Career College Central

Subscribe at www.careercollegecentral.com 30 Disproportionate debt in the career college sector As a career college advocate, you likely feel your hands are tied. A Pew report indicated that 36 percent of millennials depend on financial support from their families, including 14 percent of all young adults working full time, and that 34 percent of those 25 to 29 years old have gone back to living with their parents, according to the Millennial Generation Research Review by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. However, this failsafe isn't possible for most career college students, who are disproportionally lower-income and first-generation students than their traditional counterparts. Plus, your institution's financial aid office is under intense scrutiny. "Four-year for-profit colleges average a repayment rate of 44 percent, compared with an average of 80 percent at public four- year institutions," said the Department of Education. "is suggests students are more able to repay their loans at public schools." Again, though, are these disproportionate statistics correlated to the types of students enrolling in career colleges or caused by the career colleges themselves? Virtually all career college students (95 percent) need financial aid to pay for college, according to the Institute for College Access and Success. Because less than 1 percent of our students have their federally determined financial need fully met with grants, reducing students' eligibility for loans in retaliation for the business models of their schools would hurt their ability to cover the remaining costs and graduate. Additionally, said the Institute for College Access and Success, 71 percent of private sector college students enroll full time, and a third of these full-time students (34 percent) already work full time too, so it is nearly impossible for them to work more to make up the difference. e sector's role in counseling millennials toward student borrowing decisions Unable to reduce the cost burden for your students yet faced with the challenge of meeting ever-increasing enrollment goals with best-fit students (and fewer resources to boot), you're probably worried about meeting new student enrollment goals. According to the 2014 Inside Higher Ed Survey of College and University Admissions Directors, almost half of admissions directors are. e stress of enrolling enough of the right students, staying informed about recent changes to financial aid, implementing them to ensure participation eligibility in the federal student aid programs and keeping your students happy can be exhausting. Subscribe at www.careercollegecentral.com 30

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