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Don't Panic. The Financial Crisis Shouldn't Derail Your College Search!
Don't panic--the financial crisis shouldn't derail your college search.
Featured Author:
Andrew Flagel, PhD
Andrew Flagel is the Dean of Admissions and Associate Vice President for Enrollment Development for George Mason University, where he also teaches in the Department of Communication.
Dean Flagel has an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Psychology and a Master of Arts in Education from GW, and his Ph.D. in Education from Michigan State University. He has been a featured guest on C-Span’s Washington Journal, and his quotes have appeared in recent educational stories in Newsweek, US News and World Report, The Washington Post, and even Teen Vogue.
By Andrew Flagel, Dean of Admissions and Assistant Vice President for Enrollment Development, George Mason University
October 2008—As markets continue their roller coaster ride while the presidential candidates sling invective at one another’s financial bailout plans, I hear daily from people reacting to the financial situation as it relates to colleges. On the college side, college administrators are concerned many of you will stay home, or at least closer to home than you might otherwise have gone. For students, or more specifically, parents, there is a growing trend to rule out some colleges now on the basis of finances.
A study out from the National Association of Independent Colleges, however, offers a more realistic picture. That association, by the way, is made up of high-cost private institutions. A dean of admissions for a major public institution, such as myself, who was feeling less than charitable might mention that these are the schools most likely to have graduates with HUGE DEBT LOADS, but I wouldn’t stoop to that level (cue campaign music).
Anyway, the study found that, while many schools had lost some of their student loan lenders, only 8.5% had trouble replacing those lenders. They also reported a handful of students at most institutions facing financial difficulty, but said that most found alternative payment plans or other funding sources to continue meeting their (incredibly inflated) tuition costs.
So how does all this impact YOU? There are two big aspects to how the “crisis” can impact your ability to pay. First, most of us with savings have seen those funds take a huge loss, so have less cash on hand to pay college bills. Second, loans to make up that gap might be harder to get, and/or more expensive to pay off.
While I appreciate that families need to assess their financial situations in making their college choices, it seems a bit bizarre to me for students to be making up their minds already that some schools are out of reach. We really don’t know what will be going on by the time those of you applying for college this year get your financial aid packages (for most of you that won’t be until March or April 2009), let alone when you need to make your commitment to colleges (May 1, 2009) or when you bills will start to come to (for most in early September 2009). It’s entirely possible that the financial situation, particularly the availability of loans and their rates, will be very different by those dates.
So my advice: don’t rule out any schools at this point based on their cost (even if those costs are ridiculously high from some of those other schools), especially before you see what kind of aid they might supply, and don’t leap into paying some consultant a massive amount of what few dollars you have left in your bank account. At the same time, it’s certainly worth making sure your mix of schools has some reasonably priced alternatives that you can be excited about. Did I mention that, even for out of state students, Mason’s tuition is about HALF of the other D.C. institutions? I did? Oh good. Be seeing you.
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Andrew Flagel is Dean of Admissions and Assistant Vice President for Enrollment Development, George Mason University
AllenH83
6 months ago
So, the good news here is that I just got accepted to GMU for the fall of next year. What's the bad news? I had to rule out many institutions such as Georgetown and George Washington on my way to George Mason. Why? Because I am not good enough for such schools? I doubt it. I have already enjoyed success in college achieving an Associates degree with a high GPA. I also scored a 33 on my ACT, was in the top 10 of my high school graduating class, captain of my cross-country and track teams, in the National Honor Society....blah, blah, blah. My ability to excel at these schools was not a factor. The only reason I ruled out these schools was the price tag and the fact I would not be able to pay for these schools even if I was able to work full-time while attending school and maxing out student loans (which are actually almost impossible to get right now, despite what the Dean thinks).
Now, for the really bad news. Even though I am moving to DC in two weeks, I have serious doubts that I am actually going to be able to afford GMU. I have applied for every type of financial aid available, hundreds of scholarships, etc. To this date, I am stuck ith barely enough money to afford the drive to DC. I am going to spend all summer trying to straighten out the mess that my former institution made of my federal student aid and trying to bartend and wait tables to afford tuition next fall.
Long story short, truthfully, the people in school right now are probably more stressed out than the average Wall Street broker. Affording even the "affordable" schools is nearly impossible. And when we get done with school, we will be riddled with huge amounts of debt no matter where we go. Of course, most of us won't even be able to pay that debt back because of the lack of jobs in our economy for people just graduating from college.
I do agree with the Dean on one important point. Get excited about schools like George Mason that don't snub their noses at community college transfers and have reasonable tuition rates. The quality of the education is comparable to many "elite" schools. Unfortunately, even the most excellent community college transfers can't even get into schools like Georgetown, Harvard or Yale. Save some money. Go to a community college for two years. Then find a good, reasonably priced school that offers a solid education.