A Letter from the Director

Welcome, and thank you for visiting our web site. You should pat yourselves on the back for taking the first step toward making college an affordable reality.

Unfortunately, there are many questions and the prospects of facing the maze of admissions and financial aid can be daunting and puzzling.

So, where do you look for the answers, to figure out how the pieces of the puzzle fit together? Right here! Six years ago I saw the need for a comprehensive college and financial aid planning service to assist financial clients. Through a great deal of research, networking and study, a process was developed to guide families and students through the confusing world of college and financial aid planning.

Following our plan insures that the right things are done, in the right way, at the right time to maximize both the educational opportunities for the student and financial assistance for the family. The service was so well received that Campus Financial became a necessity.

Today’s aggressive college environment, with colleges and universities competing to meet their bottom line or attain brighter, larger or more diverse student population, has caused the financial aid and the admissions processes to become more and more entwined in order to facilitate this shift toward "enrollment management." Increasing amounts of financial assistance are finding their way to middle and upper-income families. Yet at the same time, the rationale for this “strategic packaging” becomes more and more evasive. So how does a family figure it all out, and figure it all out quickly?

The secret to this need for "extreme college planning" is simply two words.

The first is "process." The major challenge in college planning today is not finding information. We're drowning in it. The challenge is rather what to do with it once you've got it. How do you manage that information, bring a focus to it and make it meaningful to your student? How do you use it to make good educational and financial decisions? The answer--process.

The second is "involvement." You must be involved--involved in the process, involved in every aspect of the process. You cannot afford to let the system take its own course. There are too many variables and too little information flowing between families and colleges. You have to be involved to insure that everything goes according to design. The basic principle to effective college planning is--involvement.

An "involved process" then is the key to your success. This involved process encompasses exploration and discovery, shopping and analysis, facilitation and negotiation.

Our program is designed to provide families with the basic knowledge necessary to understand the complexities college admissions and financial aid. Today you begin the process and get involved. With your dedication and our assistance, college will be an affordable reality and educational dreams will be fulfilled.

Thomas M. Leahy, III AAMS