Fostering a New Financial Perspective

The first part of the search process is to start with what a student can afford. Students can become wrapped with the college names, alumni, and even family traditions. When starting the process, students planning on going to college often rely on the “safety” and “reach” school brackets and their odds of admission. But students often focus on that without factoring in how much it costs to attend those schools. What is affordable and what is not? What is the bottom line for families financing college?

“I think that the financial piece to college is more important than ever,” Technology Center of DuPage (TCD) college and career pathway specialist Anthony Gliffe said.

Within the financial process, students turn to scholarships, loans, and grants to aid their finances. However, there is a student loan debt crisis in the United States and it is affecting the mid to lower-class people hard. America’s college graduates owe $1.7 trillion on their student loans. Students will often take a large sum of loans to pay for college, but struggle when paying that money back. There is already an underlying struggle within the financial process of students. 

“I think that’s a big thing that we can do in this country is just having those conversations earlier with students and families,” Gliffe said. “Families should be having a financial talk with their son or daughter prior to starting the college process.”

The U.S. Department of Education offers a college financing plan for students ranging from undergraduate to graduate. Metea Valley offers a counseling website and has a specifically designed tab for college and career information. There are various resources that students and families can utilize and start that conversation with family or guardians about the upcoming future.

Starting the conversation is just the first puzzle piece to an entire array of outcomes leading to building a pathway toward the future. Now understanding what is affordable and what is not then a student can accurately picture what options are affordable.