Empty seats in college auditorium
Insight:

College signing day has passed. Now what?

Author:

College signing day and students’ financial commitments to their schools aren’t the finish line. The financial journey for students is just beginning.

Visit the original post here

No items found.

Two weeks ago, students, counselors, and families recognized College Signing Day, an amazing annual event spearheaded jointly by #ForeverFirstLady Michelle Obama’s Reach Higher Initiative and Better Make Room, which celebrates high school seniors’ decision to pursue either some form of post-secondary enrollment or a role in the military. In practical logistical terms, for many students pursuing a post-secondary credential, this meant celebrating that students had sent in their deposits to formally commit to their future colleges.

We at Beam, formerly Edquity, love College Signing Day from a culture-building standpoint; students should celebrate — and be celebrated for — their achievement of checking off another major milestone on their journey to a post-secondary credential or a military career.

It’s important to remember, however, that College Signing Day and students’ financial commitments to their schools aren’t a finish line. Rather, the financial journey for students is truthfully just beginning.

The next milestone? Getting through the summer financially and showing up to college in a position to financially succeed.

Every year, anywhere from 10 to 40 percent of students succumb to a phenomenon known as the summer melt: where students intending to matriculate to college fail to enroll in the fall. There are a whole host of nuanced issues, not all of them financial, that can induce this terrible outcome. Those that are financial, however, can be devastating.

black arrow pointing down