My son’s have/had both attended high schools with very little financial aid education. I’m curious, what was the financial aid advising like at your children’s high schools? What do you think your school did well? What could they be doing that they are not? How much time do you think schools should be spending helping students understand aid?
I don’t think public schools are allowed to do much besides offer generic advice. Fill out the FAFSA, run the NPCs, file the CSS profile if needed, and pick a safety. Guidance counselors aren’t college counselors. Their job is to get students through high school. I think most have full plates handling those responsibilities. Our local public schools have college night where they discuss things like financial aid and point parents to websites, but it’s up to the families to follow up and do their own research.
What do you think schools should be doing? They can’t discuss individual personal finances due to privacy issues.
I will tell you first hand at my high school it is explaining the financial aid process having financial aid nights where we provide outside agencies to help families to file the fafsa. We talk about federal aid, state aid, opportunity programs, net price calculators and federal loans. GCs do speak with students and parents regarding non custodial waivers, etc. we talk about FAFSA, CSS profile,Non-custodial Profile and the importance of gathering your information and turning in documentation in on time.
Schools cannot and do not get into telling parents how to spend their money in paying for college outside of advising one to make sure that students have an affordable option. I think that many parents don’t want to talk to schools about their finances. The money talk starts at your house.
Nothing. They told us the FAFSA existed but that was about it.
OP, what do you feel the school’s role should be?
At both the school where my kids went, and the schools where I worked…the school personnel were NOT permitted to inquire about finances…or help,students with financial aid related things.
All those districts did have “financial aid night” meetings for parents starting in freshman year. These were done by an outside presenter who provided information about the fincial aid application process, and financial aid application process…and the costs to attend colleges.
I don’t remember much, except that they overemphasized the role of outside scholarships (e.g. those found on Fastweb). In my experience, a lot of parents think their finances are not their children’s business, which makes it hard to educate the students directly. (I mean, not asking the students about their finances, but telling them how to figure things out on their own.)
They had a group meeting where they mostly talked about the public schools (and that the first priority deadline was the next day, so if you didn’t know that you missed it), about FAFSA and Bright Futures. That was it. Never mentioned FRAG (a grant for a resident attending a private school), didn’t really talk about OOS or private schools, told us if we wanted a transcript to pay $2 and pick it up in the guidance office. There was a parent who ran the Naviance system for the school and that wasn’t helpful at all as they didn’t really say what it was or how to use it.
They did not have enough handouts.
Our school had college nights, that were specific to the grade level. During junior year, the financial aid meetings were every two months. In senior year, they had a college night every month beginning late September, that were thematic “application deadlines, transcript requests, FAFSA/CALGrant/Loans, Midyear reports, ELC, CC options”. The counselors entered the English classes at the beginning of the year to discuss options beyond the June graduation date. (Vocational, college, CC, local business internships, etc.)
Overall, they did a pretty good job. There were 8 GC’s, so that may have helped. Two per grade level and a supervising “head counselor”.
Sybile, I agree with those above who have stated that counselors can not get involved in personal finances. However, I do feel as though this is an important piece of the admissions puzzle that is likely not always addressed. I started this thread as I wanted a better understanding of how much schools differ in the time and attention given to aid.
At a minimum I believe schools should be providing an overview of the process (timeline, fafsa, profile etc), the difference between cost of attendance and net price, award comparison information, information on loans and I would really like some education for the students on loan repayment, and debt. In this regard, students should be considering future salary and ability to pay their debt, as well as the four year graduation rate at their colleges.
So much time is spent on creating a school list, with relatively little time on the financial end and discussion of schools that meet all need, schools with merit etc which can make a dramatic difference in net cost to families.
I’m not sure how much information the kids were told directly during school hours. However, for parents our school had a financial aid night. But it was held in January. This was fine for those only applying to our UC and CSU’s, but for private schools this was too late in the process. By the time we attended the meeting our FAFSA and CSS Profile were already done as early deadlines were in Jan/Feb.
The information covered was generally a good foundation (what is the FAFSA, what is the difference between need based aid vs merit etc.), but the emphasis on the FAFSA (very little mention of the CSS Profile), and the January date made it more useful for those applying to our state schools and not for those applying to privates.
Similar experience to @ClaremontMom. At our private high school, every year there was a college night for parents that spoke in generalities. Given we’re in a state with a strong public U system, there wasn’t a lot of information on applying to privates or out-of-state. In fact, when I asked a question about SAT II tests I was told D and S didn’t need to bother - when in reality D was looking at a few schools where they were required.
Senior year a representative from CFNC came to talk about financial matters, but it was after the deadline for the CSS and right up against the deadline for FAFSA (this was before the forms could be filled out with prior prior info). Given it was someone from CFNC, again most of the information was tailored around NC public universities, which is where most of the students were targeting anyway. Those of us with sights set on other schools pretty much had to self-educate. Spent a lot of time on various school’s web sites compiling my own spreadsheets to maneuver the process.
General FAFSA information seminar and that’s it!
You have some good ideas OP for an FA presentation. One note, timeline will differ for each school.
I would say we have very little. Once a year in the fall they invite the MA FIN AID people (not sure the official name) to come and hold a meeting that parents can students can attend. I found it pretty basic but I tend to do a lot of internet research myself (like most here I suspect). I had already gotten over the shock of finding out that FIN Aid meant take your gross income X 50% and hand it over! Hahaha.
I would think it is helpful to those first generation college parents who are just not aware of certain things.
Very little except information about the upcoming deadlines. The college guidance program was otherwise quite good (private school) and helped the students through all steps. However, it’s possible that I missed some of the financial aid presentations—those were probably ones just for parents.
I don’t think that good financial aid guidance needs to go into any personal financial details whatsoever. It seems unbelievable now, but I didn’t know there was a Western tuition exchange program (WUE) that would allow students to get 150% in-state tuition at many schools. A friend made an offhand comment about her daughter applying to xyz which was a WUE school, which is how I found out. It was too late at that point really. Neither my D nor her parents had any idea that there was money associated with NMSF and NMF. I think I stumbled across that on CC. I had no idea that her stats could get her merit aid at many fine schools. I found that out in late December, but had no clue how D should apply unless there was a specific scholarship. For awhile I felt bad about being clueless, until my friends with kids one year younger started applying. All my friends have been equally clueless.
Specifically just to financial aid, they have a college & career fair with presentations on financial aid; they have a 30 page student guide booklet that each student receives (which does go into a fair amount of detail (including pages of FAFSA examples and explanations) and even touch on the professional judgment process). They have a booklet of college and financial aid terminology. They have a presentation on applying for financial aid (with a booklet with all info covered) and a presentation on financial aid resources (includes info on pell, bogg, dreamers, calgrant, chafee, student loans and scholarships). They seem to try to cover all circumstances. The high school has a counselor specifically for college and career who can answer more detailed questions. This is a public high school with a high percentage of parents who are college graduates.
Seems like January is a very poor time to have a financial aid night. Better would be in the spring semester (for juniors) and/or very beginning of the school year (for seniors), so that students and parents can be better informed about what cost and financial aid questions they need to think about themselves before the application list is made.
I guess our high school is the poster child for the way things should be done. Of note, it’s a public school with about 3,000 students and 9 guidance counselors. There are advantages and disadvantages to the size. For example, the student body is large enough that the guidance counselors collaborate to disseminate general information, but students don’t get a lot of one-on-one specific information.
We have a “financial aid night” at the beginning of the school year (late August/early September). During this meeting - moderated by the state people in charge of financial aid and open to freshmen on up - the entire financial aid process is discussed, complete with a huge booklet that thoroughly explains the federal and state requirements and private aid resources, as well as a powerpoint presentation. A timeline is distributed and much emphasis was put on the fact that now students will fill out the FAFSA in October and use “prior prior” tax returns. The moderated got specific with “if you graduate in _, use your tax returns.” They also answered general questions (included divorced parents, home equity, and student employment) and distributed business cards for further information. One of my favorite tips: ask everyone you meet about scholarship/aid opportunities. She told a story about someone who received a fairly substantial scholarship from a restaurant as a customer because the restaurant owner happened to be looking for a tax write off.
The guidance counselors also maintain a page on the school’s website. This has a general timeline for what needs to be completed when (by month). A monthly “newsletter” goes into depth as to what needs to be completed THIS month. There is also a list (updated monthly) of several known scholarships, their requirements, their due dates, who is eligible, and how to apply for them. Newly discovered scholarships are added to the school’s daily briefing announcements.
The counselors also give tips on what students need to do (and when) for teacher and counselor recommendation letters.
Because of our large student body, our counselors have experience with in-state schools, OOS public and private schools, Ivies, and an assortment of small LACs. They aren’t going to do the parent’s job, but I do feel they will be able to point us in the right direction.
Re #18
They do mention net price calculators, right?