Solutions for College by College Funding, Inc.

Testimonials

Here’s What the Experts Say About CFI’s Programs!

If you have any comments or college planning stories you would like to share with us, please email them to rdarvis@solutionsforcollege.com

Andy Biebl, CPA (New Ulm, MN)
Recipient of the Outstanding Discussion Leader Award from the AICPA
"Thanks so much for the outstanding presentation about college financial aid to our firm. The reaction on the part of our associates has been universally enthusiastic. You really opened our eyes as to the tremendous opportunity for client service in the educational funding area."

Robert Ranweiler, CPA (New Ulm, MN)
Member of the AICPA's Board of Directors
"You have unlocked the secret of the College Financial Aid System and your seminars help practitioners understand the financial aid process and explain how to market financial aid. The new higher education tax incentives are only part of the puzzle. Understanding how these tax incentives integrate with the College Financial Aid System is a necessary step. These seminars are a MUST for all tax practitioners, as well as those marketing financial aid services."

Joe Hurley, CPA (Rochester, NY)
National 529 Plan expert and founder of savingforcollege.com website
"The College Funding Programs provide professional planers with the information they need about 529 plans and other powerful tools available to investors. You will be amazed by the number of legitimate investment and tax strategies available to the family with college-bound children."

Jim Reeves, CPA (Fort Worth, TX)
Vice President and Publisher, Practitioners Publishing Company (PPC)
"Higher education is a potential gold mine for CPAs, and a great practice development opportunity. The demographics certainly support this as children of baby-boomers reach college age. The great enigma is that traditional tax planning is often in direct conflict with college financial aid planning. In many cases such traditional tax planning will cost the client more in lost financial aid than it saved in taxes. If CPAs can seize the opportunity to become the "planner of choice," they could clean up!"

Peter Lampert, CPA (Fairfax, VA)
Lampert & Salatto CPA
"Rick - - - thanks so much for the boot camp. I am excited about building out my revised practice with your material. I look forward to spending time with you and Riley around it. It’s a real joy to be working with you two."

Troy Onink, CCPS (Russell, PA)
Harris Insight Funds Wholesaler
"By far the most valuable training in the financial services industry on college planning. This is special forces training for financial advisors. Darvis gets it! He has the expertise and the tools that financial advisors have been waiting for. College planning is retirement planning and Darvis will help you dominate both. I work with top advisors from around the country that have leveraged their boot camp experience into very significant commissions."

Alan Neafach, Executive Director, The Milestone Group (Atlanta, GA)
Regional Sales Vice-President, AmeritasAcacia Companies
"I just wanted to thank you for the outstanding program you presented this past weekend. In my 20 years within the financial services industry I have not seen a better way for a financial services representative to achieve a professional standing within their community than to incorporate the services offered through the CollegeSOLUTION Program. With the unparalleled expertise that your organization provides you empower the financial representative with the ability to develop solutions that will turn affluent prospects into lifelong clients."

Stephen E. Capizzi, CFP (Alpharetta, GA)
Core Financial Advisors
"CollegeSOLUTION and Rick Darvis are a “Wake Up Call” to planners and advisors across the country. I was surprised by how many potential pitfalls there are in college planning. CollegeSOLUTION makes you aware of the landmines and shows you how to navigate the landscape and make the right choices for your clients in regard to financial aid, tax planning, and investment vehicle selection. This program makes you look like an all-star in front of your clients because you are helping them solve a growing problem in America, “How do I fund my kid’s college education?”. Once you solve that problem you have a client for life!"

David Yearwood (Indianapolis, IN)
"Thank you, the conference was outstanding! I bought both programs and I am preparing to make them a primary part of my biz over the next year."

Vern Hoven, MT, CPA, (Missoula, MT)
National Tax Expert quoted in Newsweek, Money Magazine and Associated Press
"I believe college financial planning will become the next trend in financial services, especially in the light of the new 1997 tax legislation. I can't imagine any planner consulting a parent or grandparent about the new tax laws or financing college without first reading your financial aid technical manual."

Kriss Mann, CPA (Glendale, CA)
Ashlock & Trimarche, Inc., CPAs
"The entire focus of our CPA practice has changed significantly since Rick Darvis showed us the little-known options for college planning through tax savings. Our clients love it! Nothing we have ever added to our practice has been so well received, or expanded our practice so rapidly. It is the best purchase we have made in years."

Mark Reich, CPA, CFP (New York, NY)
Committee member of the NAPFA 1999 Northeast/Midatlantic Regional Conference
"The impact of your presentation was tremendous. Clearly, you gave our community of fee-only financial advisors important exposure to a topic that is inadequately discussed and yet so relevant to the education and financial planning concerns of our clients."

Noelle Allen, CPA (Cupertino, CA)
Member of the AICPA Tax Practice and Procedure Committee
"Thanks for being a guest speaker at our annual Las Vegas tax Update Seminar. You gave a wonderful session with invaluable insight as to how the new 1997 tax incentives for education fit into the "big picture" of overall college financial planning. The information was an "eye opener" for many tax-only oriented practitioners. The presentation underscored how personal financial planning issues affect tax planning."

H. William Kuehl, Jr., CPA, PFS, CFP (Richmond, VA)
Past member of AICPA Personal Financial Planning Committee and the Virginia State Board of Accountancy
"College Financial Aid" published by College Funding Incorporated is a course that will provide immediate value to a CPA's practice. It is packed with good information and practical ideas. Must reading for any financial planning practice."

Alan J. Straus, CPA, JD, LLM (New York, NY)
Chairperson of New York Society of CPAs Personal Financial Planning Conference
"I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for speaking at our Personal Financial Planning conference. Most important, I wanted to let you know that your presentation, "College Financial Aid - Best Kept Secret in America" was extremely well received by your peers. There were many comments about how it was "the most valuable piece of information I got out of the day" and many comments about how knowledgeable Rick (Darvis) was. On a personal note, with two daughters in college, I certainly learned a great deal of important information from your presentation."

Ken Dodson, MBA, CPA, PFS (Worthington, OH)
Future Finances, Inc.
"Your training course was very informative and gave me a greater appreciation of the factors needing consideration in planning for college. The CPA/financial planner should look to provide this fee based "value added" service, especially considering that not knowing these options might expose one to malpractice litigation."

Richard Brekke, CPA, JD, LLM, (Billings, MT)
Dorsey & Whitney Law Firm
"Before reviewing your course, I didn't think the topic related to my clients. Now, I can think of many clients that could utilize your training course information."

Paula Hart, CPA, PFS, CFP (Fort Worth, TX)
Senior Technical Editor, Practitioners Publishing Company (PPC)
"I learned so much from your training course. It convinced me that the planner can cost the client financial assistance by assuming the client is ineligible for college financial aid. Incorporating college financial aid planning into the planning process not only serves the client's interests, but it can protect the planner from errors and omissions claims. I sincerely wish I had taken your course when we were planning for our own children's college educations."

Philip E. Harris, JD (Madison, WI)
Co-author of Farm Income Tax School Workbook
"These materials provide tremendous insights into the nuts and bolts of how the financial information of a student's family is used to calculate financial aid packages. Those insights are combined with other practical tax and financial planning strategies to give the reader a complete understanding of how to minimize the cost of attending college."

Danny Santucci, JD (Costa Mesa, CA)
Nationally known tax and retirement planning author and lecturer
"Today's high cost of college is forcing parents to rethink their retirement plans and programs. This course is a must for financial professionals in order to properly counsel clients before they deplete their retirement funds to pay for college."

John F. Cowan, CPA (Salt Lake City, UT)
College Financial Aid Administrator and Federal Financial Aid Funds Auditor for 27 years
"I found your CPE course unique and enlightening. This course is a must for every financial advisor."

Richard M. Broich, CPA (Minneapolis, MN)
Past President of the Minnesota Society of CPAs.
"I would like to thank you for your wonderful presentation of how we can help our clients with college financial aid applications and planning for college. I am going to send along a copy of this to our Minnesota Society of CPAs as a recommendation that they should consider having you present the course to our state."

Garry Spitzer, CPA (Bozeman, MT)
Partner, Galusha Higgins and Galusha
"College expenses are becoming an increasingly important part of family financial planning. Anyone involved in family financial planning needs this information."

Gary Zuene, CPA (Columbus, OH)
Presenter of the CPE course "Fooling the Auditors"
"With many practice areas becoming commodities, CPAs need skills that can earn them premium fees, and college financial aid is one such area. Knowledge of this area will reduce the practitioners' malpractice exposure since standard tax advice can devastate a client's chances of obtaining aid for college. It won't be long before attorneys sue CPAs for faulty advice. Your training course offers good protection."

Ken Williams, CPA (Minot, ND)
Brady, Martz and Associates, PC
"This was a significant wake up call for many of us who knew little or nothing of the mysteries of college financial aid. In my own case, after this session I discussed these issues with at least a dozen of my own clients, resulting in scheduled planning meetings before year end to discuss both tax and financial aid planning. I could definitely tell from my client’s body language that this is an area they were keenly interested in and were genuinely pleased that we can help them with it."

Jane Egan, CPA (Helena, MT)
Director of CPE for the Montana Society of CPAs
"Rick (Darvis) was a guest presenter at a recent annual Montana CPA convention. Some of the comments received by course participants include: "Very good-do a follow-up", "Interesting presentation, excellent topic" and "Wish this could have been an eight-hour course".

Dan Reinhold, CFP (Chicago, IL)
SVP Franklin Templeton Retirement & Tuition Plans
"In twenty-two years of attending industry conferences and work shops, I have never received as many valuable tax and estate planning strategies as I did during Rick Darvis’ recent two-day session. Rick reveals the tremendous potential of the tuition planning market giving yielding a refreshed determination to take your practice to the next level."

Kevin Whitehead, CFP
Director of College Planning for Enterprise Capital Management
"The CFI boot camp is like drinking out of a college planning strategy fire hose. You won’t know how much you don’t know until you get there."

Brent Hillhouse
Director of College Planning for Vanguard
"The College Funding Boot Camp was terrific. Among others, Rick Darvis and his colleagues helped me gain one key insight; college and retirement planning and investing are intricately related. Fortunately, using the techniques discussed in Boot Camp, parents do not have to sacrifice their retirement to pay for college expenses. The seminar was well worth my time."

If you have any comments or college planning stories you would like to share with us, please email them to rdarvis@solutionsforcollege.com

Bill G. Advisor in Tennessee
Rick, I've just completed Day 1 of the College Funding Basic Training Program and must tell you I wish I had ordered this a long time ago. There is a ton of information that really walks me through a comprehensive system for adding college planning to my practice. Excellent!