Jodi Okun: College Financial Aid and Scholarships

Jodi Oken is the founder of College Financial Aid Advisor. Her business has helped thousands of families navigate the financial aid process. She is the author of Secrets of a Financial Aid Pro. Jodi has served as a financial aid advisor to several colleges, including Occidental College and Myalma Monter, Pitzer College. She was named one of the top 30 social influencers in personal finance and wealth by the Huffington Post and was ranked number four on a list of top 99 Twitter accounts covering financial aid. Jodi is a social media strategist, speaker, consultant, and small business advocate. Every Thursday at 5 p.m.

Pacific Standard Time, Jodi hosts College Cash, a Twitter chat devoted to connecting college bound families with higher education professionals. On average, College Cash receives more than 10 million impressions per week, making it a top resource for parents and students. And then on a personal note, a few years ago, I saw Jodi give a keynote talk at a college counseling conference. And ever since, I've wanted the opportunity to sit down and pick her brain about college financial aid and building a business and I'm very excited to speak to Jodi Oken today. Jodi, how are you? I am so great. Thank you for asking those.

Such a nice intro. Thank you. I'm really happy to be here and excited to meet everyone who listens today. There are a lot of things I want to talk about today, certainly about financial aid in college and how we can relieve some of the burden that the cost of college puts on families. And then I also want to get into the business you've built and just talk about the entrepreneurial side of that and how how you grew that and what that story was. But let's start with the financial aid piece. So what are some steps every family should take, maximize the amount of financial aid they receive when their kids apply to college?

Great question. I would start with the first thing is you have to apply for financial aid. I want to encourage families who are listening that the number one item is to complete your financial aid applications on time early. And please, please, please, I am begging you or all begging you to not hesitate to overthink whether you should or you shouldn't fill them out. If you ever want to speak to a college financial aid staff member, the first thing they're going to say to you is did you fill out the FAFSA for your application for federal student aid? Did you fill out the CSS profile owned by the college board, a 23 page document for some private schools?

And if you say, well, I didn't know, maybe I made too much, then they aren't able to help you. So we want them to help you. So no matter what someone's income is, they should fill out those forms. No matter what. And I just hung up from a call with a woman just now it was just downstairs like in my car. And she said, what do I do? And I said, we all stand here knowing and we've all been through COVID. And the first thing that I spoke to families about was whether or not did you fill out the FAFSA, did you fill out the CSS profile? And the college staff member is going to say, did you complete the applications?

And if you say, well, I didn't fill them out because I thought I made too much money during COVID, that was the place where colleges couldn't help. So you need to put that safety net down so that if something happens, and now you never know these days. So if something happens, the college can help you if those forms are on file. Okay, so I have a soon to be 14 year old daughter, she'll be going into ninth grade next year. What are some steps someone like me can take at this early point in the process? So then I'm best positioned to maximize financial aid when four years later, she is accepted to a college.

Great question. Top of the line, you know, saving in 529. So that's a place that can be saved. Now, when we're talking today, we are now talking new FAFSA, new rules, better FAFSA, FAFSA simplification, a document that hasn't changed for over 40 years. So things that counted against you before might work in your advantage now. So if a grandparent owns a 529, it's not going to count against you. So there's a few things like that. Obviously, your student, the student getting good grades helps with the bucket of merit money, completing your documents on time, making sure that the answers are correct.

And you're putting the right information in the right places, completing them early, and making sure that you've had those financial conversations, literacy conversations with your students. So not only do you have fit, location, size, financials as part of the picture. And so you'll have expensive schools, you'll have schools that are known for giving merit schools that are known for giving financial aid, and colleges that maybe don't cost a lot. So those are the things you could be working on now. Communication with your student is the number one factor so that they know what you expect, and they know what you can do or maybe can't do.

I really like that because I have heard from a number of parents, they have this feeling that their duty is to just say to their kid, hey, wherever you can get into, I will find a way to pay for it. And yet they can really build some important skills for those kids if they start having these conversations just like you said about the financial piece along with all those other factors that make a school the right fit for a particular kid. And when we're talking about this could be a quarter of a million dollars, that's an important conversation to have. Do you have any tips on how to start those conversations or specific topics they should get into with their kids to help them understand how this all works?

Yes. So, you know, another great question. So I like to talk to families about one teaching your students about saving. How they can save maybe suggestions on how you maybe you as a parent say so saving is a term they need to learn. Cost is a term teaching them what something costs. So whether it's milk or it's gas or it's a car or it's a $90,000 college times four, which is a huge amount. And there are colleges in California that cost that. And so we need them to understand what it means cost, expense, and budget. And it can start very small and build as the item that they're about to purchase is going to cost more.

They'll start there. I think that might be a good suggestion. But tell me about the college cash. College cash. So back in the day when Twitter was pretty much the platform we all live on, I know we all live on Instagram sometimes and we live on reels and TikToks, college cash was the same kind of an IG live. I would have a guest and the guest would come on Twitter and we would do this by tweeting. And I would create a script and I would send out 10 questions to my guest and my guest would come up with three answers, which would be tweets. And then every Thursday at 5pm, we would get on Twitter at the same time and we would announce it, advertise it, and then we would all work together.

We did this for several years and it was fun because at the time that I do it and I still do it, now we would call it T G I T. Remember when that was popular? Thank God it's Thursday. Right. And we would cross pollinate. So the Twitter chats that were before me would visit me. We would do this on Twitter. We weren't doing this live. And then I would visit the Twitter chats after me. And so we all became friends and we would boost up our reach. And so that's where I started on social media and it was fun. Are you doing Instagram live events now? So I'm going to start. So this will be my first. Everyone gets to hear it now.

We are going to bring college cash to Instagram and we are going to be kicking off with fastest simplification. And so each week I'm going to go live and we are going to talk about the new changes and what's going to happen, how it's going to affect families. I'm going to have guests and we're going to have scenarios of what it's going to mean for the family because this is the biggest change. And I want everyone to have the truth and the facts about what it's going to mean for them for families who want to educate themselves on this process. That's going to be a great venue to tap into and it will be called college cash.

Same thing. And it'll be located on my college financial aid advisor's I G account open for everyone. I'll save it. I'll go ahead and save it on my YouTube channel, Jodi Yoken. And then that way we can all refer to the resources. There's new Congress legislation, new regulations and we want to have all of that language in a place where everyone can reference. If a family wants to work with your firm, when should they contact you and then what's that process look like? Great question. So I've been helping families for over 15 years. I have been working at a college for over 15 years. I also taught financial aid at UCC in Diego.

So I started helping families understand how to navigate the process. Most families contact me the spring of their students junior year in high school. And I begin the summer of their soon to be senior year. So we could talk about finances, college lists, get them all ready for applications to go live on October 1st, the CSS profile, and usually the FAFSA go live on October 1st. And then we submit together. I do not submit on your behalf. So we go line by line by line with every application and make sure that everything is in on time before early action, early decision and regular decision. And then we work through verification and we work through appeals, which also has changed for the new FAFSA and loans are part of the picture.

So they work with me and only me so that I can help them get the most amount of aid that they possibly can. Great. How was financial aid impacted by applying regular early action or early decision? Great question. You just got the best question today, man. So it's interesting. I know that I do not do admissions. I am just narrow financial aid. I know there's a lot of conversation out there of whether or not you should apply for financial aid for early decision. Will it hurt you? Do you need to be a full pay? There's all that conversation out there. But I must say that last this past year probably had 10 students.

Families were need families low middle income. And at big private schools on the East Coast, pretty big, not top 10 IVs, but right below they got aid. They were not full pay. They applied CSS FAFSA. And there was a pretty good amount of financial aid there. So apply, apply, apply. So my daughter, she wants to go to, I don't know, let's pick a school out of hat. You pick a school, random school. Let's pick three schools. Good idea. Okay. She wants to apply to Michigan, Berkeley, Tufts. Great. We got one from each different bucket there. Is should she be looking at applying early action or decision instead of regular just from a financial aid point of view?

Well, a financial aid point of view, you should always try to do what you what you love and what you want. And maybe what the admissions person, if you're working with a high school counselor or an independent on the admissions side is recommending for you. I'm a huge fan. Early decision, don't be afraid. If that's the school you can't live without, go for it. But talk to your admissions person. I mean, for financial aid, if you are need eligible, you will see money. Right. Okay. Early action. Love it. You know, that's when you get to know and you don't have to commit. So here in December, it's a beautiful thing.

You know, regular is regular. And if your student is not able or doesn't want to or not in the framework of early decision or early action and regular needs to be their, their home, then they you need to know that if they get in, they'll hear about their award in the spring. And I always say to my families, you're trying to collect yeses. You're trying to collect yeses and you're trying to collect financial aid award letters. So do everything you can to put yourself so you that student has choices, whether it's Berkeley, Michigan, or TES. You should families be aware of how financial aid is calculated differently at three universities, because the sticker price at Tufts is always going to be higher than it is at Berkeley, at least for a California resident.

But sometimes the financial aid awards can, can reverse that. Is that, is that correct? Or at least that's something that I am asked about a lot, or I hear that story from different families. Is that something that you see? Often, there's more an exception to the rule. So let's just take each school as an example. And we'll just call this section historically. So historically, we'll pick on UC Berkeley, love, love, love. If you live in California, you're going to pay a sticker price of 30K and change. And that is because you're a resident. If you live in California and you want to apply to University of Michigan, who plays like a private in financial aid, but is kind of a public, but plays like a private, they use the FAFSA, Free Application for Federal Student Aid, and the CSS Profile located on the College Board website.

They will only award students who live out of their state, California students, no money, because Michigan wants California students to pay full price to live in Michigan. And historically, they're not very generous with giving money to an extent. And then Tufts, I am never, not ever afraid of a private school. If a private school costs more money, then a family, maybe it's your family, will maybe get more money. And the goal should be that you get Tufts to equal UC Berkeley. You want to get a private school to try to be equal to your in-state public school. That, if you keep that in mind, that's where you're going to go.

Again, everything I'm saying today has a huge comma because we all know what expected family contribution is, or if you don't, and you're just tuning in, it's gone. And it's not happening anymore. And we have something new called Student Aid Index. And this week, every financial aid staff member in the United States is going to a conference from the Department of Ed to learn what Student Aid Index is and how it's going to help families and our more families going to qualify and how we can all wrap our heads around it. So that is sort of this unknown piece today. But when you're all listening to this time and time again later, maybe I'll get invited back more and then we can talk more about it.

Break the index down there. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But just to maybe to allay some anxieties, it is possible that a Tufts or a similar private university can come in and offer a price that is similar or at least comparable to a UC because I know that's a big anxiety for a lot of California families as it becomes, it seems each year more and more difficult for the California residents to at least get into the top UCs. Yes. More of them are seem to be being pushed to the less desirable UCs. Even though I still think they're great schools, it may not be somebody's top choice to go to UC Riverside, whereas they they are dying to go to Santa Barbara or UCLA or Berkeley.

For whatever reason, there does seem to be a lot of poll at those campuses to pull in the international and the out of state kids, probably because they pay a lot more intuition. So yeah, so I think our takeaway here is not to be afraid to have a healthy list and to make sure that you have those expensive privates, middle of the road privates, publics in your state, state schools, you know, I know, reach, target, all of that. Also on the fiscal side and know that if you've completed the applications and you need to talk to them about a change in circumstance, that that option is open and it's even open more with one of the new rules that every college in the United States is required now to read all special circumstances.

And so that's a brand new regulation. So that means if someone's financial circumstances change even midway through, say, the second year of their four years at a university, they have to at least read and consider this special circumstance that occurred for the family. That's correct. And there's two new ways of describing an appeal. One is a special circumstance, which is based on income and the regular way that we know about. And then now it's called unusual circumstance. So there's two different kinds of appeals. An unusual is maybe natural disaster or something a little bit more catastrophic.

So make sure that you're taking care of that because Congress has passed a lot more rules about the breakdown of how that has to happen. It's different than it was last year. Do you help families walk them through that process as well? I do. I feel very passionate. Obviously at the college I worked at. I granted appeals. I read appeals. I denied appeals. So I'm very comfortable with talking to families about, do you have an appeal? Here's how you do the appeal process, whether it's writing and or calling and emailing and how they can complete that with discussing with the financial aid office of the possible school that their student is going to attend.

Somebody asked me, I told them that you were coming on this podcast. And this family has own their own business. They have different real estate holdings, have a pretty healthy but complicated financial picture, a lot of assets. And they said, is there anything that they should look at or think about say a year before they're going to be applying just in terms of how they would position all of that besides maxing out the 529 college account? Is there just anything else they should do to pieces on the board? They can move around to just put themselves in the best position. Okay, let's we'll just take their tax return.

I don't know them. So we'll just talk a little bit about it. So I family out there. If you're listening today, if you own other homes and they're coming through on your schedule E on your tax return, they kind of count against you. If you own a small business and your small business has other real estate and you're filing a schedule 1120S or it's in the middle of a corporation or an S corp or a partnership, it's going to be looked at in a different way. Sometimes if you're an owner, you have control over it. Sometimes you're a partner, you don't. Anytime you own sort of other homes, it does count against you.

As far as structuring your small business, it's a good idea. And I am spending a lot of time talking about fast changes because it's changed. So as of today, your small business now does count on the free application of federal student aid. So you will have to report the value minus what you owe, which will be the assets that the college will now evaluate whether that asset is something they think that you can pay for college. As any company might do, you take it in income, you have expenses, and at the bottom line is sort of what you have. So make sure that you're taking that in a way that helps you get more financial aid.

Okay. So from a college point of view, they might say, well, hey, you could sell one of these rental properties you own to help finance this? Yeah. So definitely when you have rental properties sitting on your schedule, if you own for duplexes or two condos, and they're 100% thinking that you need to do that, whether it's reasonable or not. And we know that you may not be able to do that to do that to pay for college. Which makes sense because there are other people who don't have that. Right. Right. And they're trying to make sure everybody's paying their fair share and not gaining the system.

It's one of those things people do ask about it because right or wrong, the way tax law is written, accountants have jobs because they're really good at shifting things around to minimize attacks burden. And so a lot of folks think along those lines. So I think that that's a great point because CPAs, which I'm not, look at it one way, and the tax returns are one way. And why families start working with me in the spring or the summer is because it's before they maybe did their taxes and colleges look at it another way. That's what they get to do. And so if you can do things to plan like you're saying, then it's a great time to, if you want to reach out to me or whoever and find out what are they going to look at, what's going to count against me and what's not.

And so people who consult like I do, we will take a look at that and kind of give you a broad idea if we can. Yeah, what I'm getting from this is that it's a lot like college admissions questions or what score do I need on the ACT to get into ex school. The answer is usually it depends. And we need to get into the specifics of each individual situation to really give specific answers. Exactly. And I think that I have to say, I'm slightly nervous, you know, with new FAFSA because everyone is a lot of in any industry, there are people who give out information of what they think and they're sort of sometimes cookie cutter kind of responses.

But the changes that are going to happen are going to be very individualized for each family. So I recommend to everyone who's listening today, just make sure you're talking to someone who knows how it can only help you and your family. This is the time where you put your blinders on your head down and do your process for your family because that's how different things are right now. Well, one question that came up, Darren Finks, I don't know if you two in the in the past ever cross paths, but he used to be the Dean of Admissions at Harvey Mudd and we had a conversation we were covering everything under the college admissions umbrella and we had taken a bunch of questions by email ahead of time because I knew he was coming on and someone had asked, they said, my and granted, I want to put a disclaimer here, this was not a college financial aid advisor, it was just their financial advisor, had told this family, hey, what you should do is take any available cash you have and a year ahead of time, make a loan to your business and it will be hidden and not count against you in the financial aid process.

And Darren's take on that was he said, well, not in any school I've ever worked at, he said, if you have to fill out the CSS, then that will become apparent when they read through all of your documentation and that is an effort to gain the system that may not be looked upon favorably and his advice was, hey, you shouldn't just be taking advice from any financial advisor, especially if they don't do college advice on a regular basis. Which is exactly what we're saying, we're saying that the IRS, the CPAs and accountants have a set of criteria that they have to do and financial aid staff members have a different set of criteria that they look at.

And so they are looking at value of the home, value of the business assets in the business. So if there are things, and I'm sure this is what you're saying, if there are things in a place that increase your assets, then that might not be the right thing to do for that family at that time. My suggestion is we're always leading with this question. The question says it's on the FAFSA and the CSS profile. As of today, what do you have in your cash checking and savings? And it also says that about assets. As of today, what do you have in your cash checking and savings and now business, small business, especially?

What do you have in your cash checking and savings? And so the family's goal is to knowing that you might be submitting on October 17th or you might be submitting on October 20th is to spend some time how you're going to have the lowest number that you can on that day. That makes sense. It sounds like a lot of your clients are on the East Coast in different pockets around the country. And I was really curious on the story of building that business. So it started locally in Long Beach, but then what happened from there? Great question. I love to tell my beginning story. I actually started in Seal Beach, you know, second act deciding what to do.

So I'm sort of that person who loves to balance a checkbook, the numbers girl, the treasurer or the auditor. So what I did was I called up the director of Occidental College, Maureen. And I said, Hey, Maureen, I'm going to be in the neighborhood, not in the neighborhood, live in Seal Beach, that school's in Pasadena. And I'm just wondering, you know, I'm taking your class or UCLA class on financial aid. And I thought maybe we could meet for coffee. And I went up and had coffee with her and said, I'd really love to work for you. And I'm thinking that we really need to bridge the gap. There's a lot of parents and families out there that don't understand about financial aid.

And I'm thinking of starting a company where I can help families privately. And I'm wondering if you would hire me. And she said, yes. And so I drove up to Occidental for 14 years. And in the meantime, I also helped families privately consulting. And then I also spent two years at Pitzer working as their financial aid staff member director while someone went on to leave VapSense. And the whole time I started in Seal Beach, families would tell their aunt, their brother, their sister, and then their sister moved to New York. And then that person told someone in New York. And then she had an aunt who lived in New Jersey.

And then the next thing you know, I went on social media and just started really working the social media aspect of my company. And I met Discover on Twitter and became their brand ambassador and started going to do radio shows and podcasts and interviews in New York and desk sites with them. And really just began building the brand. But the whole time knowing that the roots were as a staff member of who's analyzing? What do they see? What are they thinking? And how does that affect the family? When a family says to me, what are they going to think when they read my application? I can say to them, I know what they're going to think because I'm one of them.

And so that's kind of my little story. I wrote a book. Didn't really know I was going to write a book and have to rewrite it. Now you say rewrite it because everything just changed. Yeah, everything just changed. So there'll be a second edition. Oh, nice. How did the social media presence grow? Mostly it was Twitter. And my philosophy about Twitter and social media was I didn't necessarily have to hang out with my industry professionals because the key to it was to hang out with the social media influencer whose kids were going to college or who had kids. So then they would talk to me. In fact, I met Brian on Twitter.

Brian worked for the Wall Street Journal. He had a hundred thousand followers on Twitter. Brian approached me and said, Oh my gosh, my son's going to college. Can you help me? I said, sure, I can help you. Can you retweet? Right. And so, you know, we would get to this whole thing of this whole group of people who we would support each other and then they had students and then I would help them with financial aid. And so that's how the following grew. And it was, think about that. That's marketing 101 and Twitter's free. So I was tweeting and Brian retweeted and said, Oh my gosh, you know, my son's going to college.

And I said, Oh my gosh, you know, do you have any questions? And then I went, I had family in New York. So I went to New York and then all my friends that I met on Twitter, I invited them out to drinks or dinner and then met them in real life. And then they introduced me to more people. And so that's what happens when you bring social media to real life. You and I met on social media or through a connection. That's how social media really can help a company build a brand. I feel strong that bringing it to real life, like you and I are actually sitting in the same room. That's when it's meaningful.

I really like that bringing social media into real life. So if somebody is starting a brand new company or they have an existing company and they want to increase their online presence, what advice would you have for them? Yeah, at this moment in time, I think that it definitely is the same. You for sure need to comment. You for sure need to go to accounts that are in your industry, not in your industry, but also like accounts. So let's just use Instagram now because Instagram is definitely the way we should be handling our day. If I am talking to moms or parent or someone who has a mom meme or someone who has a dad meme or someone who does funny dad chat, that's another person I met on Twitter, a dad chat.

Those are the things where you start to build relationships with. And then if you can get the relationships outside of social media to know that there's no like and trust, I am normal. I have a nervous laugh, but let's support each other and then get back on and build relationships. And our goal is to help whoever we can. Oh, that's excellent. Now, I believe I heard on a different podcast you were on because I listened to a couple of them in preparation for this interview. You had mentioned that you read social media for Demes, which I thought was really interesting because when I went through business school a number of years ago, there was a corporate finance class that everyone knew it was the most difficult class on campus.

And I asked a student who was about to graduate, I said, how did you get through that class? You didn't have a finance background. What was the secret? And he almost said it in hushed tones. He was like, I'm telling you, you're not going to believe me. But the key to the class, he's like, read corporate finance for Demes before you take this. He's like, it will put it in language you can understand. And you will have this basis of understanding that will make everything easy in the class. I was very skeptical, but I followed his advice. And I found the class to be fairly easy after having struggled through everything in that book ahead of time.

I couldn't believe the quality that was in this for dummy's book. It was the first one I had ever read. They covered high level stuff, but made it very, very easy to grasp. And so do you still recommend that book for social media? So I didn't want to tell that story. I thought, maybe I should tell a different story because that is truly what happened. So my daughter was going to the East Coast for school. Do I drop names? Sure. She was going to Boston University. And so I thought, okay, well, I got all those hours. So I bought the book, I read it all the way there, I cried all the way home, I read the book all the way home and started it.

That is exactly how I did it. It was social media for dummies. I read the whole thing. It really helped. I had a little hard time in the beginning about finding my tone and finding my voice. And sometimes I lose it a little bit on social media because you grow and you expand and your family gets older and stuff. But finding your tone and finding your voice and just starting conversations. And that is what social media for dummies really taught me aside from the mechanics. And I always refer back to it. That is a true story. That's great. That's great. So Instagram is where you would go today. Yeah.

So I guess you can hear it right here right now. So right now, I'm definitely a prep kind of girl. Like I'm not going to go live without taking a few things. Video is certainly I'm a little bit, you know, we mentioned to my second act. So it's not as easy for me. But I'm for sure doing it. That's where it's going to happen. Definitely stories, reels. It's we're moments away. The only reason it's probably not happening today is because I'm sitting here in Seal Beach and it's a lovely day. And I'm thinking of another excuse of why not to do it. But it's going to be there. And I love it. And I think all we have to do is just be ourselves and talk and come from a true place.

And you know, our goal is just to help families and whatever we can do to get that going and pass on good resources. You're an amazing resource. And make sure that our families have good resources that they can tap into. How long are those pieces going to be on Instagram? Are you thinking like short form? I'll do short form reels for a while. Definitely stories. And then I'm going to pick just a time probably like I'll go with the kickoff of college cash, you know, Thursdays at five and find the sweet spot for my audience. And then if I have a guest, I'll go ahead and keep the guest on for a little less than an hour.

I think an hour is tough, but 50, 45 minutes. I'm going to have some of the really well known financial gurus out there talking about the stats. I'm more of the person who's telling the stories and the essentials. And I'm I want to give everyone stats and regulation talk, but in that form, and they do a great job of that. So I'll invite them. I have a lot of directors from financial aid colleges that I in touch with. And so I want them to be coming in and talking about their perspective. So that's kind of how it's going to roll out. I don't want anyone on my side to go out before the conferences are over.

So the conferences are going to be winding down. Everyone's very busy learning. Their heads are going to explode soon. And so we want to make sure we have the right information that we can tell families. Now you wrote for a while for Huffington Post on financial aid. How did that come about? What was that journey like? It's so interesting. Twitter is 100%. And I don't know who's listening to this. And maybe whether you learned it or know it. But you know, back in the day, that was where there was a lot of social going on. And I met Huffington Post on Twitter. I met Huffington Post. I met about.com.

I met entrepreneur, Wall Street Journal. A lot of the reporters, if you Google my name and a reporter, most people I've met on Twitter and it's just no like and trust. And so Huffington Post found me, they approached and asked if I would write for them. And they have a very unique system at the time. You had to write a certain amount of articles. You had to have a certain amount of links in them. You had to post them on your own. And then it is like an influencer. You do get paid for that. It was a great opportunity. And Huffington Post was fun. It was fun. And that led me to about.com. And then that led me to discover.

And that was probably where my media training kicked off. Discover. Found. Do you want to hear this story? Yeah. Okay, this is an interesting story. So discover is an umbrella. They have three departments. The student loan mortgages, credit card, they'll discover has a PR. They found me on Twitter and said, Hey, we'd love to talk to you. We'd like to find out more about you. And we have an idea. And so we got on the phone and they had this idea. They had never hired anyone as a cover girl or an influencer. And this was their first time. And so they were going to pitch the PR of discover to the student loan department.

We like to get Jodi to do this. And we're thinking, she'll be a trailblazer. And I was. And it was great. And it was fun. They taught me a lot. And I flew to New York a lot. And we did a lot of stuff there. And then after a while, they just didn't need it. And they really haven't had anyone since. So it was a really great experience. And that really helped my social media because there was a lot of press there. Right. Now is Twitter. I don't want to say I'm not feeling it. Yeah. Yeah. It's not what it once was. It just not what it once was. It's not. It was fun. I mean, I don't know about you, but I think Instagram's fun.

Right. I think reels are fun. I think TikTok's fun. I just don't think that I can talk about financial aid and be heard above all the other things that are on Twitter. That's all. Yeah. That's all I have to say about it. I can't be heard. And it's not the place where people are going anymore. Right. So I want to be where families are. And my friends are. Yeah. It feels like a much more hostile environment than it used to be. Somebody is upset about anything that's written on there. And almost the entertainment of it for a number of people is giving whoever wrote something a hard time about what they wrote.

Whereas I don't get that impression from say Instagram, like you said. Exactly. And I don't want to be a part of that anymore in Twitter. You know, I don't, there's a lot of hostility like you said. And we're just trying to inform. So what's find a place where it's welcoming and it's easy. And it's maybe more visual where you can see me smile or not smile or drink coffee or whatever it is. Jodie, as we bring this home, any critical tips for families who are in the middle of the process of applying for financial aid. I always lead with this with the families that I work with or pretty much anyone.

I want everyone from today on to help financial aid staff members get the information they need from you in a timely fashion and to be as sweet as any kind of candy that you have to them from this point on that you're hearing the podcast because they have a really tough road ahead of them. And there's going to be a lot of change and they are probably been doing their job maybe 25 years and the FAFSA hasn't changed for 40 years. So when you're talking to a staff member or when you're reaching out to a college as your day, I have a question and just a lot lead with a lot of patience because this is going to be a hard year for everyone.

And when you listen to this 10 years ago now, you might remember this, but we really want you to sort of dial into that. And we're all looking out for the best interest of your student. And we are team you. So know that anything we do, it's on behalf of what we can do to make the next step in your child's life the best. I mean, I think that's always good advice, probably especially so through the next year or two, as everyone gets used to this new system that does beg the question, should families be reaching out to if I'm applying to 10 schools or my son or daughter is should they be talking to somebody in the financial aid offices of those 10 schools to get more information?

Is that necessary? Is that a good idea? I don't think you need to be talking to the schools now. I recommend to families who are listening attend as many financial aid nights that you can attend as many open sessions of anything that you can gather information, gather it with a grain of salt, and then see how it applies to your unique situation. Only reach out to the colleges where you really think that your student is going to attend. So if there's 30 schools on the list or 10 schools on the list, top three, top five, just because I think that's kindness also, they're really not going to go there.

Let's talk to the people where they're really going to go to. So I would recommend that. Okay, well, I know you have a super busy day today, and you've got this whole Instagram real new project to launch. It sounds like starting today. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you here and talk to you about business and social media and college financial aid. And I hope we can do it again some time and help each other as both of these shows and enterprises grow. I want to say thanks for coming in. Thank you so much for inviting me. I really, like I said, everyone who's listening, I drove over because I really wanted to be here.

I think that's a great, you know, for you guys to hear two people that are in the same room. And I'm just going to say for now, hey, you want to be a guest on my Instagram live show when it gets started. I would love to. Okay, see you guys here. You heard it first. So thank you very much. Thank you everyone for listening. I really appreciate it. It's been so much fun. Thank you. And you know, Jody, I'm going to add one last little thing that I have picked up over the course of this chat, which is that you are full of good little ideas and tips that can help people in other areas of their life, talking to your kids about financial literacy or connect social media to real life.

I mean, those are just good tips for everybody, no matter what they're doing, what their goals are, be kind to the financial aid offices or anybody that you're asking for information or a favor from. I really do appreciate that about you. I have an excellent day and we will talk soon. All right. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Nick Standlea podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, like and comment. The best way to support this podcast is to visit our sponsors in the description. Have an excellent day.