“I stress the 10-year repayment schedule. Because the idea of going to college and taking out student loans as part of the equation is not to be in debt till you’re 60,” Messinger says. “The only solutions that have made any progress with the government is to stretch your loans out to 25 years or 30 years. Who wins in that scenario? What we know as financial planners, is [lenders] just collected three times the amount of interest.”

The idea is for students to graduate on time with manageable debt that can be paid off by the time they are 32 so they are in a good position to “start their lives,” he adds.

The problem for families is that they don’t understand the total cost of college and what they can afford, Messinger says. “Every day we’re tasking 17-year-olds who maybe never even had a job with making the largest investment of their life—in education.”

Big Mistakes In Shopping For Schools

“We suggest the way we shop for college in this country is all wrong,” Messinger tells advisors.

Most parents take their kids in their junior year of high school, often on spring break, to look at colleges. “Maybe they go to Chapel Hill, Penn, Vanderbilt. … They are beautiful, intoxicating. College admissions officers are really good at their job, and it’s not that hard; they’ve got a great product. The marketing budgets of these schools are out of this world.”

Students apply in the fall of their senior year, and then the acceptance letters start coming in, usually before parents know whether they can afford to send their kids to the schools to which they’ve gotten in.

Instead, Capstone encourages parents to consider what they can afford when their child is a freshman or sophomore in high school. “We suggest instead of taking a 16- or 17-year-old impressionable person to walk foot on these campuses, let’s start this college money conversation first. … Let’s set a budget for colleges before we go look at colleges. Let’s figure out what we have. And No. 2, let’s establish what student loan debt should be at graduation, what is manageable.”

Capstone’s College Money Process

The first thing Capstone does is talk with parents alone to get them on the same page. “Mom might say, ‘I worked through school. I worked part time. It took me six years,’” Messinger says. “Dad says, ‘Mine was all paid for. I didn’t take out any loans and I’d like to do that for our kids.’ That is a very different perspective.”