In our previous post, we looked at pathways students can follow after high school, with tools and resources to help navigate their journey. This week, we focus in on the financial side of further education.
Students and parents can easily become overwhelmed with the vast amount of information surrounding paying for further education. This is why Discovery Education has partnered with The TalentED Project, TGR EDU: Explore, and Pathway to Financial Success in Schools to provide clear and concise resources that help educators, students and families navigate the financial parts of this process.
As your students continue this journey of education beyond high school, it’s important for them to know there are resources to help. The TalentED Project provides students the ability to connect with admissions recruiters at good-fit colleges seeking first-generation and lower-income students. The unique search tool, available for free to all registered users, allows students and college access professionals to search for colleges based on affordability. Users can review pricing of an institution based on their household income and learn more about individual universities’ financial aid and scholarship programs. Check out one of our example profiles below, view more example profiles here and register today to search all The TalentED Project institutions.
Navigating the all the financing options can be difficult, especially if students are first-generation college goers. They may not know all the costs of college (Truth: The Cost of College), the different types of financial aid (What is Financial Aid), or how to start to apply for the different types of aid (Unlocking Financial Aid).
Classroom Integrations: The FINANCIAL PUR$UIT Self-Paced Module was created to help debunk financial aid misconceptions, build student confidence about affording college, and provide a pathway that includes resources and information to help students (and their families) successfully access college financial aid.
- Use the PMI (Compare and Contrast)strategy
Working in pairs or in groups
- Use the 3 Truths…1 Lie (Key Ideas and Detail) strategy
Whole Group Instruction
- Use the Jigsaw (Research) strategy
Students and their families have many options when paying for further education and training. The below activity builds off information students have already learned about the costs associated with higher education and the availability of financial aid as a way to bring down those costs that we discussed with the TGR EDU: Explore – Financial Pur$uit self-paced module.
Financing Further Education
The first part of this classroom activity can be done whole group and utilizes different areas of the classroom as students move to statements they believe are false. The second part of the activity uses the Jigsaw strategy, breaking the class into smaller groups for research.
Understanding Education Financing Options
Building off what students learned about financial aid in the previous classroom activity, we now look at answering the question of, “How do you compare education financing options and make an informed choice?” After considering how much debt they would be willing to incur for higher education, students work in groups to critically evaluate a hypothetical student’s financial aid offer and formulate a recommendation.
Optional Strategy: Use a Quick Conference to have students provide feedback about their recommendation for financial aid.
Coming Up Next Week: Positioning Students for the Future