Syracuse Say Yes to Education provided financial aid guidance to Syracuse City School District students and parents for the first time Saturday.

Say Yes opened its Financial Aid Counseling Center on Saturday and will hold counseling sessions from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. every Saturday until Sept. 8, with the exceptions of May 26, July 7 and Sept. 1, said Pat Driscoll, director of operations for Syracuse Say Yes.

Driscoll said the counseling center is open to all Syracuse City School District seniors, parents and recent graduates. The center provides students and parents with access to professional financial aid counselors that can help them navigate through college financial aid applications and better understand the financial packages that they receive from colleges.

Counselors help students and parents fill out forms such as the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, the New York State Tuition Assistance Program application and

the College Scholarship Service Financial Aid Profile, Driscoll said. The counselors are also available to help families understand their student loan agreements before they sign paperwork.

‘As any college student or parent knows, the financial aid forms that have to be filled out for colleges can be somewhat complicated, so we thought it only made sense to provide assistance to parents and students in the city’s school district,’ Driscoll said.

Susan Dutch, director of marketing and communications for Syracuse Say Yes, said the organization decided to provide the counseling to the school district because of the popularity of the Say Yes to Education scholarship and grant programs.

Say Yes offers a variety of grant opportunities, including the Say Yes Opportunity Grant and the Say Yes Choice Grant, that provide financial assistance to college students who have attended at least three years of school in the Syracuse City School District.

‘Our college scholarship program gained so much popularity that it was more than evident that the financial burdens of college were of concern to the school district’s students and their parents,’ Dutch said. ‘It just seemed necessary to start up a program to try to help them further with their college finances.’

Dutch said she thinks it’s important to help students and their families gain full knowledge of the financial aid process, including the resources available to students and their responsibility to pay back what they’ve borrowed after graduation.

Nearly two-thirds of student loan borrowers in the United States misunderstood or were surprised by details of the loan process, and when asked about the monthly repayment, 20 percent acknowledged that the amount was unexpected, according to an April 2 Chicago Tribune article.

Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of the FinAid.org website, said in the article that the repayment process is often not laid out clearly for students in their financial aid award letters.

‘Many students will sign whatever piece of paper is put in front of them,’ Kantrowitz said. ‘They figure that they’ll figure out how to pay back the debt after they graduate. But the time to minimize student loan debt is before you incur the debt, not afterward.’

adhitzle@syr.edu 

Published on April 11, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Alexandra: adhitzle@syr.edu | @LexieHitzler