Funding My Education

FP/101
March 10, 2013 Funding My Education
Today, a college education is a very important part to having success in your career. Most students graduating from college have high student loan debt. In the following paper, it will explain how a student can avoid having high debt and how my financial plan will be executed.
A financial plan is a series of steps and goals that will be used to eliminate debt. In this case, this plan will be used to eliminate or avoid the debt brought on by a college education. Most college education debt comes in the form of student loans. As described in this week’s reading “A student loan is a loan made for the purpose of paying college or graduate school expenses” (Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2012, p. 242). The repayments of these loans are often a long burden on life after college.
While exploring financial aid for college education, it is important to look at the best ways to reduce the amount borrowed. Some of the ways to do this are scholarships, grants, and work study programs. “Since scholarships and grants do not have to be repaid, these are more desirable, but they are also harder to come by because each school has only limited funds to award” (Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2012, p. 245). At University of Phoenix, there are financial advisors that can help look into scholarships and what to do to receive them. Next, there are many forms of grants. Federal grants can be obtained by filling out the yearly FAFSA. This will determine if you are eligible for any federal student aid. A work study program provides the student with work for income to help pay for their education. These are just some of the ways to reduce the amount borrowed.
Managing my covered expenses and trimming back the amount borrowed was one of the biggest tasks of designing my financial plan. As stated in My Estimated Financial Plan, it suggests that I will need to borrow almost 69,000 dollars to pay for my education (University of Phoenix, 2013). While filling out my financial plan, the computer does not take into effect that my employer will reimburse the fees for each course after completion, with a final grade of a C- or better, of each course. This will allow for the first year’s loan to be repaid as I continue my education. In this case, the following year will not need a student loan and will only need the application for grants. The reimbursement program will cover the cost of the future courses. This is one major way that my financial path was trimmed.
Finally, the options available to make your student loan payment more manageable are one of the last steps in coming up with your financial plan. When completing this step, this will avoid issues that can cause delinquency