Know What College Will Really Cost
Learn how to evaluate the true financial fit of every school on your student's list.
The Dean's Desk serves upper-middle-class parents of high school students who aren't in a position to pay a $75K annual tuition bill without sacrificing everything they worked for.
I help them assess the financial fit of every school on their student's list before they apply, so they have clarity instead of hoping for a miracle.
I'm Christina Lopez, former Dean of Enrollment Management at Barnard College. I spent 20 years working inside college admissions and financial aid, not just making admissions decisions and chairing committees, but building the enrollment models that determined how much each incoming class would cost. I know exactly how schools think about financial aid, which means I can show you how they'll think about your family. You still decide where your student applies. You just get to decide with real numbers instead of assumptions.
Let me teach you how the financial aid machine works.
Most Families Discover the Real Cost of College Too Late
I’ve seen this story play out too many times: Your student researches schools, falls in love with a campus, applies, gets in. And then the financial aid offer arrives.
For many middle-income families, that offer is often a shock.
Most college planning advice focuses on admissions — essays, test scores, extracurriculars. Financial fit is treated as an afterthought, something families figure out when the offers arrive. By then, you're either having painful conversations about schools your family can't afford, or making risky financial decisions to avoid that conversation altogether.
It's not that families aren't doing their research. It's that the system for evaluating college costs is confusing, inconsistent from school to school, and nobody teaches you how to truly understand it.
The Dean's Desk closes that gap by providing parents with a proven framework to assess the true cost of every school on your student's list, before your student applies.
Built for Upper Middle-Income Families in the Financial Aid "Donut Hole"
This is for you if:
• You have a college-bound high school student
• You've run a net price calculator and aren't sure you trust the number
• You have financial complexity: home equity, business income, divorced parents, rental properties, significant investments, or retirement contributions
• You want to evaluate financial fit proactively, not react to aid offers in April
You earn too much to qualify for significant need-based aid, but you're not positioned to casually absorb $300,000+ of college costs across four years. You want your student to have great options. You also want to know what those options will actually cost your family, while there's still time to adjust the list.
College is one of the biggest financial commitments your family will make. Most families evaluate it with incomplete information and discover the real numbers too late to change course.
The Dean's Desk gives you the complete picture so you can choose confidently.