Reach4Success: Getting Financially Fit to Create a Financial Aid Roadmap

“One of the most frustrating scenarios is to work with a high school senior who has big academic plans but no financial aid plans. It’s critical for families to realize early enough that resources are available for them to create a strategy and go for it. The Financial Aid Roadmap program helps families see the steps to success and then take them.”

—Jane Richstein, Director, Reach4Success

ASA has joined with Reach4Success, a college access organization in the Washington, D.C., area, to foster fiscal discipline and early financial aid planning. The effort unfolds through a multi-layered program of financial education for parents and students as young as middle school.

The Get Financially Fit for College program helps low-income parents of middle school children prepare for college by teaching them basic financial literacy skills and providing college planning support. In complement to the Reach4Success workshops for older students and their families, this program aims to reach parents of low-income middle school students early and start them saving for college while their goals are still attainable on a tight budget. Program members meet with a facilitator 1 night a week for 5 weeks.

“We’ve found that giving financial information like this over time is the most helpful,” says Jane Richstein, Director of Reach4Success. “Change doesn’t happen overnight, and the format of these workshops allows the parents to think over what they learn, experiment with the tools in their lives, come back to the facilitator with questions, and try again.”

The sessions provide an opportunity for the families to start thinking about saving for college and introduce them to different resources—from how to make banking work to their advantage, to which organizations in the community can offer additional education and services. Participants take a good look at their family budgets, get them in order, and determine ways to start saving. They learn how to keep on track with their expenses and bills while maintaining their financial health. By the end of the workshop, parents have created close connections with both the staff at Reach4Success and the other parents, who become a great resource and foundation of support in their own right.

Pre-assessment tests given to parents at the course’s start are compared to their post-test at the workshops’ conclusion and show significant growth. They become comfortable with financial concepts and build a strong understanding of the financial and community resources available to them. Most of all, the families leave the workshops excited about the skills and knowledge they have gained. By saving a little each month, they know they are bringing their dreams of a college education for their children a bit closer.

ASA and Reach4Success build upon this knowledge by offering a joint initiative called the Financial Aid Roadmap program (formerly known as the Financial Aid Life Cycle Initiative). The Financial Aid Roadmap targets high school students and their parents as they face the next stage of financial aid planning. Activities include dissemination of strategic information, information sessions for parents and families, and expanded training for community leaders who work with students and families.

The program’s popular workshop “You CAN Afford College!” has been known to draw crowds even on Saturdays. Aimed at students in grades 8 to 10 and their parents, the workshop introduces families to the basic concepts of financial aid, such as how calculations of need determine aid awards. Workshop leaders explain different strategies for paying for college, suggest concrete steps families can take to get ready, and prepare families to start applying for aid.

The workshops are followed up with visits to Reach4Succes’s College Information Centers, where students can receive one-on-one help and advice—whatever it takes to get them planning ahead.

“The sooner families start thinking about paying for college, the better,” Richstein says. “It’s vital that they have a strategy by early high school.” That’s why ASA and Reach4Success have focused on getting the message of financial planning out early and actively seeking to raise awareness in families of students at every stage.

“The positive sign is that people are really responding well to the Financial Aid Roadmap program and showing they want information on this topic,” Richstein enthuses.

Another facet of the Financial Aid Roadmap program is its focus on arming “financial aid coaches ” within the community, such as teachers, guidance counselors, and mentors, with the financial awareness messages their students need to hear. ASA’s Vice President of Strategic Services Shelley Saunders contributed to a series of financial aid workshops for public school guidance counselors, who have the power to greatly influence students’ concepts of college preparation.

The program has seen an increase in the number of participants who work with students in late middle school or early high school, providing evidence that ASA and Reach4Success’s combined emphasis on the importance of preparing a financial aid plan early has been successful.

ASA is proud to enable this remarkable initiative and to support the work of Reach4Success.