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MCC on the Conference Circuit: Insights into Saving and Paying for College

Nov 06, 2024

This fall, My College Corner had the opportunity to attend three conferences focused on saving and paying for college.  In the coming weeks, we will offer a transcript and video from each conference.

We start the conversation with leaders of the Education Finance Council. Note the common word in each description:

  • Lynne Riley – President, Georgia Student Finance Commission: Identifies college completion as critical and talks about the Georgia Completion Grant to help students go the extra mile to complete their studies.
  • Bill Wozniak – Vice President of Marketing, INvestEd (IN): Making families feel welcome is a key step in providing the help they need simply, easily, and directly.
  • Sara Parrish – President, Campus Door (PA):  A key to helping students is providing educational content in easily accessible plain language when students need it and how they want to consume it (usually not by telephone!).
  • Leslie Birdow – Director of Community Affairs, inspireEd (TX): Shares helpful thoughts on the trend toward states requiring students to complete the FAFSA to graduate.
  • Ryan Craig – Managing Director at Achieve Partners: His keynote address focused on the apprenticeship model to help students gain experience, but we latched on to his observations about the misdirected $1.1 billion Federal Work-Study program.
  • Steve McCullough – President and CEO of Iowa Student Loan: Parents and students need help to understand how to make good choices about schools and majors so they will get a good return on investment.

The common word?  Help.

Watch the full range of interviews here:

John Hupalo, MyCollege Corner: Lynne, what do you think is the biggest problem right now or the problem that we need to solve to help students do better with paying for college loans?

Lynne Riley: Students are challenged today finding the right resources to pay for college. Georgia has introduced the Georgia College Completion Grant because we realized students need to get to that last mile to attain those credentials. We suspended giving loans in lieu of these Completion Grants because we don’t want to overburden our students. It’s so important that they get the credentials and the education they need, because we need their talents in the workforce today.

JH: Well, that’s really spectacular. Completion is what it’s all about, isn’t it?

LR: Absolutely. When they’re close to the attainment of the credential, life happens sometimes. And those challenges that would keep them from getting that credential really could inhibit their career success. The Completion Grant allows the institutions to use their discretion to determine the greatest need for that student to achieve that credential.

JH: Bill, you’re on the ground with families day-to-day. What do we need to do to improve the process so that they feel good about what they’re doing to try to get federal financial aid?

Bill Wozniak: The first step is to make every family feel welcome, know that they’re okay, that they can be part of this process, and that they’re going to get help. People sometimes feel that they’re not welcome, that they’re going to be the only family with questions. They’re going to be the only family that has an issue that the FAFSA might not be working for. And then they walk away. They just completely leave the process.

And so step one is to make sure people know they’re welcome and that there’s help available and that the questions that they have are shared by many other families, a lot of other families. And then once they feel welcome, we have to make sure that we get the expert help for them. We get them the answers they need simply, easily, directly, so that when they get the answer, they can get things done, they can get the forms processed, and then be in good shape and move forward in the whole process.

JH: Sara Parrish is at the forefront of trying to help students when they’re originating loans. Sara, tell us what you think we can do to make the process a little bit easier, so that students are less confused when they’re actually taking a private credit loan.

Sara Parrish: I think it’s very important that communication be very considerate of the students’ needs and where they are in their life cycle. Today, about 46% of students would consider themselves workers AND students. So our content, our educational content specifically, is not just geared to the 18-year old that’s playing Frisbee on the quad, but to the reality of who today’s students actually are. It’s very important that originators think about plain language, explaining not just that this is a disclosure, but what is this disclosure. Provide ample help text so that any students or applicants that have questions throughout the way can access answers at their fingertips. And really support self-service.

Today, we find that fewer and fewer students or applicants want to give us a call. We’re here to help. You can call us anytime, but they don’t necessarily want to call us. They don’t necessarily want to e-mail us. They want the information that they need when they need it. Increasingly, we’re investing in Frequently Asked Questions on all of our sites, that configurable help text that can vary program-to-program, and some Chat capabilities.

JH: Including AI capabilities?  Are you using AI in your system now?

SP: We are always interested in AI. AI, especially in lending, is always a mixed bag. We are choosing to embrace it for some operational efficiency while being very cautious about using it for underwriting.

JH: I really want to get on another point and that is FAFSA completion. There’s this movement, Leslie, in the states that requires FAFSA completion to get a high school diploma. What do you think about that?

Leslie Birdow: So I’m in Texas and it is required. And it has really introduced more students to the concept of attending college where they were previously not considering that in the past. But once they did their financial aid application, they realized that college was an option for them. And so it became a new item that they were able to consider in their future planning. There is always an opt-out form, at least in most states that have that requirement, and so that allows students who really don’t need the FAFSA, or for some reason can’t complete it, to skip that requirement.

JH: Ryan Craig was just the keynoter at the Education Finance Council meeting and he made some brilliant points. Ryan, one of them that I hope you could elaborate on is this concept of how we can make it better for students to make college affordable. And you talked about work-study. I think there are some real improvements necessary there and you hit on some big ones. Can you talk about that?

Ryan Craig: So the Federal Work Study program, which would have been $1.1 billion that the federal government is funding today, basically is encouraging institutions to put students to work on-campus in custodial and dining hall jobs that have very little to do with their career goals, let alone their program of study, because the subsidy for those on-campus jobs is 75%. Whereas the subsidy for off-campus jobs is only 25%. And there’s a cap on the number of students who can actually participate in off-campus apprenticeship programs. So it needs to be reversed. The funding should prioritize off-campus jobs that are related to programs of study and the careers that students are interested in.

JH: Okay, the dust has settled. The room is now empty. It’s quiet for the first time all day. Huge amount of great information was traded, and I’m here with Steve McCullough, CEO of Iowa Student Loan. Steve, you’ve been a thought leader in education finance for decades now. What do we need to do going forward? If you could wave your magic wand, one silver bullet, what do we need to do?

Steve McCullough: So what parents and students need is they need education and information. They need to understand the real economics of college. They need to understand that different majors lead to different incomes. Those incomes determine how much you can afford to borrow for college, how much you can afford to pay for college. The Return on Investment. So I’m a true believer that if you arm people with information and teach them how to use it, that they will make good choices.

Right now, unfortunately, the process for especially first-time families is opaque. They don’t know what they don’t know, and they don’t know where to start. But if you give them some education, explain the process, and then give them the information they need to make good choices, they’re going to do it.

My College Corner is grateful to Lynne, Bill, Sara, Leslie, Ryan, and Steve for sharing their thoughts and leading efforts to demystify the process of saving, planning, and paying for college.