Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome everybody. Today we are really fortunate to be joined by a financial expert, a college funding financial expert, named Brad Baldrige, who is going to help us fill in some gaps that I know I have in my legal knowledge, and I know Lynn and I have talked about this on multiple occasions how in the heck do you deal with college financial planning in the midst of a divorce or after you're already separated? Financial planning in the midst of a divorce or after you're already separated? Those are really important questions, I know, for the kids, because they're worried about it for sure, and so are the parents, and so Brad is going to help us learn about that and come up with some, I think, some great advice for parents of all different types on how to deal with the college planning. So, brad, welcome, and could you introduce yourself for us and tell us who you are?

Speaker 2: 0:47

Sure Again. My name is Brad Baldrige. I work with a lot of families in what I call late-stage college planning. In other words, you've got a high school kid and you're trying to figure it all out, and I also have a podcast and all kinds of great resources on my website. So this is something I've been working on for years and it's something that I think that, especially when we, as we get into some of these areas like divorce, where there's a lot that can be done but people just don't know about it so they don't do them, and it's, I think it's important that you know, especially where parents are getting along, that you know nobody likes separation and that kind of stuff, but you need to. If you can cooperate, it can make a huge difference in the overall process.

Speaker 1: 1:35

Yeah, definitely, and the website that he's referring to is taming the high cost of college, dot com, and we will have links to his website and also to his podcast in the show notes so y'all can find that there and go learn even more about what brad has to teach. So, linda, this is something that I know you've heard a lot about over the years this issue of college planning and just parents fighting about it and kids being stuck in the middle.

Speaker 3: 2:02

Yes, the children are frequently quite concerned and it can start earlier in high school than you might imagine. Most of them, I think in the junior year, are already starting to fill out college apps and so forth. We used to wait until senior year at least, or sometimes the second semester of senior year, to do all that, but it's not happening that late for most people these days and the children are quite concerned and it affects their relationship with each of the parents also, depending on what that parent's telling them. So I think, like the rest of our podcasts at our academy, it's around what Brad just said it's letting people know some wonderful options and ways to communicate about this.

Speaker 1: 2:50

And so, brad, let's pretend for the moment that we have an idyllic separation situation where the parents can't get along enough to be married, but they're still able to put their child's best interests first and to communicate with each other about things like college financial planning. What would you? How would you start to talk with parents who are coming to you saying, hey, we're getting separated, we have a child who's going to be going to college in X number of years. What should we be doing? And I'm sure that is a loaded and incomprehensible question, but what would you think?

Speaker 2: 3:30

Right. So I think a good way to get your head around college planning is there's a lot of college planning that everybody has to do, right. So there's the stuff that the parents kind of do by themselves, which is should we be saving and investing for college? How much are we willing to spend on college? Will we get need based aid and merit aid? And you know again, a lot of times the financial side of college is very much in the parents to do list. And then the students, of course, hopefully figure out what they want to be when they grow up and they're going to write the essays, hopefully, and do the college applications and that kind of stuff. And then there's the stuff that you do together, which is maybe test planning, scholarship planning, choosing a school, school visits and that type of thing, and so all of that stuff happens for everybody.

Speaker 2: 4:24

But then, on top of that, if you're divorced and separated, you've got an extra layer of things that need to be worked out. Like well, who's actually going to be on the financial aid forms when we go and do visits? Are we going to work together and go as a family? Are we, you know, is just mom or just dad going to go on visits, who's going to pay for college and how was that going to fit into that? Was that part of the agreement when we were, you know, assuming the divorce is final and everything? Was that discussed when we were working on this stuff, or was it just ignored where we stand and all that?

Speaker 2: 5:02

So there's that extra stuff and there's a lot of other things as well. Right, if you're a business owner, there's additional complexity. If you have a student athlete, there's additional complexity. If you've got a rock star student that might go to the highly elite schools, there's some additional complexity. So there's other things too and you might have that and divorce. So when you talk about in the biggest picture of college planning, like I said, there's a core everybody does, but then there's these extra things that come along, and divorce and or separation is one of the big ones.

Speaker 1: 5:37

So, of the things that you've mentioned already talking, which one do you think is most helpful to get parents sort of into this conversation, to help them get grounded in terms of the terms and things that they're going to need to know as we get into more complicated parts?

Speaker 2: 5:54

right. Yeah, so I think one of the big areas is, like I said, the finances. So one big piece of that puzzle is the financial aid forms and the FAFSA. I think that's one of the things that most families are, you know, at least vaguely aware of and they start thinking about well, who's going to fill that out? And there's actually big changes coming through on the FAFSA, effective for this fall, where now it used to be the parent that filled out the FAFSA was whoever the student stayed with the most in the previous 12 months, now it's going to be whoever provided the most support.

Speaker 2: 6:31

Now, in a lot of families that's a distinction without a difference. It's the same person either way. But again, if we're in a situation where we're about to be divorced, or maybe we're not even separated yet, maybe we're still living in the same household and we're just starting the process, there's a huge planning opportunity for families to say, well, which parent do we want to be on the farm? And then, based on that, how do we do placement and whatever, so that that's in fact who will be on the farm or should be on the farm. Again, sometimes you want to have the lower income parent or that type of thing. So I've had situations where, because the income is drastically different once they're separated, we were able to get much more need-based aid by doing some good planning. Now, much more need-based aid doesn't make up usually for the financial hit that typically happens when you're separated, because now you've got two households and two places to live and a lot. You know there's a lot more expenses, but at least college is a little more friendly.

Speaker 1: 7:38

As an example, Well that's a really fascinating scenario there. So, with this change in the FAFSA, so the parent who provides the most support in the 12-month period prior? Is it 12-month period or is it the tax year prior?

Speaker 2: 7:56

I believe it's going to be tax year prior, but that's the kind of stuff that's still kind of up in the air as to what, when we get into the nitty-gritty details, it's not real clear.

Speaker 1: 8:11

And how would you determine that who provided the most support? That's a good question. I can't answer. Linda, linda, hitting with the real question.

Speaker 2: 8:16

So I mean, here's the right. So here's the reality, right? So family lives in chicago. They get separated, dad moves, moves to Texas, it's pretty clear. And he's not paying child support and they don't know where he is. It's pretty clear, Mom, it's mom all the way Right. Where it gets a little gray is again, you know we're, we're still living, you know we're both in the same neighborhood and the student sleeps wherever it's convenient. And you know, a lot of times it doesn't matter what the agreements have said. The student actually says well, mom's house is real close to school. I can walk to school from her house. It's convenient as a 17 year old for me to sleep there and it's like and most parents are like we don't see the kids anymore.

Speaker 1: 9:01

Anyway, it doesn't really matter where they sleep.

Speaker 2: 9:04

In the end, they're off doing their own thing at the school and it's whatever works, much more than whatever we agreed to when they were 10 and 7. That's the reality and, of course, how that factors into the financial aid, and that's where, again, another important point of all this is you need to start planning a little bit earlier. You mentioned, I think, that in a lot of cases, people start thinking about college, you know, in their senior year, and the reality is they need to be thinking about it in their sophomore year.

Speaker 3: 9:38

Exactly.

Speaker 2: 9:39

Again, as an example, when you fill out your FAFSA, you use what's called prior prior year.

Speaker 2: 9:46

So if you, if we have a student that's starting college in 2024. That would be A rising junior right now Because they're Excuse me a rising senior right now because they'd be graduating at roughly a year from now. The rising senior right now, because they'd be graduating roughly a year from now, they're going to be filling out the FAFSA this fall, based on 2022 taxes. So if they're going to start college in 24, you're going to do the FAFSA in 23, and it's going to be based on 2022 taxes. So if we wanted to change those taxes, we would have had to do that planning a long time ago, because 2022 is already done. So right now we could impact 2023 and 2024 taxes. So now we we could actually impact juniors and sophomores, and I think that's where a lot of people need to understand that if you start planning now, you maybe can, and the reason we care about your taxes is that they're your taxes that are reported on the FAFSA and that flows through and it determines how much aid you might receive.

Speaker 1: 11:07

Yeah, and as the father of an 18 year old who not too long ago completed FAFSA forms, you actually can have it pulled directly from the IRS, your tax information to show you how intricately connected the two systems are.

Speaker 2: 11:13

Right, exactly, and that's where, again, it gets a little more complicated, and especially the divorced and separated. There's rules and there's changing, so it's going to be even more complicated as far as how it all works. Changing so it's going to be even more complicated as far as how it all works. But again, there's a great planning opportunity around whose income and that type of thing. And with these recent changes, another important thing I think for your listeners to pay attention to is, with these recent changes, child support is going to be treated differently. Where it used to be considered income going to be treated differently. Where it used to be considered income when it came into the whoever was filling out the FAFSA, it's going to be switched and it'll be considered an asset instead, which is actually beneficial.

Speaker 2: 11:53

So there's some families out there that, because of child support, maybe they didn't qualify for as much aid. Well, the formulas are different now, so they may qualify. So there's a lot of families out there. Just in general, I think that might say well, our freshman year we didn't get anything, so we're not even going to try anymore. Well, I think that's a bad idea. I think you need to continue to try because again the rules have changed. So you either need to understand the rules and do the math yourself to confirm that you're not going to get it, or just go ahead and apply and see, because again things have changed. So what happened last year is not necessarily going to be the same this year that's an excellent suggestion.

Speaker 3: 12:34

I don't think most people would have ever thought of that right, exactly, and because of these changes.

Speaker 2: 12:41

one of the big changes is child support. So families that have received child support are going to see bigger changes year over year than other families and business owners as well, and there's a couple other categories where things that might change pretty dramatically with the new system compared to the old.

Speaker 1: 12:59

That change in child support allocation to being an asset as opposed to income actually makes a lot of sense when you think about how the courts think of child support, because, for example, in Oklahoma and in most other places I'm aware of, each month when that child support is due, it becomes an individual debt that's owing at that time that could be collected on, and so that debt is something that is in the nature of an asset as opposed to income. So it sounds like the federal government's finally kind of getting on track with how the states have been treating child support obligations all along, right, I didn't realize that all along.

Speaker 3: 13:34

That's interesting.

Speaker 2: 13:36

Yeah, right, and again, it's just something else that gets factored in the formula and it can make a huge difference or no difference whatsoever. Another interesting change is with the new FAFSA there's what I would call an AGI test, where they download your you know, they link up to your taxes and they look at your income and if your income is below a certain amount based on the size of your family, then you may automatically qualify for the maximum Pell and get really good financial aid situation. And that target is somewhere between 60,000, well, even lower, so maybe 40,000, up to about 60 or 70,000. Well, again, in a divorce situation, a lot of times with only one income, it's a lot easier to be under those type of income numbers and they don't count.

Speaker 2: 14:31

Child support doesn't count as income anymore, it counts as an asset. So that's not part of the process. So they look at your AGI and if you're below these numbers then the magic happens. So that's another reason why you may want to pick one parent over the other because of that test. And if that test happens, then they don't even look at your assets. So a lot of times in the situation of a divorce, that's the other opportunity is who owns the house, compared to who owns the investments and who owns the retirement and who owns the college savings plans. All of those things have an impact on not just on family finances, but also on financial aid.

Speaker 1: 15:18

So I have a few questions, if I could, from what you said just a minute ago. So you said the word Pell. For the people who don't know what you're referring to, could you tell us what that is Right?

Speaker 2: 15:28

So a Pell Grant is the main grant that the federal government issues. It's currently about $7,395 is the maximum currently and that ticks up every year. So there were you know, I had to guess maybe 7,800 coming up in this next school year, maybe more or less. We wait to see what the budget says. But that is a free money. It does not have to be paid back. In the past it was a little tougher to get that pal. Now, with these new rules, there's a lot of families out there that will again surprise. You get it now because you qualify under the rules, and divorced families are some of those families. I think that will get that type of surprise.

Speaker 1: 16:19

That's great Because of the way the system works and you mentioned various types of investments or areas in which a person may own property, so 401ks, roth IRAs versus an expensive car that they own outright or land or a house, outright or land or a house. Does the FAFSA process look at those different types of assets differently or?

Speaker 2: 16:48

are they all treated the same? Yeah well, they fall into two, I guess, basic categories. One is it counts, and then every dollar that's there is added onto the pile or it doesn't count. So, as an example, things that don't count would be retirement assets. So your 401ks and IRAs are not considered an asset. You don't report them. Another category would be your home and your home equity of your primary residence. They don't count, and for a lot of families, that's a big chunk of your wealth. What does count? Well, a lot of the other things, like business ownership now counts. That's a change. It used to be that small businesses didn't count, now they will. Another big area would be college savings plans, so the various college programs that might be saved would be reported. Investments, money in the bank, that's not retirement related. So your mutual funds, your stocks, your bonds, your CDs, and then anything exotic here your Bitcoin, your oil wells, that kind of stuff would also probably be reported.

Speaker 1: 17:58

Linda's Bitcoin empire would come into play at that point.

Speaker 2: 18:01

Yes, exactly.

Speaker 3: 18:03

You forgot my all well, right.

Speaker 2: 18:07

And then the shift of in a divorce and separated situation, if only one parent is on the form, then that parent's assets count. So you could theoretically say, well, all the counted assets will give to the parent that's not on the form, then that parent's assets count. So you could theoretically say, well, all the counted assets we'll give to the parent that's not on the form and all the non-counted assets we'll put to the other parent. So when we're dividing it, we'll divide it a little differently than we would have otherwise. Now, of course, you always have to balance. This works great for college, but now I don't have any money to live on. Doesn't work right. So you have to factor in taxes, factor in how are we going to pay our bills and everything else as well. But again, if you like, as spouses that trust each other, you're probably better off to put the college savings in the other spouse's name, so that they're not considered an asset when it comes time to-.

Speaker 3: 18:56

Do we know any parents that trust each other that much?

Speaker 2: 18:59

Well, a lot of parents do not all, obviously, um, and I think there's a, there might be a little bit of a bias where, a lot of times, the parents that do trust each other and are more amicable, don't, you know? Don't go to the lawyers as much, so you know, we don't, we don't see the ones that are getting along, cause they don't need you.

Speaker 1: 19:21

Especially Linda. Yeah, so there's this self-selection bias for sure. In what?

Speaker 3: 19:25

we're dealing with. I'm just happy to hear that there are people like that.

Speaker 2: 19:29

Oh, I've had a number of families that I've worked with over the years that literally say we're part of the divorce process is college and we want you to maximize college and we'll do whatever you know. So we factor all in right, we need to still be able to live and you know both of us need to be able to afford our house and that kind of stuff. But in addition to that, we want to maximize college, we want to max. You know. Whatever we can do is so that that has the least impact on the kids.

Speaker 1: 19:59

So at what point, in terms of income, do they start caring about assets?

Speaker 2: 20:08

Again, if you're over that line, so a family of two, once you're over 45,000, then you start reporting the assets. A family of six, then the number I was looking working with I think it was 72,000. Because it's based on poverty guidelines and poverty guidelines are based on the number of people in the family and you know, so it's. It's relatively complicated, but to work that out, I've got a calculator on my website that helps estimate what's called SAI, or Student Aid Index, used to be called EFC. So a lot of people are familiar with the EFC calculator or expected family contribution. But there's essentially a calculator on my website where you can calculate how much aid you might expect based on your situation, and then you can kind of play with it and say, okay, well, when, when do these assets come into play? And what if I have less assets or more income or and all that kind of stuff?

Speaker 1: 21:06

That's fantastic. And so again, that website is Tammy and the high cost of collegecom, and there's a resources tab where I believe is where you would go for that. Yes, the. So to give us a little bit of a sneak preview before they go and they use that resource at what level of asset would it start to be the case that it would affect the amount of aid that you could get, or whether or not you could get a Pell Grant?

Speaker 2: 21:34

So right. So essentially there's a kind of a two-pronged test. So the first test is is your AGI below this target number? If the answer is yes, you're done. They're not going to look at your assets, even if it's a million dollars, okay. If the answer is no, then they're going to require you to fill out the assets and then every asset you have that counts. Again, 401ks aren't going to count, but if every countable asset, every dollar you have there, will give you slightly less aid until it eventually just kind of slips away.

Speaker 2: 22:10

It's just kind of like taxes, right? Every dollar you earn, a portion goes to taxes. Well, now it'll be every dollar you earn, or every dollar you have you get slightly less aid until the aid gets to be insignificant relative to the cost of college. So there is no magic number where people say if I cross this line, everything blows up. It generally doesn't work that way. It's like every thousand dollars you earn, you get a little less aid, you pay a little more taxes. It's like every thousand dollars you earn, you get a little less aid, you pay a little more taxes. And every dollar you have in investments, same thing. When it comes to financial aid, my Pell Grant might have been set. I might have gotten the full Pell Grant, but because I have a thousand dollars more than I did now, my Pell Grant goes down by $20. If.

Speaker 1: 23:02

I had put another thousand on the pile, it goes down by another $20. Parents who pay or receive child support that'll seem kind of familiar to them because usually the child support calculators work about the same Every dollar that you make, you're paying a percentage towards this or that and the numbers go up and down. I heard you say with the 529 plans that now they are counted assets and so if a parent is wanting to, if you're going to pick one of two parents to be the person who does the FAFSA, then if they trusted each other, then it may be best that their income is going to be high enough so that they start to look at assets to have the 529 and the other parent, because they could still use the 529 to assist with the college payments but it won't be counted for the FAFSA and reducing their loans or grants they could get. Is that accurate?

Speaker 2: 23:51

That is accurate, right, and that the key there is the trust right I got. I've worked with a family recently where mom what I say is mom is holding the college bag. In other words, dad is kind of out of the picture, in that they're not real sure if dad is willing to help or not. And he's, you know again, they weren't getting along. So it wasn't clear. Dad owned all the 529s and she's like well, how do I make him use that for college? And it's like you can't. Dad owns the 529s, it's his money. He can do whatever he wants with it. You can spend it on college. He could take it out and take it to Vegas. He'd have to pay taxes and penalties, but he could do that. It's his money. You have no control over it unless there's some overriding agreement. You know again, talk to you know a normal 529, whoever owns it decides what to do with it. So that's real interesting.

Speaker 3: 24:49

Do those factor in in the divorce? I don't think I've ever read a divorce decree that mentioned anything like that.

Speaker 2: 24:55

Well, yes, and I think that's one of the things, probably for a different podcast but I think there is a kind of a bigger issue around. The kids are adults, but a lot of stuff now bleeds into our child's adulthood. That seemed in the past didn't matter as much. But then you know health care. You can be on somebody else's health college at age 26. Did we agree who was going to deal with that now or then, or should you know? That's something we can go back and fight about later. That's the other challenge with divorce, I think, is we didn't talk about college, and I think sometimes, when attorneys give that advice, in my opinion that might be bad advice Because essentially that's what you're saying is, if we don't do anything about it now, then you're just going to have to fight about it later, and that might be the right answer. Answer, because it's hard enough to get a divorce done with the limited stuff that's going on sometimes, where you say we put college on there, it gets way too complicated, so we're just going to leave it out.

Speaker 1: 25:57

Your two examples, the healthcare and the 529 plan, I can see how they're connected. I can also see them being treated separately and a divorce decree. So, for example, since the 529 is property, it's going to be handled in the property and debt portions as opposed to the customization and child support. And I could see negotiating for a provision that most parents, in my experience at the time of the divorce, aren't really thinking about. They're they're not really that concerned about it, especially if the kids are younger. Divorce aren't really thinking about. They're not really that concerned about it, especially if the kids are younger.

Speaker 1: 26:29

But to say that the 529 funds in existence as of the time of the entry of the decree shall be used for their originally intended purpose, which is for the payment of college for children, and then identify the children, I could see that, as opposed to having a provision about who in some uncertain future is going to be providing the health care when someone's finances may drastically change and it's not already a lump sum that already exists in somebody's account. So I can see them being treated differentially. But I think that's great advice about the 529 and that's language that I think needs to start being entered into these decrees you know, to use for the stated purpose for these specific children. Because I imagine if a parent got remarried, had additional children or adopted a child, yes and men then start divvying up those funds for those other kids as well yes, exactly, and again, it's their money, unless otherwise stated somewhere.

Speaker 2: 27:28

But yeah, so the health care. There's other examples, right? So if you pay for college for one of your dependents, then you're allowed to take a twenty five hundred dollar tax deduction, assuming you spend four thousand dollars. Well, whose dependent is a 20 year old college student?

Speaker 1: 27:47

Is that?

Speaker 2: 27:48

clear when you look at the divorce decree and you know and again, you can intentionally fill out some forms that say we agree that this person is not going back and forth based on filling out a form, but both parents can't claim the same student. So when someone says, well, I'm going to claim the oldest and you're going to claim the youngest, well, when we get to college, there's real consequences to that. What if the oldest is the only one that goes to college? Then whoever claims that person gets a bunch of tax deductions and whoever claims the younger doesn't get any tax deductions because there's no college.

Speaker 2: 28:30

But, like I said, because parenting used to end at 18, but it doesn't really anymore, I think there needs to be some update from, even if the divorce decree says some very basic things like we intend this divorce decree to not have any impact over age 18. And it's there and it's clear, because when I read them and I'm working with families, it's just really not clear in the, in the paperwork. So then I guess it defaults to state statute or something you know. So maybe you're the attorneys understand. But what if neither one of us want to pay for health care for a 22-year-old? Can we both say we're not doing it.

Speaker 1: 29:14

Probably yeah, short answer yes, so, like in Oklahoma for example, the court loses jurisdiction over custody and visitation entirely at age 18. And the court loses jurisdiction over child support at the age of 20 if a child hasn't yet graduated from high school. If they have graduated from high school, then whenever they graduated from high school and have also achieved the age of 18. So that's when the courts say in Oklahoma at least you know, we have nothing to do with them anymore. And also I can imagine a judge saying I'm happy to order whatever it is that you guys want to work together to order, but I can't put any years as the new adult child is making decisions themselves, right?

Speaker 3: 30:14

exactly, but they would want health care, probably, and they would want somebody to help them pay for college. So, you know, those two things would seemingly go together and it seems like whoever is providing the health care for that young adult would probably get the bitties in terms of the tax reduction.

Speaker 2: 30:35

Yes, unless you fill out the form that handed it off to the other parent. And sometimes that makes a lot of sense because the other parent needs the tax deductions, because they pay a lot of taxes. And that's where the planning comes in. If we do it this way, we save taxes but cost us financial aid. If we do it that way, it saves taxes and financial aid and it works the best. But and the rules change.

Speaker 2: 30:58

So that's the other challenge, of course, is you can't agree to something now that you know it may not work 10 years from now, so it needs to have some flexibility potentially. So I think that's where, again in a contentious situation, some attorneys tell people don't put anything in writing, because then you got to do it. If we don't put it in writing, then you're not obligated to it. That's, I think, pretty simplistic advice, because it's also then not clear, and then when you get there, you're not obligated to do anything. So then you have to fight about it or litigate it again or whatever, to ultimately figure it out, whereas maybe there's some standard language that might just be.

Speaker 2: 31:39

This is what our intent is with the and put some outs in it if you need it. You know, I don't want to be obligated to pay for college if I'm not still a surgeon making millions. You know, if I'm disabled I get out of this or whatever right. But then it gets complicated. How much do you want to spend with the lawyers? So I see the problems. I don't necessarily know what the solutions are at this point.

Speaker 1: 32:02

Well, I was about to say we need a Brad Baldrige uniform, provisions for child tuition and healthcare to be distributed nationwide, because it's already over my head Thinking of all the possible permutations and and you know, and you're right about the cost of litigation. If you try to do things that are really aspirational but to get murky with changed circumstances and potential change in legislation, then it's going to inevitably cause some litigation with people who are high conflict where the fees regarding the litigation would probably overwhelm any benefit from even the best financial planning.

Speaker 2: 32:46

Right, absolutely, and I think that right. So I think goal number one is just get along and you know, and keep score if you need to, and try and make it fair, whatever that means.

Speaker 1: 32:59

I love all that Right I mean.

Speaker 2: 33:01

But I think that's the challenge, and but there are opportunities and it does get complicated, All right. Well, Linda, I can't think of a better way than to end this podcast with Brad's the challenge, but there are opportunities and it does get complicated, All right.

Speaker 1: 33:08

Well, Linda, I can't think of a better way than to end this podcast with Brad's rule one. I mean, I think that should be rule one for everybody, and of course then you and I would be out of a job, so I'm not sure I like that rule one.

Speaker 3: 33:19

Well, that's kind of the way our Cuphead Academy is let's just get along. Yeah, exactly, let's just get along.

Speaker 1: 33:24

Yeah, exactly that could be boiled down into that. Well, that does it for today's episode. Brad is going to join us for next week and next week we're going to get into some more of the nitty gritty detail about how to deal with your college financial planning and divorce or separation context based on the age of your child. You know, maybe you're sitting there going, oh my gosh, my kid's already in college. We're getting divorced or separated and we've done no planning because we've been fighting for the last five years, or, you know, a younger age. We'll go down through some of those ages. And then there's some other special circumstances that Brad mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, talking about, you know, the student athlete or the exceptional student. You know the student athlete or the exceptional student. We'll get into some of those details as well. So thank you very much for joining us today. Come back next week for more of this. I mean, I'm just fascinated conversation with Brad, as we're learning all sorts of things that I know I did wrong. So we'll see you next week.

Speaker 3: 34:21

Bye.

Speaker 2: 34:22

Disclosures. The information provided to you today is for educational purposes only. It is not intended to be specific recommendations or advice. Please consult with a qualified professional before acting on any of this material. Investing involves risk. Depending on the types of investments, there may be varying degrees of risk. Investors should be prepared to bear loss, including total loss of principal.

Speaker 2: 34:46

529 College Savings Plan Disclosures. Investors should carefully consider investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. This information and other important information are contained in the Fund Perspectives, summary Perspectives and the 529 Product Program Description. These documents can be obtained from a financial professional or directly from the plan's website. Please read them carefully before investing. Depending on your state of residence, there may be an in-state plan that offers tax and other benefits, which may include financial aid, scholarship funds and protection from creditors. Before investing in any state's 529 plan, investors should consult a tax professional. If withdrawals from 529 plans are used for purposes other than qualified education, the withdrawal could be subject to a 10% federal tax penalty, state penalties, federal income tax and state income tax.

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Brad Baldrige's Disclosures. Brad Baldrige is a registered investment representative with Cambridge Investment Research. Securities are offered through Cambridge Investment Research Inc. A broker dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC, brad Baldrige is also an investment advisor representative with Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, a registered investment advisor. Baldrige Wealth Management and Baldrige College Solutions are affiliated. Cambridge and the Baldrige Companies are not affiliated. The registered branch location is at 10521 West Layton Avenue, suite 200, greenfield, wisconsin, 53228.