Starting this fall (Editor's note: This article originally posted in 2016), students will be able to file the famously complex Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for financial aid months earlier using older tax data. This year for the first time the FAFSA will open in October instead of January... read more →
Sep
16
Sep
01
The Ohio State University sees record numbers…again! Last year at this time, we were writing about the record high average ACT scores for incoming Ohio State Main Campus freshmen (28.9 in 2015). Guess what…the newest OSU class of freshmen has surpassed that record yet AGAIN. What’s the new number? 29.2!... read more →
Jun
17
The numbers are staggering... $1.3 trillion – total outstanding student loan debt in America 38 million – number of Americans with student loan debt $37,172 - The amount the average college graduate (of the class of 2011) owed in college loans. 7 million – number of borrowers currently in default... read more →
Jun
10
Capstone is honored to be presenting a guest blog from our friend Wendy Nelson author of the website MyKidsCollegeChoice.com and the Full Scholarship List “Can my kid get a full-ride merit scholarship?” That’s a question I set out to answer about a year after starting the mykidscollegechoice.com website. I started... read more →
Jun
02
FERPA…sounds like a weird noise doesn’t it? Like FERPA…oh, excuse me! But FERPA stands for Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 and is a federal law protecting the privacy rights of students. What comes as a surprise to parents is how a parent’s access to information suddenly and... read more →
May
20
Teachers…we depend on them. We trust them with our children, and their place in society is vitally important. We all know the starting salary of a teacher does not reflect their importance. People drawn to teaching must use every advantage they can get when it comes to paying for an... read more →
May
13
Last week we celebrated national Teacher Appreciation week. So for all the teachers reading this blog, thank you and we hope you got your free burrito at Chipotle. We appreciate the work you do every week and every day. Choosing to be an educator is not a profession you enter... read more →
Apr
30
Read the paper this morning? The news was not good…“Ohio No. 45 in College Affordability”. What does this mean? Ohio families have the hardest time paying for public colleges and universities—only 5 states had worse college affordability rankings. Ohio is one of the least affordable states in the US! How... read more →
Apr
01
At Capstone, our advisors sit with families every day to discuss their unique situations. One of the things we love about good financial planning is there is no one size fits all cookie cutter solutions. Solutions are highly personalized based on your goals and your resources. Sometimes we have a... read more →
Feb
19
529 plans have become the most popular college savings vehicle in America, and for good reason. They offer tax deferred growth of your investments, and as long as they are utilized for higher education, your distributions are tax-free as well. It doesn’t get much better than that. Before the existence... read more →