|
Learn more about the resources PNC offers to help you learn about financial aid.
Module Transcript
Welcome to PNC's financial aid education center. Before we get started, we'd like to take a moment to tell you a little about the course and what to expect.
First of all, this course is about paying for college, one of the most important financial decisions you'll ever make. Adults with a college degree earn, on average, about $1,000,000 more over their lifetimes than those with only a high school diploma - making college a great investment. But every investment has a cost, and most students make their college investment with borrowed money.
Today, the average college graduate owes nearly $20,000 in student loans, and 1 in 6 owes $30,000 or more. And these figures don't include high interest credit card debt, which adds an average of 4,000 additional dollars - and often $10,000 more.
So what's the big deal about debt? After college you'll be earning a good living, right? It's true that college opens the door to careers that are simply unavailable without a degree. But as we'll learn during this course, excessive debt - and especially unplanned, high interest credit card debt - may make your life before and after graduation much harder than you would expect.
Paying for school involves a lot more than just paying tuition. In fact, your everyday spending decisions as a student can have a major impact on the total cost of attending college. For example, a daily latte could add over $4000 to your college debt.
Sometimes the right decisions aren't always clear and we certainly can't make your decisions for you. But this course will give you the facts you need to make smart choices that are right for you.
In addition to the course you're about to take, PNC also offers customized aid planning tools, an interactive aid checklist, and hundreds of pages of aid and money management tips and tools. Our service is built around a personalized homepage that will help you organize the information you need and even suggest topics you may need to learn about.
While taking the course, you will be given the option to add sections of the course to your homepage. Use this feature to get more detailed information on topics of your choice.
We hope you enjoy this resource and learn everything you can about financial aid!
|