About Us

My name is Jim Briggs. I am a CPA known nationally in higher education circles as the “tax detective”. In addition to sending my own children through college, I have spent the last 30 years providing sophisticated training to thousands of financial aid officers at hundreds of different colleges. I have also worked extensively with many of these colleges by helping them review complicated financial aid cases.

Recently I decided to join a number of highly experienced colleagues to form the company Reducing College Costs LLC. Our goal is to help families reduce the burden of paying for college. We offer a combination of expertise and experience you will not find anywhere else. Click here to meet the team. Some highlights of our experience include:

• Training thousands of financial aid officers from hundreds of colleges.

• More than 45 years combined experience directing college financial aid offices at schools such as Duke and Columbia.

• Reviewing thousands of financial aid applications and evaluating more than one thousand financial aid appeals.

• Counseling thousands of families during the admission and financial aid processes.

• Developing the policy manual used by many schools to evaluate family businesses during the financial aid review.

• Working closely with coaches in Ivy League and NCAA student athlete recruitment process.

• Serving in national leadership positions such as College Board Trustee.

• Serving many years on the College Board’s Financial Aid Standards and Services Committee. This committee advises the College Scholarship Service (CSS) on matters pertaining to both CSS Profile form and the Institutional Methodology (IM) used by hundreds of schools that award need-based aid.

• Serving as original members (including the Chair) of the Technical Committee that developed the highly influential and oft adopted 568 Methodology now used by dozens of schools to award hundreds of millions of dollars in need-based aid.

• Providing expert consulting services to both CSS and the 568 Technical Committee on matters relating to need-based financial aid eligibility.

Learn More about Our Services

James Belvin, JR.

Jim Briggs

David Charlow

©2010 Reducing College Costs, LLC