This quarter’s theme is training, and as you can see in this issue, our president, Brenda Burke, and her committees have far exceeded our expectations—the training opportunities for our membership are top-notched and unparalleled. In the spirit of recognizing the all-important need of continuing education among ourselves, it is also incumbent upon us all to appreciate the value of educating our students in financial aid in not only its benefits, but also in its repercussions.

The exchange of ideas and the dissemination of information done in the vernacular of the participating group can be very enriching, but have you ever been in a group discussion in which lots of terms and acronyms are bandied about and it seems like everyone gets it but you? Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that many of our students feel they’re listening to a foreign language when we start speaking our financial aid jargon and using terminology that is commonplace to us. For many, the entire subject of financial aid seems so confusing, complicated, and even intimidating that they are more than willing to allow their borrowing decisions to be handled or at least influenced by anyone other than themselves.
An integral part of our mission as financial aid administrators should be to cultivate in our students a basic level of literacy when it comes to their financial aid. Short term goals of meeting tuition payments and living expenses are being accomplished by taking on long-term debt, but at some point the piper has to be paid and the deferred loan payment becomes a deferred consequence. How many of us have made the statement “had I known then what I know now”?

The better informed student will make wiser choices and perhaps will be less saddled with educational debt upon leaving school. Having a passing knowledge of budgeting, credit issues and their impact, cumulative loan amounts after capitalization (is that really what this loan will end up costing me?), repayment plans, career salaries, and the like can provide a more realistic view of the future. Today many schools have established their own financial aid literacy programs which take the student from beginning to end of the application process, how aid is calculated, descriptions and regulations of various loan types, eligibility requirements, etc. Missing from some of these programs is substantive information on the everyday nitty-gritty of repaying educational loans after leaving school. In an ideal world, a financial aid literacy program would be a required course in the freshman year and would include practical real-time information regarding post-school life. The realities of job salaries in different geographical locations, net income, household budgets, mortgage debt and other factors that determine financial health should all be a part of any program.

Students come to us confused and often misinformed about financial aid and many times just want us to tell them what to do, but we would serve them better if we taught them some of our vocabulary and jargon and made them feel more comfortable in discussing the subject and its long-term impact on their future. Recently a student came into the office and recounted how in his first undergraduate year he had been too embarrassed to ask questions because everyone around him seemed to know what they were doing and he did not want to look foolish; even his financial aid counselor assumed he was far savvier than he was. This student is set to graduate this spring from medical school and has come a long way in educating himself about financial aid. However, some of the decisions he made along the way, especially early on, will adversely affect his and his family’s everyday life for years to come. As he left the office that day, he turned back and said, “had I known then what I know now”.

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Editors’ Contact Information

Editors’ Background Information (or “How We Got Here”)
Eloise Turner is an alumna of the University of South Carolina and the Virginia Tech Graduate School and began her financial aid career at Radford University in 2004 as a financial aid counselor before joining VCOM in 2006 where she serves as the Financial Aid Coordinator. She has been a member of VASFAA since 2007 and this is her first VASFAA committee service.

Daniel Hewitt is an alumnus of Virginia Tech and began his financial aid career at Virginia Tech in 2001 as an assistant financial aid counselor. He moved to Ferrum College in 2004 and finally landed at VCOM in 2005 where he serves as the Director of Financial Aid. He has been a member of VASFAA since 2002 and has served on the Electronic Services and Newsletter committees.