

• What are the alternatives to traditional four-year colleges?

  Jaleigh White: Really validates the importance of planning of understanding where you are on all aspects of your life where you're trying to get to and just having a solid plan. That's not a plan you do and put on a shelf and you're done. It's something that requires constant review and it's a living breathing thing that you keep iterating as you go through your life as circumstances change.

  Certainly as markets change, you learn more about your children and what their goals are. So, it's just the importance of planning couldn't be overstated. It just is critical. We were talking earlier about all the unknowns with our children, but let's talk about all the unknowns of the future.

  I've got a two-year-old grandson and I'm trying to imagine what college is even going to be like for him. And Kyra Tyler, you were talking about AI, talking about online learning, that the whole educational system seems like it's going to go through such an evolution. So what do you both see when you look out, you know, preparing for my grandson?

  He's two. So what's 15, 20 years? What's this really going to look like? And how do we help prepare this generation for what's coming at them?

  Kyra Tyler: I will come out and say that, yes, I am the college lady. Yes, I do believe in college. I also think that college isn't for everybody. You know, it really isn't. And sometimes it's for later. It might be a year. It might be three years.

  That's all fine. I say that, still though, believing that, for advancement in our society currently, that college is still absolutely worth it for, for so many reasons, and, you know, I think the softer side of college is helping our students become more independent and for them to segue into a young adulthood in a way where they can make some gentle mistakes. And so I think that there's still a lot of reasons to go.

  In terms of what college will look like later, I think it's going to be interesting to think about the cost of college. I mean, that's more Jeannette’s area, but it is $92,000 to go to some of these colleges and there's one in New York City that is over $100,000 a year. And so I don't – I worked in development. There are, there's no, at Harvard College. Like, there's no amount of money that can take a $100,000 education from a donor perspective and bring it to $40,000. At some point the bubble has to burst. When it will, I don't know. And also, we're at an enrollment decline, so there's less kids, there's just less children going to college. So, there's a lot of change, you know, heading our way around that.

  But I'm excited about also what new careers pop up, you know, what's the next data analytics? I don't, you know, a data major did not exist two decades ago. And now I feel like that's all that exists to some extent. So, I'm excited about the possibilities, and I think tenure will look different. I think it's all up for grabs.

  Jeannette Haen: That brings back another memory from last night's high school kind of introduction, is they're now offering at our high school locally here, aviation classes in high school. So, think of it. They're offering in the high school level. They're starting to offer it in, you know, colleges as well. And why is because there is a need to have pilots.

  And so to solve for that solution is to have classes and education on and even starting at the high school level. And the four-year typical public institution is no longer the norm. So, it's okay to go to a two-year college. It's okay if you want to go through an apprenticeship program, vocational school, trade school, you want to learn a trade. There is a need in our communities to have individuals have that expertise on a specific trade. And there can be multiple paths, and to go back on the financial side, 529s can be used towards apprenticeship programs now. They changed that recently. You can now use it for two-year colleges. Aviation school, there's a bill out there. It hasn't quite passed yet. Can I use my 529 money for flight school? Not yet. It hasn't, it's been introduced. It hasn't been passed.

  So they're continuing to improve the 529 tax code so we can use this for other uses that meets today's needs, right? So don't always just think, you know, “My child's not going to go to a typical four-year college.” That's okay. That's okay. Again, think about the child and not necessarily yourself, right?

  That's what lessons learned here on this conversation. Take yourself out of the picture, mom and dad. We want our children to have the best, to be the best, but really be themselves, right?

  Kyra Tyler: And then we would be remiss if we didn't mention the service academies as well. You know, West Point, Coast Guard, like Merchant Marine. I mean, they're all there, right?

  I like to talk about it as, “What's your plan for after high school?” It just so happens that most of the families I speak with are looking for a much more traditional four-year college experience, but I'm up for anything, including a fifth year. Some kids need a fifth year in high school, you know, for they have a reason and a purpose.

  So, there's a lot of ways out there for people to think about what happens after high school graduation that will lead to a launched adult, you know, in four to six, seven years.

  Jaleigh White: Well, you all have given us so much food for thought about the evolution that this whole topic has gone through the last 20 years, where it's going, but very common themes between the two of you. It's about the children. It's about what they want. It's about what will help them have lives of purpose and happy, fulfilled lives.

  And it's about starting early – starting the conversations early. Starting to expose them to all the options as early as possible. So that's that consistent themes from both of you around that are really so helpful to our audience and how that fits into the total planning that we do for families about all the topics that are important to them in their lives.

  So, we can't thank you enough for being a part of the conversation today and helping us, you know, hear different points of view and really think about it so that we become more proactive in the conversations inside our families and, uh, it will lead to better outcomes for our children. So, thank you all so much.

  Kyra Tyler: Thank you. I loved being on. Appreciate it.

  Jeannette Haen: Yeah. Thank you for having me. This is great.

• How to connect with Kyra Tyler and Jeannette Haen

  Angela Pittman Taylor: Absolutely. A fantastic conversation. We're so grateful for you joining us. And Kyra, if people are interested in learning more about your expertise and wanting to connect more with you, where can they find you? Where can they connect with you online?

  Kyra Tyler: Of course. So our web address is getintocollege.com. Very snappy, very easy. You can find us there. We have a blog that we are super passionate about and update regularly. We also have a weekly podcast that we've had for nine-plus years. It's called Getting In: A College Coach Conversation. You can find it at anywhere you get your podcasts.

  I'll be joining as a host in a couple of months, which I'm really excited right now. You'll just find me on past episodes and then on all social media platforms, you know, we're there. We can't wait to connect with families and there's 60-plus full-time educators like myself who really can't talk about this stuff enough.

  So, apologies for our verbose conversations that we're going to have, but I think you're going to walk away feeling really satisfied and fulfilled.

  Angela Pittman Taylor: Excellent. Excellent. And Jeannette, how about you? How can people learn more about you?

  Jeannette Haen: You can go to rwbaird.com and connect with a Baird Financial Advisor. I work directly with the Baird Financial Advisors and then they bring me on client conversations that way. I am also on LinkedIn, so you can look at me up there, but yeah, happy to help in any way. Talk about 529s, college savings, how to save and pay for college.

  Start that conversation early with family members and with your children so they have a little bit of skin in the game, but again, thank you for having me. This has been great. We have a lot of expertise on this call and this was a lot of fun.

  Kyra Tyler: Agreed.

  Angela Pittman Taylor: Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us.

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All investments have some level of risk and this should not be considered a recommendation of any products or services discussed today. The opinions are those of the guest and not necessarily those of Baird.

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