Overview
Stratagee offers two web-based software applications, Smart Search and YBS (Your Best Strategy®). Both Smart Search and YBS address the four key areas of college planning: College selection, financial aid, tax aid and personal resources, but they do so in different ways.
Smart Search determines where a student may be able to Get Into College and Get Aid™, and provides a snapshot of which colleges the family can afford. Smart Search is available for financial advisors, admissions consultants, school districts and employee benefit providers.
YBS also determines where a student may be able to Get Into College and Get Aid™, but it differs from Smart Search in that YBS has the capacity to address both K-12 independent school and college costs for each child in a family, and helps financial advisors to determine Your Best Strategy® to pay for college and save for retirement. As such, YBS is more of a high level tool that integrates wealth management, college admissions and financial aid. It is available for financial advisors only.
We do not offer software to the public at this time, but we do incorporate the use of our software in providing college planning and admissions services to families. Review our services for information.
We offer a suite of coaching, marketing, speaking and planning services to complement this software.
Smart Search is web-based software that allows advisors, students and parents to quickly and easily identify colleges where the student may be able to Get Into College and Get Aid™, and which colleges the family can afford based on the personal resources the family can pledge for college education. Smart Search addresses college selection, financial aid, tax aid and the use of the family's personal resources to pay for college, but places greater emphasis on searching for colleges based on admissibility and affordability.
Provide quick and easy answers to these important questions:
- Your child's likelihood of admission at colleges and universities nationwide
- What your child's estimated aid eligibility is at those colleges
- If you qualify for the American Opportunity Tax Credit worth $2,500 per year
- Which colleges your family can afford based on your personal resources
- What student loans will your child need and how much is too much
$399
Individual Annual License:
$898
Combined Software License:
Receive a $100 discount when licensing both YBS and SmartSearch together
Purchase from Account Page
Smart Search Features/Calculations
School/College Selection
- Identify a variety of colleges that are affordable even if their sticker prices seem out of reach
- Customize your college list based on those returned by Smart Search and add your own specific colleges
- Add Calculates the student's likelihood of admission (Admissibility Indicator) at colleges and universities
- Each college's admissibility score is reviewed and adjusted regularly by admissions experts
- College counselors and admissions consultants can use the MyAI feature to change the admissibility indicator
Financial Aid
- Calculate expected family contribution (EFC) using the Federal, Institutional and Consensus methodologies
- Determine the student’s need-based financial aid eligibility
- Identify which colleges the family can afford; adjust affordability sliders to see instant changes in affordability
- Explore how changes in assets, income and academic scores improve aid eligibility
- Calculate the student’s eligibility for academic merit aid awards based on the selected colleges' published criteria
- Calculate each student’s Federal aid awards for the Pell Grant, Subsidized and Unsubsidized Stafford Loans
- Calculates the impact of saving in various asset types on each student’s need-based financial aid eligibility
Tax Aid
- Calculates the ability of the parents to claim the American Opportunity Tax Credit
- Measures the impact on affordability and aid eligibility when “shifting” earned and unearned income to the child
- Identify when it may be better for the client to focus on valuable tax strategies instead of need-based aid
- Measures the impact of qualified plan contributions, Roth Conversions, Exercising stock and other financial planning events on affordability, aid eligibility and tax ability to claim the $2,500 American Opportunity Tax Credit
Personal Resources
- Choose how much of the family’s income, assets, student loans and parent loans to allocate to college costs
- Change the allocations and instantly see how affordability at each college is impacted
- SmartSearch knows the tax and financial aid treatment of all assets so you can keep it simple
- Generates a color-coded Affordability Indicator for each college in the final report (Funded, Un-funded, Not funded)
- The Affordability Table provides detailed information about the use of family resources, financial aid and loans that are used to fund each college, and indicates the amount of shortfall, if any
- The Debt Summary Table provides an in-depth analysis of the monthly payment required to repay the estimated debt taken at each college, the total amount borrowed and the total amount repaid
We offer a suite of coaching, marketing, speaking and planning services to complement this software.
In the Press: Read the Investment News article about YBS.
YBS stands for Your Best Strategy®, and is web-based software that uses a sophisticated algorithm to help advisors determine their client's best strategy to pay for K-12 independent school and college costs, while also saving for retirement.
The four key areas in determining Your Best Strategy® are: college selection, financial aid, tax aid and the family's personal resources. YBS simultaneously performs dozens of complex tax, college admissions, college aid and financial planning calculations specific to each of the four key areas and then generates a Strategy Report that is comprehensive, simple and useful. The advisor's notes pertaining to each strategy and what-if scenario become part of each report, and can be saved as a PDF with one-click. A Strategy Score quantifies each strategy the advisor creates; ultimately helping the advisor determine Your Best Strategy®.
YBS is a high-level integration of wealth management, college admissions and financial aid.
Confidently provide your clients
with a comprehensive strategy for college funding.
$599
Individual Annual License:
$898
Combined Software License:
Receive a $100 discount when licensing both YBS and SmartSearch together
Purchase from Account Page
YBS Features/Calculations
School/College Selection
- Includes an easy to use method of entering K-12 independent school costs for day and boarding school
- Allows for various combinations of college choices among all of the children in the family
- Creates a table of all education costs for all children by calendar year and academic year, for school and college
- Allows for the use of default costs based on national average costs for K-12 school and college
- Each student's likelihood of being admitted to up to 1,100 colleges and universities (Admissibility Indicator)
- Each college's admissibility indicator is reviewed and adjusted regularly, if need be, by admissions experts
Financial Aid
- Each student's eligibility for need-based financial aid at chosen colleges (using FM and IM need analysis)
- Each student's eligibility for academic merit awards based on the chosen colleges' published criteria
- Calculates each student's Federal aid awards for the Pell Grant, Subsidized and Unsubsidized Stafford Loans
- Calculates an estimated aid award based on the college's published percentage of need met + academic awards
- Calculation of each student's EFC for each year of college (including multiple students in college at one time)
- Calculates the impact of saving in various asset types on each student's need-based financial aid eligibility
Tax Aid
- Estimated federal tax for the parents and each student, each year (including capital gains and the kiddie tax)
- The ability of the parents or student(s) to claim the American Opportunity Tax Credit
- Determines the impact of income-shifting and gifting strategies in reducing federal taxes
- Calculates the support test for personal exemption and kiddie tax purposes
- Measures the impact of Roth IRA conversions on need-based financial aid and tax aid eligibility
Personal Resources
- Calculates the strategic use of the family's personal resources for education funding and retirement savings
- Set preferences regarding whether to allow private student loans and Parent Plus loans as a funding source
- Knows the tax and financial aid treatment of all assets, and allocates them strategically
- Permits income-shifting to students, and gifting of assets to parents and students from grandparents
- Generates a Strategy Score to quantify the impact of the strategy the advisor chooses for each what-if scenario
While YBS offers advisors a high level of planning sophistication and flexibility, it is surprisingly fast and easy to use. What's more, with the software's embedded advice and easy to understand report, advisors can quickly integrate college planning into their practice without a long learning curve, helping them stay focused on their core business, and making money. With YBS, advisors can help clients determine where their child may be able to Get Into College and Get Aid™, and determine their Best Strategy to pay for college and save for retirement.
We offer a suite of coaching, marketing, speaking and planning services to compliment this software.
Services for Advisors
Planning
- We can prepare the financial and/or admissions strategies for you to deliver.
- We can consult directly with you and your client.
Consulting
- Integrating college planning into your practice.
- Marketing strategy
- Advanced college planning strategies.
- Institutional: 529 Plan Managers, College Enrollment Officials, State Agencies, Broker Dealers, RIAs, Mutual Fund Companies, Schools
Marketing
- Website content
- Power point presentations
- Marketing pieces (direct mail, ad copy, handouts, seminar announcements)
- Monthly newsletter for clients, prospects and centers of influence
Presentations
- Conferences
- Webinars
- Client Events
All services are led by Troy Onink (financial strategies) and/or Lloyd Paradiso (admission strategies), and their respective teams. See About the Management Team.
Advisor Software and Services Package
Price: $1,598
(Regular price if purchased separately is $1,998. You save $400.)
Software
Combined individual software license for both SmartSeach and YBS.
Coaching
Two Hours of Coaching with Troy Onink and/or Lloyd Paradiso
Marketing Materials
- PowerPoint Presentations, including Speaker's Notes covering the following topics
- Paying for College
- Paying College and Private School
- How Grandparents can Help
- Marketing Pieces (Use of Stratagee's copyrighted and trademarked marketing materials)
- Advisor Marketing Tips
- EFC Quick Reference Table and Guide to Financial Aid
- Marketing Pieces (Paying for College, Paying for Independent School and College
- Stratagee’s Decision Tree Guide To Determining Your Clients’ Best Strategy