Our school had someone come and speak from MEFA. It was a good talk but I did not learn anything that the “financial aid” session of any college tour taught. Fill out the FAFSA, fill out the CSS Profile. The guidance counsellors emailed scholarship applications that came through them to everyone. Other than that, there was nothing. They could not advise anything about which schools give good aid and which don’t. The counseling office was really useless in that regard.
I think that the financial aid information needs to be made available to the students so that they know where to get it, but there should not be a lot of financial aid lecturing during school time. Many large high schools have very diverse income levels, and it would be awkward for a kid who has been told by his parents that he is absolutely full pay to listen to a 30 minute lecture about how to get a Pell grant.
Financial information for parents is great during evening meetings.
I have work with a program called Financial Aid U which brings volunteers into the high schools to help students complete their FAFSAs, deal with verification issues and interpret/compare financial aid award letters. It is targeted to first generation/low income students who often don’t have a parent to help with the process but anyone can use the service.
I think that there are other programs like this around the country.
Its a great program but of course it relies on well trained volunteers willing to go in to the school.
Our private school has 1 night for PARENTS to go over the FAFSA and honestly, you can learn more with a 15 minute Goggle search.
I have always complained it does a great disservice to the student to not have that as topic 1 of college search.
Our public HS had a College Application and Financial Aid night meeting for parents, in September, and while open to everyone, they specifically invite families of freshman through junior years - they made the point that high school seniors could/should have attended in prior years, and should be well along the way of getting their college finalized, having completed some visits where possible, gotten rec letters lined up, etc., as admissions process is well underway at that point.
They talked first about applications in general, and had the school head GC talk about GAP and weighted GPA, AP classes, and SAT / ACT scores.
They had an FA officer from directional state discuss the FAFSA.
They had a retired former FA officer from a neighboring LAC discuss the CSS Profile. Also went through merit vs. need based aid, but this was too high level for my perspective.
They had a fee-based college application consultant discuss the overall application process - he handed out business cards, and many 2-income, no time families became his customers. A good amount of his presentation was also spent discussing the FA appeals process, but he also talked too much about his test-prep review courses.
The panel was available afterward for general questions. Each presenter made the point about not giving financial advice, but general information only.
Overall, there was a lot of information made available in 3 hours (from 7-10PM), and it was helpful especially to families completely new to the process.
Re #18
They do mention net price calculators, right?
Yes they did! It was an eye-opening experience for me and led to some additions in D’s dream list. Again, because of the size of the school (almost 3,000), they don’t compute each child’s calculations into each school, but more of the fact that NPCs exist and to look for them on college websites - usually under admissions and/or affordability. Personally, this was akin on the skies opening up and golden rays of heavenly light shone down.
Our high school holds a financial aid presentation for parents. It is held in the evening both in the spring and fall and they generally have a speaker. In recent years it has been the financial aid director from a local college. They post a power point presentation on the school’s website for parents who couldn’t make the meeting. I never attended the presentation because I have a pretty good understanding of financial aid and also knew that my kids would never qualify for any need-based aid and would not be taking out loans. I have glanced at the materials on-line, though, and they appear to be quite comprehensive.
OTOH, I don’t think the school provides much, if any, information on financial aid to students. In fact, when my oldest daughter and I sat down for a mandatory meeting with her guidance counselor in spring of her junior year, he told her not to take cost into account when formulating her list. What?? He has no idea of our financial situation (nor should he), so I don’t know why in the world he would say such a thing. It would seem more appropriate for the GC to advise the student to have a discussion with the parents as to how much they could afford. Our HS is located in a fairly affluent area where many families can afford to pay full boat at an expensive private, but there are plenty of families who cannot. Few families in our district would qualify for federal or state aid other than loans, plus we’re in a state (Illinois) with a very expensive flagship, so not taking cost into account seems to me a recipe for disaster.
I wish schools would talk about financial aid compared to the COA. So many low income kids count on financial aid to cover all their expenses. Only a handful of schools meet need. And you might not know that if you are low income and 1st generation.
Seems like the best thing for the counselor to say would be something along the lines of:
Public, urban high school, 50% free and reduced lunch – there is a financial aid presentation in the fall and a planning for college presentation in the spring (for juniors). Other than that, guidance sends transcripts and the counselor’s recommendation. Researching schools, financial aid etc., is beyond the scope of guidance office’s capacity, as a big portion of the day is trying to make sure kids graduate. The public flagship is the default option for most mid-higher achieving kids. There is a tippy top group of kids there for an academic magnet program, and they do very well with college admissions (Ivies, top 20 universities and LACs) but handle it on their own.
Seems very close to the average. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_046.asp indicates that, in 2010-2011, 48.1% of students were eligible for free or reduced price lunch.
@ucbalumnus – for us, in Indiana, surrounded by schools with 10% free and reduced lunch, it is a noticeable difference.
Indiana as a whole had 46.8% on free or reduced price lunch in 2010-2011. Presumably, you are surrounded by relatively above typical income and wealth areas?
Urban core surrounded by suburban affluence, yes. I’m guessing less than half of graduating class goes to college, and probably 1/4 of those that do attend regional campuses as a commuter, but that is a guess. Great teachers, doing great work, and a dedicated staff who want to make sure kids have options. The super achievers manage the process independently, while the school focuses on graduation rates, career readiness, and preparation for local campuses or the flagship. IU Bloomington does have a good program for 1st gen and low income kids, bringing them in to take class in the summer and then providing structure and guidance during the first year – anecdotally, from my kids’ friends, seems to make a difference.
But I am shocked that state-wide, the percentage is that high. I did not realize that.
I don’t recall our private HS providing much info about FAid at all. We didn’t qualify for FAid, so I didn’t pay much attention anyway. Sadly, the HS didn’t help parents or kids understand net costs of Us.
We did go several times to speak with the HS college counselor to ask for his help in creating a list of Us likely to give significant merit aid to S, given his grades and high test scores. S used that list to create his college list, adding a few Us. S did get significant merit aid from several of those Us and attended one of them.
we had a FA night on October 8.
it involved a general overview of fafsa, a mention of the CSS profile,a financial aid guy from a pricey U (which in and of itself was sort of odd–idk why they didnt get the guy from the local school the vast majority of kids attend here, but i guess it was a friend of the GC), a few stories about hail mary miracle sunshine and rainbows kids who got a lot of money, a collection of very basic handouts and a bank loan officer in the lobby for those who wanted more info.
it was ok. i was pretty surprised at the amount of parents furiously scribbling notes, so it did seem to me that quite a few people benefitted from it.
with the exception of the fact that FAFSA opened on 10/1…so some of us were already done. :))
Minimal, but they did have nights this fall to help with the FAFSA. I think the presentation overemphasized the ability to make helpful changes to the financial profile. They also mostly talked about the state schools without making it clear that a good number of students would not getting any financial breaks to attend our (expensive) in states regardless of their stats. They spoke a lot about our local (low ranked) community college and how they wanted all the seniors to apply there. There was no info about how some OOS publics are much less expensive than our instates or about WUE or about significant merit schools. There was no info before fall of senior year other than them pushing Naviance a lot.
As part of “college night” for juniors and their parents fall of junior year they did remind everyone about FAFSA, mentioned if a kid was interested in a private school there might be the Profile to also fill out, and reminded the students of the local scholarhips and the scholarship database the school maintained. I’m fine with it, I don’t think it’s appropriate for high school guidance counselors to be too involved in finances of a post high school education especially need based aid. For me it’s none of their business what we can afford or how we are going to do it. Maybe it makes sense in a private school setting for GCs to get involved in financing options, but not so much public schools.
Although my kids went to an excellent HS, and their overall experience was fine, the college counseling in general was pretty bad. I am pretty sure I knew more about financial topics than some of the “experts” at the school (thanks in part to CC).