Justin and Jim Duncombe talk College Bound Strategies on Expert Talk

Expert Talk is sponsored by PodNation TV, the Podcast to Broadcast Network. Hey everybody, welcome to the show. You know where you are Expert Talk with me TGo and you know, I love bringing experts to the screen, to the screen. You know, I love introducing you, the people that are doing amazing things. And today we've got a Father and Son and they're doing fantastic things in their business.

We're going to talk about that a little bit, cause we're really here to talk about their book. And if you're like me, see, I've got grandsons growing up and I'm already there, you know, 2, 6 and 15 going on 30, and I'm already worried about college. They're going to answer a little bit of that. So if you're thinking about what's next for your kids and their professional career,

you want to sit right there. We'll be right back. Hey, welcome back. Yeah. You heard me, right. We're going to talk about college strategies. You know, if you're trying to get your kid to go to college in the first place, and then you're trying to figure out community college all the way up to Harvard and you're going,

wait a minute. I can't do Harvard. I can't afford that. We might have the right people no change that. I know we have the right people in the place that it can explain how maybe you can do that. I'm all ears. I want to know from my grandsons today, Justin and Jim Duncombe are here and were gonna talk to them y'all out there and what's happening.

What's going on. What's going on with you? You know, we had the opportunity to meet a couple of weeks ago and you guys told me some amazing things about tuition. I explained to you that I have a grandson that's 15 going on 30 and he's a basketball phenom. And you guys said, that's nice, but how's his grades. And I went,

ah, interesting. So if you are a student and you're not an athlete, or if you're an athlete and you're a great student, does it matter? Yeah, it matters a lot because if you look at the way, colleges are distributing money, basketball is going to be what we call a unique ability. You can think about basketball, football scholarships hockey's are actually a bit better.

And so what, what they're looking at as a one-year scholarship and these coaches, they have a bucket of money, but there's other money within the school too. And that money is accessible if the student has good grades. So imagine if you got a coach, he's got a certain amount of money he can give out on unique ability. And he'd like to give that kid a full scholarship and can only afford a half.

He could probably pull another half from another part of the departments because this kid's got great grades. He's done a lot of stuff in the community. He's helped out with charity. He's done a whole bunch of different stuff. He or she, and it matters a lot. It gives them a leg up. So how do you find out about this? You know,

of course, now that I know you guys, I'm going to just call you, but if you're someone just watching the show going, man, my daughter is a freshman. My daughter is a junior. You know, my son is a senior. Maybe it's too late. Maybe I should've known this before. Where do you go? Here's a great segue to bring up your book because where do you go to find out about this great information?

Well, it's great that you mentioned that cause you go to College Bound Strategies right here. And in this book, we talk about all the processes involved in going to college, whether it's, well, the first place you got to start off is should you even go to college? What are the right schools? The school options, education options for you because you have things.

Everything from vocational degrees, technical degrees, certifications all the way up through community college and college and all these things can give very positive educations and very successful educations depending on what you want to do. So the book really starts there, goes through the application process, then goes to the financial aid process. And for anybody who is talking about, you know,

well, should I have known this? Am I too late? No one should really be kicking themselves because most school districts don't put this information together in a way that's easy to understand. And I don't blame the school district for that at all, because most of them actually do try, but we don't have a lot of financial experts, a lot of financial aid specs experts within the school districts.

So that's really why this book was created because we work with schools and school districts around half the country about how this process works, how you marry with what your counselors doing, what your high school teachers are doing and what you're trying to do and bring it all together. And we found that a lot of them didn't have the connection between selection and application to financial aid.

So that's really where the book came from. Huh? Okay. So I grew up as an only child and my parents, you know, they had steady income and they were told, you know, luckily I was planning on going in the Navy anyway, but they were told, you know, they made too much money for certain programs and not enough money,

you know, to be able to pay straight out. So it was like send it to, you know, some kind of a skilled program or something, or maybe she should just, you know, get a job. And I'm like, well, I'm going into the Navy. Anyway. What about people? Is it only a certain segment of people or can almost everybody find some kind of assistance?

That's a great question. And that actually comes down to a combination of what type of schools you're choosing and what education options does a student give themselves. So if you have a very intelligent student in terms of great grades, great test scores has the numbers and the letters behind their name that indicate that they have the qualifications to go to these schools. Then you give yourself a lot more options.

If you don't have those things that you don't quite as have as many options. So still where you're coming from is that's pretty correct. If you're talking about a state school, you're talking about in-state out-of-state state schools, the way you characterized it is exactly correct. You need to have a very low income to qualify for a lot of help. And if you have a lot more than a fair amount,

more than that, not even that much, that you don't qualify for much of anything, but it also depends On how many kids are going to school at the same time. It depends on how many family members you had. If your a sandwich family. So you've got grandparents living in a house you're dependent on you as well, all that counts against helping them to get more financial aid.

So you just can't discount those things. And if you're in a divorced family, very common in our country today, right over half, half, the people have been divorced. So if you look at that number, then you take a look at the spouse that has the least amount of income, at least amount of assets. Yeah. So when you add those things together and you look at,

go from state schools, let's introduce private schools, let's say you have an income of a hundred thousand dollars or so, and you have a kid that's trying to go to a Harvard or a Johns Hopkins or a Brown. You're talking about an annual price between eight and $15,000. So suddenly it's more affordable, but we're introducing an entirely different type of school than just a state school.

Okay. Okay. I understand that. So I got a question for Jim now, because you mentioned something a little bit ago that you know, the sports programs, you know, they have a bunch of money, but they also have to put that money out in a lot of different ways. But when you're an athlete, especially when you're a superstar athlete,

you know, it's the rumor mill, it's pretty much true. You know, you're the cheerleader or your best friend is doing your homework. You're not really, you know, you'd majoring in basket weaving or whatever, because you're told, Hey man, you're going to play football. You're going to play basketball. How important is it for them one to be doing their own work,

to, to be getting decent grades, to kind of supplement what they're getting out of being selected for this particular team and what happens if they get hurt and their freshman year, their year, God forbid what happens then? Do they just get kicked out of the school? Well, and in fact, have a unique ability, just a pure NCAA sports con contribution.

Yeah, you bet there is cause there's three, there's three financial aid. There's need-based is driven by your income and your assets. There's merit. What you earned by getting your test scores and your, your community involvement and those kinds of things. I mean, if you're a boy scout, it gives you a gold star for girl Scouts that really gives you a major leg up.

So it's so important for these kids to understand that. And, and it's true. I, I'm an old couple of professional athletes who that did happen to, and one of them also their son and yeah, when they finished up, all of a sudden their scholarship was gone. Now, all of a sudden they're playing book, full boat for college and it's a big shock to them.

And it puts them in a course. I know one of them had a job out because they couldn't afford it. So if you can get test scores and you can get all those other things, it shows a well-rounded person. Because keep in mind if you're an athlete, how long has your athletic career outside of Tom Brady? How long has your athletic career really going to last?

Right. If you're going to get some, maybe your mid thirties, right. And so, yeah. Think about what am I going to do next? So to give you to give you a quick, a couple of examples, okay. The highest or the highest net worth former pro player is actually a former NBA player. And this is the last I heard.

So maybe Michael Jordan or, or King James beat him out by now. But it was actually a guy who only played, I think one or two games. And he was on the bench, but he took the money. He made an investment in a bunch of Wendy's franchises, ended up owning a ton of them, selling them all off, made himself hundreds of millions of dollars.

So this is a guy who was big enough to play in on the biggest stages, but he made most of his wealth doing stuff off the court. You look at, I recently watched a documentary on Tom Brady and those six quarterbacks that were drafted in front of him. That motivated Brady to be so good. And you look at these guys now they're they're energy traders.

They're coaches. One guy lives in the middle of nowhere and he's a hermit with no TV and says he's a yoga exercising farmer. So these were guys who were drafted higher up than Tom Brady. And that's what they're doing now. So even if you are a incredibly, highly rated athlete, a highly drafted athlete, you never know where you might be when that career ends.

So you have to be prepared for that. Wow, okay. So I've got, I know we're going to have to go to break in a little bit, but I've got one question for you. Actually. I probably have two. And one of the questions that I have is when is it too late? When is it that, you know, is it when you've graduated high school,

forget about it. You miss the window, you can no longer apply for this, you know, programs or anything like that. Or do you have to start, you know, like some Ivy league, you know, kindergartens, you're applying when you're pregnant to get in by the time they're four or five years old. So if you haven't started working on this by fifth or sixth grade,

forget about it. They can't get it. When is it too late? So it's too late when the deadlines for that year have passed. So for instance, let's say you want to go to one of these expensive private schools, then what you're going to be dealing with the schools is there deadlines for financial aid. And that's what we're talking about. So for most schools,

the states have a deadline for the FAFSA, which is the first financial aid application you need to do. And that deadline is in March. Okay. You have a deadline for a separate application called the CSS profile. And only certain schools use that one. That's that profile is done through the college board and they set their own deadlines. The schools do through college board of when they want it.

It can be an October, November, December, even if you've missed a deadline though, you can often times still do that application late and they'll still accept it. But you also have to understand that the financial aid process kind of works like an African watering hole. I wouldn't mean by that is we've all seen the documentaries. When the rains come and all the animals come out and everything's green and it looks great.

And then that dark music comes in and the African hole is watering holes dried up, and the lions are waiting around the hyenas. And you got that one moment, zebra coming for the drink. And they're all going to pounce on them, essentially. It is like they determine how much money they're going to have that year for financial aid. And so the first animals that come get the biggest drink.

And if you wait and it's all dried up, then even if you have a need, it's not available. So the earlier in the year that you do it, October, November, December, you're better off, but let's say you have a kid in school already. You're one or two years in every single year. You need to do these applications.

So even if you missed your one or two, you can still do here three or four we're, we're just now starting the application process now. So if you have a kid in there right now and you haven't done this before, you can still do it. Wow. Okay. Before we go to break, tell people how they can find your book.

So the best place to find the book. If you want to buy it directly as Amazon Barnes and Nobles, lulu.com, anywhere books can be found online. If you want more information about the book, you can go to CollegeBoundStrategies.com and that'll have direct links to where you can buy it. Okay. That's awesome. All right, we're going to go to break.

And when we come back, we're talking about how you can help your kids get into college. We're going to talk about the program a little bit more. I've got to ask questions because you know, God rest my father's soul, but there's no way we could work together. You know, there's no way every day. So we're going to talk about how they balance being family and working together.

But I also want to ask, you know, Jim and Justin, what, how important is once you get in what kind of programs you actually go to school for? Because there's a lot of people that have college degrees and lots of student loans and they're working jobs they could have had without even going to college. So sit right there. We'll be right back.

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We look forward to working with you. Hey, welcome back. And we're talking with Justin and Jim Duncombe and we're talking about college programs. How the heck do you pay for it? And, but my question is, okay, you pay for it. Your kid goes, maybe you're going yourself. You go through four or average five years, according to Jim to graduate from a program,

then what? Hey, you guys, you're still out there. Okay. So how important is it, you know, to pick the right program, to go to college for, and not just be able to put a piece of paper on a wall And I'll start off with me. Cause when I went to school back in the stone age, you know,

if you got a degree that was important. I mean, most of us were first generations right? Going to college. So a lot of places, in fact, when I did recruiting for a firm for engineers, you had guys with physics degrees, even math degrees, and they're doing computer programming, or he had some guy just in business degrees doing computer programming.

They had a degree, they got accepted. They were seen as achieving something today. That ball game is totally different. Justin had a wholley, a totally different experience than I did. Tell me a little about your experience. So these days when you're looking at coming out of college, you know, even I went to school a few years ago now,

but it's, it's getting even more pronounced in this direction is you really need to have a degree that is oriented towards what you're going to do in your career field. So gone are the days where you can get a philosophy degree. You sent me. I was pretending that, you know, back in his day, I think they used to have a hammer and chisel when they're writing their essays.

I wasn't so bad. Of course we were still taught handwriting. I understand they don't teach handwriting getting more so They don't teach it anymore. So, but these days you really have to have an education based around what you're going to do. Gone are the days you could have a philosophy degree and, you know, go into sales or something like that.

You have a lot of people these days that get educations in humanities, you know, all these different gender studies, social sciences, and that isn't to say that those studies are bad. That's not what we're saying at all. The problem though is you don't have a lot of businesses that are going to hire you and pay you a living wage that is going to pay for the education that you got based on those careers.

When there's hundreds of thousands of people out there that have educations that are far more tuned to what those businesses are doing these days, you have 4,500 degrees at some of these schools. So why would they pick somebody that isn't really qualified on a subject when they can pick a bunch of people that are, so these days you don't really have to pick something that really does apply.

And in some cases that isn't even to a degree anymore, computer programming, robotics, computer engineering, computer, structural engineering, for all of the selections of how you build server farms, the heat management, all that kind of stuff, not just the programming in psychics, we're actually looking for certifications. So yeah. Yeah. So I've got, that brings up another question that we didn't even discuss,

but it just popped in my head. What if you did go and get a social subject kind of degree or psychology or sociology or whatever, and how you want to get into computer programming, you want to get into social media. You want to get into hotel management, we're in Vegas. So maybe you want to be in hotel management. Are there programs that help you pay?

If you want to go back for a second degree, There are. And the issue is though, once you got a bachelor's degree, a lot of other scholarships and things aren't available to you, but there's a lot of certifications you can get add on top of. I mean, when I got my degree and to pick out my bachelor's and my master's and I got a number of certifications of financial planning.

So there's other certifications you can pick up in those categories and people that choose social sciences and stuff, it's fine. I mean, there's some great careers there. They help the communities a lot, but you just have to understand that if I'm going to go in those fields, I got to realize the income I'm going to make may not be able to put the bill that I've accrued.

So you really might decide on your strategy being maybe want to go to the community college first or the state school and figure my way around and then have a lower cost live at home. You know, it really depends on what your strategy is going to be in what your finances are going to look like. I certainly wasn't going to a hundred, $200,000 worth of debt if I were looking at being a teacher or somebody in social sciences.

Yeah. But for the people that already did do it, you know, there are apprenticeship programs, there are assistance programs. And for the most part, these programs are not that expensive. My brother actually had an interesting story a couple of years ago, but a guy used to be a long haul trucker. He has now a programmer for Microsoft so that what he did in his spare time,

as he did coding, he got, he did basic certifications, which don't cost that much. And he worked his butt off to be able to build this skill to the point where now he's even written books on coding, but this is not something that requires a huge amount of money. It depends on what you're going to do. Some things do require huge amounts of money to get into,

but other things really don't. So that's a much more varied question, but it's better if you know, if you already have this degree and you're looking at, look at certifications first, they're going to be more attainable, more affordable. Whereas if you're going back to school, it will be more expensive. But we, one of our people we worked with a few years ago,

the guy was a stock trader on wall street. And then he went back and got his degree as a doctor. The guy's now a pediatric doctor in Vegas actually, but it used to be a stock trader. So, you know, even if you are going to go back and do take out the debt, make sure it's going to be for something that can pay it off.

eople may be watching this in: 2024

You still wear a mask and a lot of places mandated. And I want to ask you, you know, people have found themselves, they didn't plan on working together as a family, but they needed to survive. And it's like, well, you know, dad's not bringing in other people. So, you know, Billy's going to come and work with Dad now in,

in the shop and Billy's going, oh God, no, that's not going to happen. How did you guys end up working together? And how do you make it work so smoothly? I give you a hard time, but you guys are really good together. I didn't know I'm the Daddy he does what I say no, it's he actually got going. So I've been in the business going on 20 years now.

And Justin graduated just about 10 years ago now, just about that. And when he got to school, he was supposed to follow a couple other careers. He was gonna go maybe play some baseball or was going to go in the Air Force and things didn't work out that way. And when he graduated in economics at a Brandeis University, he came and worked really with my wife's company that was really helping students have counselors to help them find the schools to go to and do the application process.

But he did the presentations that this book came from. And based on that, a lot of financial advisors that we presented with kept saying, you know, you're really good at this. You ought to join the practice. And, and finally he said, Dad, you know, I really like it. I like what you did. We had some family experience where a friend of mine passed away and he got to experience how great it was to help this family.

I mean, that's part of what we do. Right. And, and he said, I'd really think I like to follow this career. So that's how we joined the practice. And in our practice did it, he's got certain tasks. He does that. He's better at, than I am. And I focus on other things that I'm better at.

So we got kind of a synergistic relationship that way. I mean, do we have, you know, anytime you have conflicts a little bit, we work them out pretty well. You know, we have office in Arizona, too. We traveled back and forth to California. And on the way over we had conversations about where are practices going? What do we want to do to grow it?

And, and those kinds of things are great. I mean, when you have an adult child, who's now your partner and you have adult conversations, it's frankly, it's fun. You know, I wouldn't turn it off at all. Okay. Well, I want to thank you guys for coming and hanging out with me for a bit. Let's give the people that are listening and not watching one more time,

the website of where they can find the book. And then I want everybody to know that, you know, you guys understand finance, you understand retirement, you understand all of that. We decided that we were going to focus on, you know, college and the programs that you have in your book. But I hope you'll come back and we'll dig into the other side.

You know, if you're practicing, cause there's a lot of people out there that don't have a clue how to plan for their retirement. I'm not good with figures. So exactly. How do they find your book? So go to CollegeBoundStrategies.com. You can click on it right here. And a college bound strategies will link you directly to wherever books are sold,

Amazon Barnes and Noble it's available in print and digital. I understand it's actually carried on Amazon prime, which is pretty cool. So CollegeBoundStrategies.com, Amazon Barnes and Noble, anywhere books are sold. I really do hope you'll be able to come back and we'll talk about the other side of your practice that can help, you know, knucklehead people like me,

you know, the boomers that thought, yeah, I don't have to worry about that. I got plenty of time. And then I looked up and I'm, you know, two months out from being 58. What I might want to do something about that. I'm just saying, so I thank you for being on the show. I hope you guys will come back soon. Anytime.

Hey everybody. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Hey everybody. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you'll come back next time. And as always I'm TGo I'll talk to you next time.