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Making College Possible - How Families Navigate College Affordability

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Sarah Everitt, Dean of Student Financial Services at Gonzaga University, shares about the ways to help cover the cost of your student’s college education. Topics will include comprehensive information about college affordability, financial aid options, and the FAFSA as well as statistics about nationwide trends in college affordability, payment plans, and college debt.

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good evening everyone my name is Sarah Everett I am the dean of Student Financial Services at Gonzaga um and at Gonzaga that means that financial aid student accounts and student employment offices that we're located in Student Financial Services I am also the parent of a junior in high school at Gonzaga Prep and I have an eighth grader at St Al's so I feel a lot of kinship uh with to the families going through this process because it's something that my family and I are thinking about as well um before we dive into the agenda I just want to sort of plug uh particularly as Gonzaga Prep families please do know and use the resources in Gonzaga Student Financial Services office um uh even if you don't have a kid attending Gonzaga or planning to attend Gonzaga um we are here to help and happy to help um particularly community members um navigate this very confusing financial aid process so a little bit about our agenda today I want to cover some information from a nationwide survey of parents of college students um I think it helps give some context to what we're going to talk about here today um we're also going to talk about Concepts like cost of attendance and net price we're going to talk about the types and sources of financial aid what financial aid is and where it comes from we're going to cover a little bit about the application process and finally I'm going to leave you with some tips for Success um and some ways that I uh am thinking about this in my uh both personal and professional life so let's start with some survey data um I'm going to assume that if you're watching this webinar that you are concerned about the cost of college um I think that's a relatively reasonable assumption and first I just want to let you know that you're not alone a nationwide survey of prospective College parents so these are parents of prospective college students um asked them what they were concerned about and the top 3 issues were related to issues around affordability so cost uh 60% of parents reported cost as their number 1 concern um how their student find scholarships um came in at number 2 with 40% of parents being concerned about that and then finally the amount of debt that a student might encourage um again so those are 3 issues all related to affordability next up they asked students what they thought their student was worried about and this is where I think it gets kind of interesting the the parent said that their student was worried about being successful they also thought they might be a little bit worried about cost in there that number 2 spot with 38% of um parents thinking that's what their student was worried about um and then the third place was finding a good fit but as you'll see uh it gets really interesting because when the same survey asked the students um what you see is that students concerns really closely match those of their parents um and so another way of thinking about this is that parents are underestimating the degree to which their children internalize their cost fears about the cost of college so both parents and their students are concerned about issues around affordability around cost around debt around receiving scholarships how to apply for scholarship where to look for scholarships that sort of thing so to address the stick disconnect we strongly encourage families to have open and sometimes tough conversations about college finances I can tell you from my professional experience that this is something that's just really important to address as early as possible in the search process research shows that college continues to be an excellent investment and lifetime earnings are higher than million dollars um compared to non college graduates income is simply 1 measure this holds true for virtually every other thing that can be me measured um physical health happiness uh career satisfaction all of those things so college is absolutely a great investment but it doesn't mean you don't want to approach pain for college wisely up on the screen here I have some reflection questions that might be helpful on how to approach this conversation either um in between parents or parents with their students so some reflection questions for parents I'll just start there um and 1 thing I might think you probably want to have an answer to Is how much will affordability impact uh your family's decision or your student's decision and where they attend to college and of course you're going to want to have an idea about what you can reasonably afford and if there's resources that you're anticipating using for college maybe extended family maybe loans sale of property are those confirmed and kind of what what the value of those are I also think there's some questions you can be asking your students or kind of reflecting on with your student um you know do they know how much the affordability or the cost of college is going to impact their decision and maybe are there schools where affordability wouldn't be considered or wouldn't be considered as highly you know if it's a you know a stretch School a reach school that your student is admitted to are you willing to borrow more potentially to go there I think another really important question to think about is the income expectations for your students field of study um if it's a high earning field maybe it's not that unreasonable that your family would go into debt to pursue that um if it's a lower um or sort average income expectation for that field of study um that might that might impact how much debt um your student should take on in pursuit of their college goals so and finally I just would encourage you to have questions around indebtedness um I can't tell you how many students come in um and just like yep I will borrow loans I want to do this so bad and their parents are like nope no thank you we do not want our student to go in that much debt so really kind of um making sure that expectations are managed um that should be you know both a student and parent decision the student is ultimately the 1 who's going to benefit from the degree um but I think they you know I would hope that you would be guiding them on what is reasonable um and sort of having an understanding of that as you're navigating this process so moving on how much will it cost is probably the question you know have and the answer to that is it depends and I'm going to use this illustrator of some sample financial aid offers um to introduce the concepts of cost of attendance and net price so the Top Line there is a cost of attendance and this cost of attendance is going to represent an average of the total cost of a it might incur while studying in school for a single year this is a 1 year figure it includes tuition and fees it also includes things like living expenses maybe on campus housing if your student is living on campus um as well as personal and transport expenses which are not items that a school is going to charge a student for individually rather they're going to be an estimate of what a student might spend on personal items so that's that top row there um you can see I have have 3 sample universities we have a Washington state public 4-year school we have a private for 4 year School uh that would be the category gonna falls into as well as an out-of-state Public School um and then kind of have uh in the blue in the middle part of the graph the light blue in the middle part of graph is essentially a sample financial aid package so we have a student with moderate to high Financial need um we know that uh because of the Federal pel grant that they're eligible for you'll note that that's the same regardless of whatever school they go to um this student is also eligible for a Washington college grant um and unlike the pel grant um the the amount of Grant differs between the public school and the School and then this student also qualified for wooi or the Western undergraduate exchange which is a essentially a discount on out-of-state tuition um for out-of-state Public Schools you'll also see that the student qualified for in institutional Aid or School Grants and scholarships um a small or a relatively small Grant from that public school and a very large 1 from the private 4 year school and so once we go through this exercise and kind of do the you can see that the net price starts to get a little bit more comparable to schools and the the net price is the students real bottom line of college this is what the student is going to be expected to pay from resources including savings income that they have and loans so you're going to want to compare College based on affordability using the net price and not the sticker price or the total cost and again I just want to remind you that this is for a single year um so you also want to kind of have a plan for the 4 years or so that they're going to um you know be enrolled at their school almost all students are going to get some sort of financial aid through the process you're going to see more financial aid awarded from private 4 year schools um they're going to have the highest published costs but they're also going to give out the most financial aid there's also a bit of good news that might be surprising and that is after adjusting for inflation the average net tuition and fee price paid by first-time full-time students um enrolled at private nonprofit 4 year schools actually declined uh so when they adjust for inflation in 2023 3 it was 18,000 in the 2006 2007 school year and it dropped to around 15,000 in the most recent completed Academic Year around 15 close to 16,000 so that might be contrary to what we're hearing in the narrative around how expensive college is so while the total cost of attendance or the sticker price can be uh large it can be alarming know that families are actually paying less um then they were 15 years ago and we expect this trend line to sort of continue or or flattened out uh we don't accept a a real steep increase based on some demographic data and just some trends that we're seeing in financial aid awarding schools so now let's now transition to the idea of financial aid um first we just want to talk about what is financial aid so financial aid refers to uh different types of funds provided to and families to help pay for college expenses um it's an umbrella term it's a catch-all term um it includes grants and scholarships as well as loans and work and and other types of funds as well but do know in United States the primary responsibility for paying for college lies with the student or and their family so College isn't free for everyone um and so you have financial aid to help bridge the gap um but it is not a free Endeavor it's not Nationwide in other words so the goals of the financial aid both in the funds that we award and also financial aid offices is to um distribute limited resources um we're also coordinating aid from a variety of different sources and we do this to ensure that we are evaluating students and family circumstances in a way that is consistent and Equitable while also assisting students in sort of pursuing their goals their educational goals making sure that they have access to education that they have choices in which education they pursue as well as they're able to retain and stay in their programs and persist until graduation so as I mentioned uh Financial it is an all-encompassing term and it includes grants and scholarships which are the most obvious I think types of financial aid but also loans and work and other types of student support such as waivers that might be for specific populations emergency aid or assistantships um graduate assistantships for teaching that sort of thing there's also a variety of sources and remember it's going to be the financial aid offices job on a college campus to coordinate all of the aid most financial aid comes from the schools themselves um across the country that figure was around 240 billion in the most recent financial aid year grade is the next largest source chipping in around 120 billion dollars this state of Washington actually has a really robust financial aid program um now this is going to be a program for Washington residents attending school in Washington but the state grant program is about 414 million dollars and then of course there's some other sources you might think of outside scholarship agencies or maybe employer reimbursements as being other sources of financial aid so now let's talk about how how you might actually apply for all the financial aid that we've been discussing the key here is the FAFSA application um and I know we have a mix of people here some may be very familiar with the FAFSA what others might be hearing about this for the first time so a quick overview FAFSA stands for free application for federal student aid it is the tool used by uh most students to apply for financial aid and it is a tool used by most schools to assess students Financial need the FAFSA school is to essentially assess your family's financial situation and determine how much you could contribute to your education and they do this by generating what's called student aid index that's the output um from the FAFSA and schools will use that index to be able to distribute those limited resources and Gonzaga like many schools most schools in fact use a FAFSA to determine eligibility not only for the Gonzaga a that we award but also federal state and other types of Aid as as well um the most important thing to know about the FAFSA application is that if cost is a factor in your college decision and let's be honest if you're watching this webinar probably is you should complete the FAFSA application it's going to be your key to unlocking different types of financial aid and ensuring that you're getting the best possible value for the schools that your student is considering so a few things about how to complete the application we expect the application to be available around December 1st um this webinar is recorded before December 1st uh so there's probably a lot of great resources if the FAFSA has been launched um um you are um the FAFSA is going to be streamlined if you'd like to get a jump start on something before the FAFSA is launched uh you can create an FSA ID which is essentially a verified account uh to allow you to access that FAFSA and know that both students and parents are going to need to create separate FSA IDs to access that form the family income is going to be transferred directly from the IRS and it's going to be based on 2023 income and um there's new methodology that expands access to pel Grants in this process there's other types of financial aid applications these are less common the CSS profile is a type of financial aid application that some schools are going to require um this again is an online application it's required by some schools not all it should be fairly obvious obvious on the school's website if this will requires it and there is or can be a fee associated with it although if your family's income is below a hundred thousand dollars the fee is automatically waived another resource to consider is wooi or the Western undergraduate Exchange this is a tuition Savings Program to attend out of state colleges there's a Consortium of I think most of the schools um on the west side of the country that participate this in this there's 15 participating States do know that not all states schools partic recipe um for example last I checked Oregon State University does participate but University of Oregon does not participate and I just use that as an example and you'll also want to know that not all academic programs or majors are going to be eligible for the wui eligibility might be contingent on your student you know studying in a a specific field um contacting the college or investigating on the wooi web page is going to be the best way to ensure that you're getting the the correct information about the eligibility requirements the GPA requirements timelines that sort of thing now let's talk about some additional financial aid options and policies starting with the realistic look at outside scholarships so outside scholarships are scholarships from sources other than the institution or Gonzaga and a Gonzaga we see our students bring in between 2 and 3 million dollars annually it's important to approach outside scholarship search kind of realistically 97% of the scholarships are thousand dollars or less and again most are awarded by organizations that students already have a relationship with so the less places to look are going to be your local community um service organizations that the students been involved with employers parents or student employers and Community foundations so it's really important to know that well outside scholarships can help they're not a Magic Bullet solution and we encourage you to focus on organizations that either um your family or your student is already connected with for the best chances so payment options this may feel like we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves here particularly if we're early really early on in the process but I also think it's you know in the spirit of full transparency just knowing um how many families are navigating this so most schools are going to build um per semester and bills are going to be due anywhere between 3 weeks before the semester starts to a couple weeks into the the term it's really going to vary by school and of course 1 option that um all students will have is just payment unfold less financial aid per term many families also use installment plans nearly every school offers some sort of monthly payment plan or monthly installment plan at Gonzaga r interest fee with a small fee to sort of get it set up and it essentially takes what you owe um after financial aid is applied and divides it into 4 equal monthly payments um we see I think close to 45% of our students payment plan so it's a very popular option there's also Parent Plus Loans as an options these are loans that parents are borrowing on their students behalf um this is a Federal Loan to the Department of Education it is based on the absence of negative credit and the parent has to be either the parent or the FAFSA the biological parent or the stepparent on the FAFSA application and again the the loan is in the parents name but they're borrowing on behalf of the student this is going to be based on the absence of negative credit and the application is available in late April another option that families or students might pursue is a private or alternative loan this is a loan that a student is going to borrow through financial institution generally with a credit worthy cosigner um and the cosigner though doesn't necessarily have to be the parent it could be uh another family member or a family friend um and again the sort of difference between this and The Parent PLUS Loan is that this loan is uh directly in the student's name and they are ultimately responsible for repaying it and do know that a variety of these options can be used you're not going to be forced into 1 you could borrow um in the Parent PLUS Loan program while also making monthly installment payments you know kind of using the plus loan to bring those installment payments down just as an example so we're winding down the presentation here and I just have a few uh kind of tips for success as you navigate this process 1 is to have conversations with your student about how your family plans to pay for school um again we had some reflection questions earlier that I think are um just some ideas on how to get the conversation started or or sort of what to be thinking about but I do think dialoguing goes a long way and help making an informed and educated decision and something that the whole family is comfortable with you're also going to want to make a note of priority dates and deadlines for financial aid priority dates or deadlines uh scholarship applications that sort of thing um you know getting that information in um well ahead of the deadline is recommended and just to um note um as the deadline approaches schools are dealing with a very very large volume of inquiries so to save yourself some stress and heartache it's a good idea to plan to have materials in before the deadline that way if you do need help you're kind of reaching out for services um before thousands of other students are doing that at the same time it's also important to ensure that applications are complete and accurate and uh you know just an example um things like your name birth date and social security number are really really important most of our computer systems are using that data to sort of match records match financial aid applications with admissions applications and that sort of thing um it it works very smoothly for nearly everyone but when it doesn't it can be a little bit of a needle in a hay stack to to kind of get those things matched up so making sure that information is accurate and complete can help expedite the process and make sure that you're getting information as soon as possible we don't also advise you to be wary of anything that sounds too good to be true uh anything you have to pay money to get money anyone that promises you that you're going to get more financial aid um those are all uh tend to be sort of scammy uh they're either going to charge you money or sort of mine for information that you may not want to share with nonreal organizations um if you'd like uh a credibility check on organization um that's something that our financial aid office happy to do about the legitimacy of a scholarship organization or or any other service that you might be interested in engaging in and then finally we'd encourage everyone to be evaluating schools for best fit including Financial fit and so with that I will wrap up I did want to share the slide and make sure that our contact my contact information is available as well as our appointment scheduling link and I just want to make 1 more plug to use our services if that's um something that would be helpful to you if you'd like to just uh talk through the financial aid process with someone or um if you have a specific Financial question that you would like us to address know that we would be happy to help thank you so much

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Making College Possible - How Families Navigate College Affordability

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