In the midst of a glacial economy and skyrocketing tuition costs, it seems logical that students and schools would devote greater time and resources in developing strategies to pay for college.
They aren’t.
Every April, students receive crisp letters of acceptance from universities, the culmination to years of hard work and dedication. Inglemoor High does quite a lot to prepare students for going to college, but when it comes to paying for it, there’s room for improvement.
To graduate, students are expected to have a five-year plan for life after high school. They are expected to have explored career options and to have looked into further education. They are not expected to know how to write a resume, to have a plan to pay for college, or to be fiscally responsible in any way.
In short, students may be able to get into college, but they may not have a practical plan to pay for it.
Left to their own devices, Inglemoor High seniors came up with a range of schemes.
“I’m gonna win the lottery,” Seaver Radovich said.
Radovich later said he’d been joking, but admitted he did not have a clear plan as to how he would be paying for college.
Anthony Leach said he’d pay for tuition through “financial aid, my own work and my parents,” but when pressed to give further detail, he remained silent, seemingly at a loss over what to say.
Senior Kendal Crawford had the most detailed plan.
“At the college I’m going to,” Crawford said, “they have a financial counselor. I’m going to do a work-study program.”
The financial-aid process is ambiguous at best. Crawford only knew about the work-study option offered at her college after doing additional research, not because of any information provided by Inglemoor. The school does little to advertise opportunities beyond posting scholarships and hosting a financial-aid night every year.
With regards to fiscal responsibility, the outlook isn’t much better. Some English classes teach students how to write resumes and basic ways to apply for jobs and pay for college; other students leave high school never having learned how to do any of this.
“We, as public education in general, fall short,” Inglemoor counselor Bryan McNeil said. “There are no state requirements for such things like finance or business class. And, as you know, state requirements drive such things.”
Growing budget cuts over the past several years have forced shrinkages in many programs previously offered. Students enrolled in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Program, for instance, have their schedules packed so tightly that now they are left unable to take classes that might help them prepare for their financial future.
“I was never taught financial planning,” IB Diploma senior Shannon Barnes said. “My mom had to teach me last year how to balance a check book.”
By not requiring financial-planning classes, the state and the school district are missing out on a valuable opportunity to teach teens fiscal responsibility.
Come this April, most teens will receive welcome letters of acceptance. The vast majority of those presently finding their college dreams realized, however, will be left wondering how to pay for this new-found expense.
It’s understandable that time and budget constraints make it difficult to teach such classes and that students should be expected to seek out the information themselves, but the reality is that they most likely will not and shouldering them with future debt this early in life is an arguably unfair burden to place on an 18-year-old.
The school district should reconsider its policy toward financial-planning programs and give every student the basic education and resources to pay for college, get a job and make it through this process alive.
Austin Wright-Pettibone is an Inglemoor High senior.
