See how Sallie Makes Sense: A Series

Our current federal higher education financing system is complicated and confusing.  Offering some federal student loans in virtually unlimited amounts, without consideration of a borrower’s ability to repay them, leads too many families to overborrow for higher education. There are steps students and families can take to avoid borrowing more than they can repay. Completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and using tools like Scholarship Search by Sallie are just a few examples of how to access free money for higher education before borrowing.

In this video, Maureen Fagen, a first-generation college student and Director of Relationship Management at Sallie Mae, shares more advice, tips, and tools to help families responsibly plan and pay for higher education.

Watch to learn more about how Sallie Make is making sense of borrowing for higher education.

There’s currently no standard format for financial aid offer letters, leaving many students and families confused about the total cost for their higher education. In fact, a study by the Government Accountability Office found that 91% of colleges fail to include the full price of attendance, including tuition and fees, room and board, transportation and more.

When students and families understand their financial aid offer letters, they’re better prepared to make informed financing decisions and can avoid overborrowing.

In this video, Sergio Gonzalez, Sallie Mae’s Director of Relationship Management, explains what to look for in financial aid offer letters and how to calculate the true costs of higher education before borrowing.

While 60% of families reported using scholarships to pay for college in 2022, millions of dollars in scholarships go unclaimed each year. Nearly 50% of families believe scholarships are only for exceptionally gifted students, and 36% of families think scholarships aren’t worth applying to if the parents make too much money.

The reality is, there are scholarships available for every kind of student and just about every interest, and every scholarship earned can help students and families responsibly pay for college. As a responsible private lender, Sallie Mae helps students and families – especially those from underserved communities – access scholarships and confidently navigate their journey to and through higher education.

In this video, Sallie Mae’s Donna Vieira highlights our free scholarship search tool, which opens the door to more than 6 million scholarships, worth up to $30 billion in free money.

Sallie Mae supports all students on their journeys to, through, and immediately after college, and while we know higher education opens the door to greater opportunities, only about 40% of families have a plan to pay for it.

Sallie Mae is here to help students and families responsibly access and complete their higher education. Watch Sallie Mae’s Nic Jafarieh break down how students and families can plan for college using our 1-2-3 step approach to college financing. As a responsible private lender, Sallie Mae provides free tools and resources to help students and families. Visit SallieMae.com/CollegePlanning for more information.

As a private student lender, Sallie Mae is committed to helping students and families effectively manage their student loan payments. Private student loans – which are fully underwritten to assess creditworthiness and ability to repay – make up 7.61% of the $1.7 trillion student loan market.

The majority of students – roughly 43 million Americans – have federal student loans, which make up 93% of all student loans today. Too often, students and families lack awareness about who and how much they owe, and how they can repay their loans. In fact, according to our 2022 College Confidence report, almost half of families expect to borrow money to pay for college, but roughly the same number of families don’t know federal loans need to be repaid.

In this video, Sallie Mae’s Kristin Hawley-Johnson shares three tips for students and recent graduates to effectively manage their student loans.

Whatever their educational journeys may be, Sallie Mae is here to guide students to make informed decisions about paying for college and set them up for success before and after graduation.

There is no single path to higher education. In fact, nearly half of students entering college are over 25, and 40% are over 35. Some students attend four-year universities, while others choose two-year or vocational programs.

Sallie Mae is here to support all students on their unique journeys to higher education. Watch to learn more from Ventrice Diggs-King about Sallie Mae’s free tools and resources to help students plan and pay for higher education – no matter what their path may be.

Source: https://higheredconnects.com/non-traditional-students/ for statistics about non-traditional students included in video.