Rethinking How Students Finance Higher Education

Wes Smith (00:01.661)
Welcome everyone. Today we’re discussing how students are financing higher education beyond federal aid, including private financing options, employer-supported education, and other models that will help students and families navigate paying for a higher education. I’m joined today by Amy Glynn from National University. Amy’s also a visiting fellow at the President’s Forum.

Alex Ricci, the president of the National Council of Higher Education Resources, also known as NCHAR, and David Kafafian, the COO of CLASP. So thanks to our distinguished panel for joining us today and welcome.

David Kafafian (00:42.742)
Thanks for it.

Wes Smith (00:44.467)
Let’s let’s start with question the first question on on the top, Amy, can you set the stage for us? Why is this discussion about how students are funding their education? Why is it important in this moment?

Amy Glynn (01:16.635)
Well, I think we’re seeing several trends really converging at once. First, we have students who are facing greater financial uncertainty, right? While federal aid remains the foundation of college affordability, it’s often not enough to cover the tuition and fees, to say nothing about the full cost of attendance. And paying for college isn’t just about tuition, it’s about including books, supplies, living expenses.

David Kafafian (01:24.118)
Yeah.

Amy Glynn (01:41.426)
Tied right into that. Secondly, is the fact that learners themselves have changed. The profile of who we are supporting in college and paying for college is not the same. Nearly three-quarters of today’s college students are considered non-traditional. They are students and they’re working. They’re students and they’re supporting families. They’re students and they’re serving in the mid military, or they’re returning to education after years in the workforce, right?

Wes Smith (02:06.077)
And and Amy, you have a term for that at National.

Amy Glynn (02:09.489)
We do. We like to call these students anders because, like I said, they’re students and something or many other things in life. And we need to ensure that we are educating and serving the whole student that comes to our institution. And so financing needs have changed and they don’t.

Wes Smith (02:12.373)
Okay.

Amy Glynn (02:31.921)
For our ANDRES or our non-traditional students, they don’t always fit the traditional academic calendars or assumptions built into the federal aid programs. And then the third thing I’m gonna say is that institutions and employers are recognizing that financing is no longer just a financial aid conversation. It’s a conversation about student success. It’s a conversation about completion. When students can’t bridge that relatively small funding gap, they often stop out.

Right, even when they’re in good ad but academic standing, the number one reason that students cite for leaving school is broadly financing. And that is a huge issue. And so to create more interest in responsible employer partnership, private financing options, payments, other solutions that can all complement the federal system.

That’s where we’re all trying to work together to figure out what are those solutions for the future of higher education and the success of our students. And that’s why I’m actually super excited to have both CLASP and NSHAR who are doing great work in this space to have a conversation about some of the things that institutions are doing, some of the innovation that is happening in the funding model, and to figure out how we can really start to serve students financially in a more holistic manner.

Wes Smith (03:53.971)
Right. Amy, I love the I love the setup. Alex, I know, I know that this is the heart of what you do. I’m and there’s there’s really nobody that feels this finance pressure quite like the institutions, but an extension of that is is your work at NShare. And you’re working on on ways that students can navigate this and get a higher education. What are you seeing out there? Why is this moment different?

Alex Ricci (04:23.045)
Well I

Appreciate you inviting me to this conversation. You’re exactly right. This is a really pivotal moment for many students and families as well as institutions. And driving most of the headlines are massive changes that Congress passed and the president signed into law last July fourth, so in 2025, with an implementation date of July one of this year. So just several weeks ago at the time of this recording. And so these massive public policy changes, which include things like new loan limits, both annual and aggregate.

In the federal student loan program, as well as scheduled reduction, which is a sort of fancy term to describe how now, if you’re a student attending less than full-time, you don’t necessarily qualify for that full loan amount. These changes are putting massive pressures on students and families that are well known in higher education, and new students that are entering for the first time who thought that they would have a certain amount of aid available to them and no longer.

Do. And when you combine that large change, we’re talking about something around $85 billion in new federal student loans that were dispersed in the last award year. Combined with all of the pressures that Amy mentioned, we’re looking at an environment that’s really difficult to navigate. So it’s important to have this conversation to focus on what entities are doing to step up and take a holistic approach to solving this problem for students and families.

Wes Smith (05:48.595)
Right. So you’ve seen and we’ve all seen a lot of changes starting July one, and they’re impacting the way that that the funding is available for different students pursuing different programs. I I know David that you’re on the front lines of this. And so I’m gonna ask a question to all the panelists, but I wanna hear from each of your vantage points w what are the most viable non federal options that you’re seeing right now that will help students. But David, I wanna start that with you.

David Kafafian (06:19.413)
Yeah. thank you again for having me and yes, thank you as Amy said for having me back. so look, first things first, we still want to respect that students should think about grants and savings first. They should then think about what federal loan options they have available. and then after that, that’s where the conversation really begins because these new loan caps, as as Alex and Amy talked about, will limit many students to twenty thousand, twenty thousand five hundred, fifty thousand, depending on what limit affects them per annum.

and that frequently will not cover the cost of their tuition fees, just room board, et cetera. I think many people think that the private market, the Sally Mays and Sofis and college ads of the world are going to just plug the hole left by the federal government. And we know that that’s not true. 96% of undergraduate private student loans are co-signed, 73%, as of last time I checked, of graduate loans, graduate private student loans are co-signed.

That means that if you are from an immigrant family and your parents don’t have a FIGO that carried here to the US, you’re from a lower middle income family. You’re a graduate student whose parents have just said, we’re done. We’ve done our part. There are many instances where a student will not have access to that private loan. And so then that’s where the kind of innovations need to begin. There’s two things that we see working here at Class that we’re thrilled to partner with schools and employers on. The first is on the access side.

where we work with universities that who themselves are offering gap loans as a loan of the last resort for their students, not requiring cosign or being properly disclosed under Regzi and you know meeting all of the compliance requirements that you would expect of anybody else. But ultimately these are programs that schools are offering and that they’re not making money on. They they lose money on these programs, but it is a way for a student to persist because there’s nothing worse than the student who has to stop out because they have a $7,000 gap. and then they end up with getting no degree.

That’s bad for them, that’s bad for society. School has a graduation rate hit and a potentially a cohort default rate risk. So that’s option one is is schools to actually step in and support their students here. Option two, and one that we also love working on, is is actually working with employers. So go to the the the end of the value chain where students are ultimately trying to get to and work with them to either provide provide tuition assistance programs or student loan repayment as a benefit. And so

David Kafafian (08:37.281)
This won’t work in every part of the economy. It needs to be in a place where frankly employers need more talent than currently exists. But throughout clinical health care, we know a class that there’s you know 50 some odd health systems that have already signed on with us to offer anywhere from thirty thousand to a hundred and eighty thousand dollars of loan repayment on the back end. So the student still has to go get their own loan funding. but then once they graduate and pass licensure, every month that they work at that employer, they’re getting five hundred, a thousand, two thousand dollars a month.

directly to their loan servicers. and so again, I think there’s plentiful opportunities that that can exist. healthcare’s not the only place, but it’s the place that that we’ve we’re focused on here at Class.

Wes Smith (09:14.739)
Yeah. Alex, I I want you to weigh in on the employer as a funder in higher education. I we we’re seeing that, you know, specifically with what what David mentioned and and the programs in healthcare that they’re working on. have you seen this employer funding, you know, the step up from employers in a wider array than more than just healthcare, or where are we seeing those types of programs?

Alex Ricci (09:45.144)
Employers want a qualified workforce. And right now, colleges and universities are the ones that are doing the lion’s share of providing that educated workforce of the future. And so we do see a number of employers that are stepping up. David mentioned that healthcare is a big one, and for very good reason. We have an aging population and there’s just always a a need for those kinds of individuals to assist in every stage of life. But we do see other industries that are beginning to pop up and show more interest in helping fund

A student’s education and it spans more than just healthcare. So, a couple of examples include advanced manufacturing. We see a lot of emphasis now being put on trades, what we would consider historically blue-collar work as we look to build out more energy infrastructure, as we seek to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure. These kinds of jobs that power that economy are really in demand. And so employers that are performing that work are more than happy to help do tuition reimbursement or

other types of partnerships at the front end, not necessarily student loan repayment, to make sure that these students have the money that they need to complete that program.

Wes Smith (10:53.673)
Right. Right. I’ve seen I I I mean recently I saw that Meta is working on you mentioned the you know the energy infrastructure and the and and the work that goes into that, that they’re funding some some trades that that will help that workforce. I’ve seen, you know, in the microchip manufacturing sec sector, we’ve seen strategic investments that that businesses and employers are stepping up there. And and I think that this is, you know, more

Of a trend, hopefully, that we’ll see moving forward into the future. Amy, anything that you want to add to non-federal options that we’re seeing and and that people should be aware of?

Amy Glynn (11:35.027)
well, I I think there’s two things that I I want to address. The first is when I look at financing of education, I think about who gets the benefit of it of that education, right? Society gets the benefit when we have more a more educated population and there is able to be better a better

ready workforce. And so that’s where the federal government and taxpayers are investing in the federal financial aid system. Institutions benefit, obviously, we are in the business of bettering the lives and of providing education. And that’s where we see institutions investing in scholarshipping and discounting programs to support students. The student is obviously committing a financial obligation in the loans that they are taking and the time commitment that they are providing.

And then the fourth one is employers. And so really to the conversation about the employer investment who is benefiting directly from the education that a student receives to me, like that’s the quadrant we need to look at in resolving the funding gap. This in addition to that though, I am gonna say like we’re talking about the back end of the equation. And if we’re gonna talk about the back end of the equation, we have to talk about the math that goes into the front end. And that means that we need to be talking about

How we are pricing higher education, how we are having cost transparency.

What those pricing models look like, how we drive operational efficiency in higher education, how we reduce the cost and the confusion that students are facing when they are making a selection. I don’t want to oversimplify this, but I’m in Arizona and there’s this car dealership, and they offer what’s called no bull pricing. And they literally tell you: we are going to tell you exactly what the price.

Amy Glynn (13:29.736)
Is for the car. There’s no games, there’s no like, like, here’s what we paid, here are the add-ons, and here’s what we’re gonna charge you, and we’re not gonna, we’re not gonna haggle. Right. And like that idea of having a window sticker where a student understands exactly how much the education is, what comes with that price, and what their funding options are is a place that we need to get to. So I really believe in simplification of our pricing model.

transparency of our pricing model so we understand what is the financial end that we need to come up with at the end.

Wes Smith (14:06.759)
Amy, I you’re you’re speaking like somebody who may have gone through this process recently with a child and seen this firsthand.

Amy Glynn (14:15.184)
I mean, I’m speaking as someone who has spent over 20 years in the financial aid industry and who has also helped their own child through a really horrific process of trying to understand the cost associated with her education and what options were truly available to us. And I will say, being where we sit.

in the the income quadrants that we sit in, there’s not a lot of options unless we want to be, you know, $60,000 in debt every year for our child’s education.

Wes Smith (15:02.495)
Right. Right. I I I love the perspective that it brought going through it. Like not only have you been a professional in it for 20 years, and we’ve had this conversation before here at the presence forum on a podcast. It’s just stunning to me that a professional who knows the the industry in and out still, when you go through the process personally and you’re dealing with a lot of different institutions.

It’s tough to navigate. I can only imagine how hard it is for parents that have no expertise in this area. It’s not, they’re not professionals. They haven’t, you know, been been doing it for decades, and and they’re thrown in to the same kind of chaos. That’s this is this is a tough thing for parents and students to navigate. There’s no question about that.

Amy Glynn (15:51.795)
So I will tell you, orientation was orientation was two weeks ago. We registered for courses. She registered for the exact courses that her advisor suggested. We get a note two two days later. Hey, just wanted to let you know there’s a tuition overload fee. And I was like, how much how many credits did the tuition cover? I thought it covered up to 18. And it was like, I don’t know. I can’t find it. I’m like, great, we can’t find it on the website. Let’s call. Right. And like

David Kafafian (15:51.989)
And what’s the card?

Amy Glynn (16:21.551)
I knew what I had to look for. The information was not there. And here we are: tuition overload fee.

Wes Smith (16:30.355)
Yeah, you need some no bull pricing. I I heard

Amy Glynn (16:32.818)
Apparently, if you want to take more than 16 credits at Institution X, you need to pay an additional $252.

Wes Smith (16:41.737)
Yeah, it’s it’s a wild process and and it can be frustrating, I know. And and this is, you know, this is one of the reasons that it’s you know, if you pull Americans today on issues that that they’re facing, consistently student loans are and and student finance, you know, financing of higher education is on people’s mind. And there’s a reason for that. It’s not just because, you know, it is is because people go through it, they’re frustrated, and then they see the outcome.

And they’re like, I I how did I get in the position I’m in? So this is a really timely conversation. yep.

David Kafafian (17:18.241)
Well, so I can put some if I could put some like some some precise numbers on it because this hasn’t been publicly released yet, but we we had just commissioned a a study of students ourselves here at Clasp and

As of 36 hours ago, so you know, you’ll you’ll hear it first. some ones that stood out to me in no particular order. 51% of students have considered dropping out for financial reasons, 20% have seriously considered it, 78% report monthly financial strain of some kind. and then the one that is again specific to the sector that we focus on, healthcare, but I I think it is very telling. 61% say becoming a healthcare professional is not realistic without family wealth or outside support. That is like

Wes Smith (17:33.825)
perfect.

David Kafafian (18:00.194)
Horrifying state of affairs. Any one of us, 100% of the population, can be a patient of healthcare at any given time. And so when you see numbers like that, paired with everything Amy just shared, you understand why employers are coming to the table. I think employers, you know, this administration has tried to pull employers further in. And I just think that the the the brass hacks of it all, what I just laid out, means that employers who used to kind of say that our education

and the financing of was kind of upstream of them. It wasn’t where they needed to pay their attention. They are increasingly becoming aware that their talent pipelines and their viability is at risk without going upstream themselves and thinking about how to support students and families there. And of course, you know, risk sharing doesn’t mean that the employers will take all of the risk. They will not pin the full check no matter what. And so I I think innovative models that do actually provide risk sharing, but the student owns their own.

academic success. and the employers then share in some of or all the costs on the back end, I think is, you know, just one of the many ways that this can happen. But but again, the the the path we’re going down is not sustainable given the numbers I just share.

Wes Smith (19:08.605)
Yeah, absolutely. And and great that’s great, that’s great information to have. Very timely. Thanks for sharing that, David. Alex, I want to come your way, but I wanna I wanna swap slightly. While there is employer help that’s needed, we we have to have employers engaged. They’re filling a a a very important gap, especially in in industries of high need. But I also don’t want to

miss the institutions role in this, the higher ed institutions. How can higher education institutions help students navigate options that might be available and and do it in a responsible way to, you know, keep costs as low as possible?

Alex Ricci (19:54.887)
Well, three items come to mind. I had four, but Amy hit the nail on the head when she talked about examining the pricing of programs and cost transparency for students and families. I think that that’s paramount. You have to make sure that on the front end those things are done well. But taking a lesson learned from private student lenders and other participants in the nonprofit counseling world, one thing that NCHAR members in particular make sure that they do is sit down with that would-be borrower and have a very open conversation about.

About what it means to take out a loan. What does it mean for their long-term projection and what they want to pursue in life? And these things are understood, it’s interactive, it’s personal. And so similarly, I think that there could be a lesson there for institutions of education. How do we step up our counseling and student success efforts? Because at the end of the day, we would hate to have that student drop out for reasons that could be that $252 charge that you didn’t know you were gonna have, and you had only set your budget or your financing according to

According to what you thought you had to pay. obviously it can be much more dramatic than $250 as well. It could be a blown flat tire. And so making sure that you set those things not just up and you have the infrastructure, but that students and families are aware of it. I think that would be item number one that I would flag for institutions of higher education. The second item that I would highlight for institutions of higher education, college, universities, no matter what population you serve, is to talk to other entities in your area. So it’s not

Just employers, it’s high school counselors, it’s foundations in the area, community development foundations. How are your programs educating that workforce of the future so that your students, when they graduate, get into employment or pursue their passion in a way that’s productive for the institution in the long run and students in the community that you serve? And finally, it’s not the end-all be-all solution, but increasingly, students and families will rely on private education loans to help.

Finance their way through school. And that there is an obligation or an opportunity for institutions to put out an RFP and do a preferred lender list and point students and families to those lenders that you have vetted that maybe have the best interest rates or the best backend benefits or payment assistance benefits. Maybe these are lenders that are going to take responsibly, take a risk and lend to a borrower that has either a very thin.

Alex Ricci (22:24.446)
Credit file or no credit history, but they’re in a program that’s going to lead to economic mobility. And so laying these options, pointing students and families to those responsible actors is something institutions should take advantage of now so that students and families aren’t left out on their own and make poor decisions as a consequence of not having good information in front of them.

Wes Smith (22:47.197)
Alex, I I love, you know, well, all three of the of those points very valid. I I love the second point that you made there on there there are resources and there are opportunities that that students can take advantage of that are that are local resources or state level resources that are driving workforce issues, driving workforce opportunity. And I’ve seen that personally in in young people who are.

In high school and are put on a pathway to a workforce opportunity in high school that can then be compounded on in higher education. Do you have any specific things that you’ve seen in that where you’ve said, wow, that is a really great program that has has helped on the workforce trajectory that keeps costs low and you know, kind of is an add-on.

before you even get to higher education. I’m I’m curious if any of our panelists have seen opportunities like that.

Alex Ricci (23:54.034)
just to clarify your question, you’re asking, are there any interesting partnerships out there between private stakeholders and institutions that have helped pave the way for credit advancement or keeping college more affordable?

Wes Smith (24:09.085)
Yeah, well, I’m I’m just thinking like like there are workforce pathways now that have I know in the state of Utah there are workforce pathways in advanced manufacturing that begin in high school. And that you can you can get into these pathways and you have opportunities in in higher education that that wouldn’t be available necessarily to you. And I thought that, you know, that was that that that’s one of the issues that that you had called out of.

maybe there there are ways that you can leverage that that pathway, those exp that expertise that’s available even before higher education.

Alex Ricci (24:49.329)
Yeah, there’s there’s absolutely resources out there that can assist students and families, whether and it’s not just dual enrollment, credit for prior learning assessments exist all over the place, including at many institutions of higher education, where not just that traditional high school student going right out of high school and into a post-secondary program can benefit, but adult learners that are coming back that want to get that credential, they’ve learned a little something, they have experience, but they don’t necessarily

Have that diploma that signifies that they have certain competencies. And so building these things out is something institutions can do. It’s something employers in the community can help assist with, in addition to just the mere financing side of it. I would call out there there is a growing number of what’s called pay it forward programs or evolving door loan funds that are 0% or 1% interest rate loan programs that certain public entities or foundations have established.

And sometimes they are narrowly defined for nursing or radiology. But sometimes they’re not. Sometimes it’s HVAC and welding. And these are the sorts of programs. I know of one in New Jersey, which is a 0% interest rate loan program where it’s not just the loan, but there’s these wraparound supports that exist because employers in the area stepped up, the state government stepped up, a foundation stepped up. So participants, these students and families, they not just don’t just get that loan, which is great, that 0% interest rate loan.

loan, but they get a living siphon. They have access to mental health counseling to help them succeed. They have these other wraparound support services that guide them through the program. So when they take that leap from high school to college, they know exactly what they have to do in order to succeed.

Wes Smith (26:37.021)
And and that I like the idea that that can be tied to institutions of higher education can help guide and help bring those resources, surface them to potential students. And and I would love to see more institutions be expert, you know, have that expertise available for potential students so they can take advantage of all those resources.

David Kafafian (27:02.485)
Well, so I I I obviously I’m not a financial aid professional myself, but I work with many of them. I would certainly echo what you just said there. And I would say that anything that the Department of Ed or policymakers can do to give clarity, whether it’s through a dear colleague letter or otherwise, to universities and financial administrators about what they can speak about, because that too frequently I see financial aid administrators take the position of all we can do is a historical list that just brain dumps every lender that’s ever given ever lent to our students and nothing more.

And we’re in a moment where that is extremely not consumer friendly. Like I don’t blame the schools. I understand the fear that exists there, but that’s not helpful to a student or family. They’re getting a database unsorted or unfiltered to them. They’re not typically seeing many of the state options that are newly released here and plugged into any of these pay it forward funds that Alex is speaking about. so I I don’t envy being a university here, but I also don’t envy being a student or family for the reasons Amy said on that side of it.

I think it would be really, really helpful in this moment for the department to give some guidance around, you know, schools being able to lean in and not preference private lenders, but actually give students a bit more of a tailored bit of guidance so that there’s a better customer experience at the end of the day for the student who’s trying to navigate how do I think between workforce funding and state level funding and like a you know a state state agency and a traditional private lender and something else. And so it’s a tough moment, but it’s one that everybody’s gotta work together.

Wes Smith (28:23.391)
Right.

Wes Smith (28:30.097)
Amy, what’s your perspective on that from the institution side?

Amy Glynn (28:35.357)
Yeah, so there is there is plenty of leeway for universities to be able to talk, educate, and advise on funding options for students without offering preferential treatment. Right. We have had preferred lender lists. I don’t know, Alex, I feel like you probably know for exactly how long. I’m gonna say over a decade, within within higher education, which which is one of the gateways for us to make sure.

Sure, that we are speaking about lenders that align their products and their services appropriately to their students. I can tell you at National, when we started hearing about the changes, we did decide to go down the road of doing an RFI for a preferred lender list. Not telling stories out of school here, but as a veteran-founded institution, if that private lender

Did not offer full deferment options for a student who was deployed in active military service, the lender was eliminated from our list. We aligned the student protections to things that were important to us at our institution based on our mission and the support that we wanted to provide. So there are tools. Schools, school being a financial aid professional, right? The audit.

The program review, super scary thing. The department doesn’t come with like a warm batch of cookies telling you thank you so much for following the rules. They come with a hammer and they’re like, you didn’t follow the rules. and so I get it, it’s scary and the loss of title four is incredibly, incredibly scary for an institution.

So I’m gonna say my advice, financial aid professionals, your GC is your best friend, right? Your general counsel is your best friend, have conversations, see what you can do, find ways to be creative to ensure that we are advising students around all of their options. And that’s what Alex really talked about, right? Like that need to be able to have highly personalized conversations with students about what college is gonna cost, what their funding options are, and laying out all of the options to them and ensuring.

Amy Glynn (30:48.104)
That is not a one-time conversation. Financial aid advising is no longer a nice to have. It is a student success strategy that if your institution does not do it, well.

You are not serving your students and you are not serving yourself in any way. So if you’re an institution that’s like, this is a place I can really get better, there are a lot of institutions who are being really innovative, making great strides. They’re looking at their success models and figuring out how do we bring the conversation of finances and financial barriers to the forefront and address them proactively instead of reactively.

Wes Smith (31:29.405)
Yeah, well stated, Amy. That is absolutely correct. Our our institutions today, if they’re not being proactive on this, they’re missing. They’re missing a huge opportunity. And I like that you you mentioned that it’s all about student success. Financing is not it’s not a peripheral issue. It is it is right up front, and we have to be able to address that as institutions if we’re gonna have students be successful. So

Let me wrap this up. I I would just like to give each of you an opportunity to think through, you know, the big picture on this. But t give us give us one principle that students and families should use when they’re evaluating their options to pay for an education. What’s what’s one thing that they should know going in from your perspective that would be helpful for them to keep like right at the forefront?

I’ll I’ll start David, I’ll start with you and then Alex come your way and then Amy, I’ll give you the last word.

David Kafafian (32:33.523)
And one one principle is hard to to pin down. I I actually would start even before the financing question. And it’s it’s around is the program there and the un institution they’re attending, does the cost and value make sense to them? because it’s it’s a purchasing decision at the end of the day, and people don’t like to talk about school that way, but it absolutely is. And for many families, there is no good way to solve needing to finance a program that has an eighty thousand dollar cost of attendance.

and so I think starting with what is the cost of the program? And that again it would be easier in the in the way that Amy had described it if we got some noble pricing, but what is the cost of the program? How does it map to the value you expect? I I would actually encourage families to start right then and there because there are a ton of careers that we desperately need in the the current and the future workforce. and I think you know students focusing their attention there is the starting point to them then finding what is the pathway to financing that makes most sense for them.

Wes Smith (33:07.305)
Mm-hmm.

Wes Smith (33:33.063)
Right. The the value proposition of of the credential that you’re pursuing. Okay, that makes sense. Alex, w what’s your advice? what’s your your one principle that you would encourage, you know, parents and students to to look into?

David Kafafian (33:37.985)
Absolutely.

Alex Ricci (33:49.244)
If David’s one principle was take a long-term perspective and view your career goals in line with your educational program, I think mine builds off of that. Oftentimes, once you’ve done that, once you know kind of what you want to do or the program that you think will allow you the flexibility to pursue a career of your choosing, you just want to sign on the dotted line. Just okay, tell me where I need to sign to get the money I need to go to this school to to get on with my life. And my advice would be shop.

compare. I think Amy gave a great example earlier in this conversation when they were vetting private lenders and what mattered to their population of students and and their their founders of the institution, you know, they weren’t going to go with a lender that wasn’t going to have a full deferral for active duty military service members. Well similarly, like if the military is your thing, don’t just sign up with a private lender that has the lowest rate if you’re gonna have interest accrual when you’re active duty. So take the time to shop around to identify

the options that make the most sense. Frequently, that time pressure is real and you just want to get the money in your bank account as soon as possible or over to the institution. So my rule of thumb is shop and compare. There are lots of options out there and the more time you take to do that right, though your future self will thank you.

Wes Smith (35:06.917)
I I I love the advice and it gets us back to one of Amy’s, you know, observations. This this idea that it’s not as transparent as it seems. So there’s a lot of work to do. When you’re saying shop and compare, you’re saying do the homework, it’s worth it at the end of the day. Yeah. Okay. So Amy, we’ll give you the last word here. what what principle

Coming from a financial aid professional and somebody who’s just recently done this, what would you encourage parents and students to do?

Amy Glynn (35:37.588)
So this is the advice I gave my daughter when we were shopping for schools. I said, your choice about where you go to school is a trifecta. You need to start with the personal fit of the institution. Is the institution the right size for you? Is it in the right location? Is it in the right environment? Do you feel comfortable on campus?

Is it an academic fit for you? Does the institution that you are choosing offer the program that you are interested in and the quality or reputation of program that you desire?

And is it a financial fit? When we look at the cost and the funding available, can we afford this in year one? And do we have a sustainable funding path to be able to afford your entire four-year degree at that institution? Are you comfortable?

With the debt and the financial obligations that you’re signing on to for the next 10 to 20 years. Are your father and I comfortable and capable of signing on to the financial obligations? Right. And so it’s really looking at finding an institution that meets the personal, the academic, and the financial fit for the student profile and their family. And I will say there is an institution out there for everybody.

But you need to continue to look until you find the right fit. Trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole. Sorry, I couldn’t remember the shapes there for a moment. Trying trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole when it comes to choosing a college is not going to work. It’s going to result in stopping out.

Amy Glynn (37:22.354)
it is going to result in you wasting time, money, and energy and having disappointment. And so we really need to commit to finding that right fit.

Wes Smith (37:33.009)
I I love your observation. It and it we it could get lost if if we don’t pull this out, but it’s not just about year one of the cost. You have to be able to see year two, three, and four. Like the financial the viability all the way through is important because there are students who get a, you know, a a different price for year one. And that’s not the same price they’re gonna have all all the way through. So that could be a problem. So

I’m glad that you pointed that out, Amy. But to all of our panelists, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for bringing your expertise in and having this conversation with the Presidents Forum. We look forward to having you all back on topics similar to this and right in your wheelhouse so we can we can provide content to our listeners that’ll be helpful moving forward. So thanks for joining.