The College Money Talk: What Married Couples Need to Agree On First

“The easiest option is to say, ‘We'll figure it out when the time comes,’ which isn't necessarily a plan. To me, it's a hope.” For most couples, the sticker price of college never gets a number attached to it out loud. At least, not until an acceptance letter forces the issue… which is exactly the wrong moment! Our hosts, Natalie and Dan Slagle, break it down in this Money Date. Campus visits, admissions decisions, financial aid offers: these arrive stacked with emotion, and emotional timing makes for bad negotiating, whether the negotiation is with a spouse or a newly admitted teenager. Dan and Natalie offer a framework built on seven questions to prepare for college finances. It dives into such things as what resources actually exist, what your cap is, and whether your child should have skin in the game when it comes to covering expenses. Then, we’ve got harder questions. What happens to a scholarship's leftover money? Who absorbs the cost when a teenager falls for a school above budget? What actually belongs in "the bucket" beyond tuition nobody quite budgets for? And finally, when and how does a family tell a teenager any of this, in a way that reads as shared strategy rather than burden? None of it is complicated math. It's a conversation most families never have out loud… until they're forced to. Key Topics: Why the Money Conversation Gets Skipped (08:17) Question One: What Resources Do We Actually Have? (12:38) Question Two: What’s Our Cap? (14:56) Question Three: Should Our Kids Have Skin in the Game? (21:59) Question Four: Where Does the Scholarship Surplus Go? (27:46) Question Five: Who Pays When Our Child Goes Over Budget? (34:00) Question Six: What's Really in the College "Bucket"? (36:22) Question Seven: When and How Should We Tell Our Kids? (39:15) Recap and Wrap-up (42:12) Resources: Check out our blog post for an easy way to copy and paste the conversation prompts for your college money talk!: https://www.equalvoices.co/post/the-college-money-talk-7-questions-married-couples-need-to-answer-before-the-campus-tours-start NYT Article: Parents’ Financial Support May Not Help College Grades: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/education/parents-financial-support-linked-to-college-grades.html Schedule a Free Consultation Here: https://www.equalvoices.co/start Join our newsletter to stay up to date on the latest financial resources: https://www.equalvoices.co/contact Natalie Slagle, CFP®, and Dan Slagle, CFP®, are the founding partners and lead financial planners at Equal Voices Wealth https://www.equalvoices.co/ — an independent firm dedicated to helping high-earning couples in their 30s, 40s, and 50s confidently navigate the complexities of managing money together. At Equal Voices, they specialize in turning financial stress into strategy, guiding couples through everything from cash flow and investing to aligning money with shared goals. Disclaimer: For updated disclosures, please visit https://www.equalvoices.co/legal