About Us

TONY & HANNAH

How It All Started 

When Tony’s daughter Hannah was planning for college, that’s when the gray hairs started to emerge. It was a stressful process. Newly retired, he began to stress out about how he would make it happen for her and how to do so without touching his retirement account.

As he continued to do the mental gymnastics of how he would afford to pay $40,000 per year for his daughter to attend the college of her dreams, he received a phone call from a Michigan state trooper, informing him that his daughter, Hannah, had been in an awful car accident.

Due to the severe nature of the accident, her story was on both local and national news. A month later, a long-lost friend (an old college buddy) of Tony’s saw the news and reached out to see how Hannah and the family were doing in the fallout of this horrific event.

Once they had covered the basics–that Hannah was home, resting, and recovering–he went on to ask Tony the following question: What is Hannah planning on doing for college?

Tony unloaded upon the long-lost friend his many worries about this process and how they will afford it without emptying their savings & dipping into their retirement funds. The man on the other end of the phone began to laugh. Tony was confused. “Why on earth are you laughing?” he asked. “This is far from funny.”

The man begins to explain to Tony the irony of what it is he does for a living. “Tony, I own a college planning company. When she’s feeling up to it, bring her in. We’ll sit down and figure this all out.”

And so he did. A few weeks later, he brought Hannah in to meet with the man.

Fast forward two years. Hannah is attending the college of her dreams, for roughly $30,000 less per year than she would have without his services. Their yearly cost had gone from $40,000 to roughly $10,000. Due to this, Tony began to tell everyone he knew about these services. He was basically screaming from the rooftops.

Months later, Tony was approached by the man who owned the college planning company. He asked Tony to leave his early retirement and come on board to work with him. Tony agreed to do so. He was so excited to spread the word and help more families like his through this process.

Fast forward two more years. The owner decides to retire and Tony takes over the company, becoming the owner of College Planning Advisors, LLC. He then branches beyond his state and begins helping families all across the country.

He has spent over ten years assisting families and guiding them through the college planning and financial aid processes, saving them tens of thousands of dollars along the way.

Hannah & College Strategy 

After Hannah graduated from college as a certified teacher, she decided to join her father’s college planning company to work as a full-time advisor. As a product of these services, she was excited to help others in the way she was helped when she went through her own college planning program as a student.

She met with and personally helped 50+ families per year navigate the college planning process. She enjoyed every moment of working with these students and their families.

However, within the first couple of years that she worked for this company, she began to notice that there were many families they were unable to help due to the high cost of full-service college planning. These full-service packages cost families anywhere between $3,500-$5,500.

While the return on investment is far greater than the amount paid, paying this large lump sum is simply not an option for many families.

Upon this realization, she approached her father about creating a program that could help those families they were unable to service by making an all-inclusive, Do-It-Yourself course at a discounted price. This course would include all of their tested practices, steps, and processes for getting the best results and saving the most money possible.

He agreed that a program like this is not only helpful but vital to provide to as many families as possible throughout the country. This is how College Strategy was born.

Hannah has used her knowledge and skills as a teacher to create a step-by-step course, with videos, that will help you and your family navigate through this very complex process with the goal of saving you both stress and money along the way.