You’ve got an Admissions Strategy.
Now Build Your Financial Fit Strategy.
A three-week live course for parents of high school students, taught by a former Dean of Enrollment Management at Barnard College. Two evening sessions per week, recordings available, 4-5 hours total per week. You'll leave knowing how to evaluate every school on your student's list for net price, merit positioning, and aid strategy, before a single application gets submitted.
The April Surprise No One Warns You About
If you have a high school student, you've probably had this thought: How are people actually affording this? What am I missing that everyone else seems to know?
Every year, thousands of families go through the same painful cycle. Their student applies to schools the family hopes they can afford, gets in, falls in love, and then the financial aid offer arrives. It's a number they can't afford. Times four.
By April, the leverage is gone. The emotional attachments are made. The conversation isn't about choosing strategically. It's about taking something away. To avoid breaking their child's heart, families take on massive debt, setting up financial strain that follows them for years.
This happens because the financial aid system is genuinely complex. Each school calculates your cost differently. Net price calculators vary wildly in quality. Merit aid follows patterns most families don't know to look for. Your home equity, business income, divorce, retirement contributions, or rental property can shift your number by tens of thousands of dollars depending on which school you're looking at.
And almost nobody explains this to you in plain language until April, when the offers come in and it's too late to change course.
Financial Aid is Complicated.
But It Doesn't Have to Be a Mystery.
Learn How College Pricing Actually Works
From Someone Who's Sat on the Other Side of the Desk
This is not a how-to-fill-out-the-FAFSA course. It's not a scholarship-hunting course. It's the course I wish every parent had access to before they started building their student's college list.
I spent 20 years inside college enrollment management, including eleven years at Barnard College, where I served as Dean of Enrollment Management, and five years at NYU. I built financial aid budgets. I sat on the scholarship committees. I know what strategies schools are using when they send out an offer, and I'm going to teach you how the system works so you can make better decisions before your student applies.
I built the College Financial Fit Framework™ to teach you how the system works, structured around the path you're already walking with your student:
Search. Apply. Decide.
What You’ll Learn Inside the College Financial Fit Framework
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By the end of Week 1, you'll:
Understand how colleges actually think about pricing and financial aid strategy
Know why two similar schools can quote your family wildly different numbers
Be able to read the data colleges publish about their own financial aid behavior
Have a clear-eyed view of every school currently on your student's list
You'll never look at a school's financial aid page the same way again.
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By the end of Week 2, you'll:
Know whether the net price calculator numbers you've been working from are trustworthy for your family
Understand whether your specific complexity (home equity, business income, divorce or separation) makes those numbers unreliable
Have a real four-year college budget your family can live with, in writing
Have categorized every school on your student's list as a financial safety, stretch, or reach against that number
Most families never build this number until April. You'll have it before applications go out.
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By the end of Week 3, you'll:
Understand what borrowing actually costs your family long term, including the new federal Parent PLUS caps
Be able to read any aid offer with confidence, knowing exactly what's free money and what's debt in disguise
Know when an aid appeal is worth pursuing, how to write one that gives you the best chance of a better offer, and what realistic expectations look like if approved
Have language for the money conversation with your student, the one most families never figure out how to have
You'll be ready to make the final decision together with data, not emotion.
What You’ll Gain From This Course
✅ A real four-year college budget your family can live with, in writing, before applications go out.
✅A college list where every school is categorized against that budget. No more hoping schools will turn out to be affordable.
✅A clear-eyed view of how colleges actually decide what to charge your family, so the system stops feeling like a black box.
✅The ability to read any school's published financial aid data and know within minutes whether they're realistic for your student.
✅Confidence in the net price calculator numbers you're working from, or clarity about exactly what to do when those numbers aren't reliable.
✅The skill to read a real financial aid offer with confidence, to know when an appeal is worth pursuing, and how to write one that gives you the best chance of a better offer.
✅Language for the money conversation with your student, so it doesn't have to wait until April.
✅Confidence that you're not missing the thing that changes everything. You'll know what to look for, what to ask, and how to spot the things most families don't realize they should be checking.
This course is for you if:
✅You have a college-bound high school student. Juniors and rising seniors get the most immediate value, but families with sophomores and freshmen will leave with a head start most families never get.
✅Your household income puts you outside the range for significant need-based aid, but college sticker prices feel impossible.
✅You've heard terms like 'CSS Profile,' 'methodology,' 'merit aid,' or 'discount rate' and you're not 100% sure what they mean.
✅You want to make financially informed decisions before applications are submitted, not after the decision letters arrive
This course is NOT for you if:
⛔You want help with FAFSA or CSS Profile form completion.
⛔You're looking for scholarship lists or application strategy
⛔You want one-on-one consulting on your specific family's situation.
⛔Your student is already a senior with applications submitted
The College Financial Fit Framework
The Founding Cohort is limited to only 50 people and starts July 2026.
Full Price - $1497
Founding Cohort Price: $897
Founding members lock in the lowest price this program will ever have.
Enrollment is now open!
Course begins July 21st
Tues/Thurs at 8PM ET (all sessions will be recorded)
Week 1 - July 21 & 23
Week 2 - July 28 & 30
Week 3 - August 4 &6
What's included:
• Three weeks, live on Zoom. Two 90-minute evening sessions per week, with Q&A built into every session.
• The College Financial Fit Workbook™ — the tool I built to walk families through the framework on their own student's list. Includes:
A home equity reference database covering 100+ CSS Profile schools, with a built-in calculator that estimates how much of your home equity each school would assess.
A college comparison organizer that tracks NPC results for up to 30 schools and automatically calculates net price, remaining family cost, and adjustments for outdated NPC data.
A risk assessment guide that flags which schools on your list have automatic high-risk triggers (divorce, business income, home equity, outdated data).
• Meeting style, small-cohort format so you can ask questions in real time.
• Pre-work delivered one week before the first session - The Financial Aid Foundations PDF and short, recorded video modules that gets everyone speaking the same language. So if you've never heard of the SAI or the difference between FAFSA and CSS Profile, you'll be caught up before we start.
• All sessions recorded. Replays available within 24 hours so you can rewatch or catch up if you miss one.
• Companion materials: the Common Data Set Cheat Sheet and the course glossary.
Your Instructor
Christina Lopez spent 20 years in college admissions and enrollment management, including 11 years at Barnard College where she progressed from Associate Director to Dean of Enrollment Management. She chaired admission committees, signed admit letters, and set institutional financial aid strategy, balancing a $70 million financial aid budget against the college's revenue goals.
She built The Dean's Desk for high-earning professionals and business owners caught in the financial aid donut hole - earning too much for need-based aid, but facing college costs that have grown far beyond what most families can comfortably carry for four years.
Frequently Asked Questions
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The founding cohort begins in July 21st. Courses will be taught live on zoom on Tuesday and Thursday at 8PM ET. All sessions will be recorded and sent to participants within 24 hours.
Week 1 - July 21 & 23,
Week 2 - July 28 & 30
Week 3 - August 4 & 6
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Two evenings, 90-minute live sessions per week, for three weeks (so six sessions total).
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Every teaching session is recorded and available within 24 hours. The Q&A built into each session is one of the most valuable parts, so I encourage live attendance whenever possible. If you are unable to attend, you can email me your questions and I’ll get back to you quickly.
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Running the Net Price Calculator for every school is exactly the right instinct. The problem is what they don't tell you.
An NPC gives you a net price estimate based on the questions it asks and the data you enter. But it doesn't tell you how that number was calculated, which means you can't know for sure if the estimate is reliable. Not all calculators are created equal.
This course teaches you how to read the data behind the number - when to trust it, how to test it for accuracy, and what to do when your family's situation falls outside what the calculator can model. You'll also learn how to use publicly available data to put that estimate in context, so you can decide whether the school is actually a financial fit for your family.
You walk away with a usable estimate of every school on your list, not a single number you're hoping is right.
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No. This is a live group course. I teach the framework and you apply it to your family's situation using the worksheets and tools provided, with live Q&A built into every session. For 1:1 services visit the Work With Me page.
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Not at all. If anything, you're ahead of the curve! The course is designed for families building or about to build a college list, and the earlier you understand how the system works, the more options you have to plan around it.
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That's actually ideal timing. The College Financial Fit Framework helps you build the list with financial fit as a factor from the start, rather than retrofitting it later.
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If you can read a school's Common Data Set for merit distribution patterns, evaluate the reliability of any net price calculator for your family's specific complexity, build a real four-year college budget, and read a financial aid offer with confidence, you might not need this course. If any of that sounds unfamiliar, this course will fill significant gaps.
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No. Counselors and IECs help with admissions, essays, applications, school fit. This course covers the financial side: how college pricing works and how to build a financially viable list. They complement each other.
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No. I'm not a Certified Financial Planner, a financial advisor, or a tax professional, and I don't offer advice on income strategy, asset positioning, AGI reduction, or tax planning.
What I offer is something different. After 20 years inside admissions and financial aid offices at Barnard and NYU, I teach families how colleges actually price their student. That includes how aid formulas work, how to read what a school publishes about itself, how to evaluate whether a school is likely to be a financial fit before you apply, and how to interpret an aid offer once you receive one.
If you're looking for someone to help you optimize your taxes or restructure your finances, you need a CFP or CPA. If you're looking for someone to help you understand the college financial aid system, how it works with admissions, and how to navigate it strategically, this course is for you.
MONEY BACK GUARANTEE
Come to the first session. If you decide it's not for you, email me before the second session and I'll refund every dollar.
Your student's list is forming right now. The financial picture is forming with it.
The families who get real choices in April started understanding the system before applications were submitted.
Questions? Email questions@thedeansdesk.com