Louisiana Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy talks with reporters in the Dirksen Senate office building on Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Members of a U.S. Senate panel expressed bipartisan consensus Thursday that the country should be cautious of “malign” foreign dollars flowing to American colleges and universities, with some Democrats also arguing recent funding cuts undermine the country’s lead in global research.
The hearing in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on “malign foreign influence in higher education” came as President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have pushed for increased transparency requirements when it comes to foreign gifts and contracts entering these schools.
Higher education institutions receiving federal financial assistance are required to disclose any foreign gifts or contracts valued at or above $250,000 annually. The requirement has been in place since 1986, when the Higher Education Act of 1965 was amended to include the reporting provision, known as Section 117.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican and chair of the panel, said college is ultimately “about setting students up for success and they should be our priority, but that priority can be undermined when foreign adversaries attempt to exercise influence on college campuses … inherently threatening national security.”
A bill that would broaden Section 117 disclosure requirements and lower the reporting threshold from $250,000 to $50,000 passed the House in March 2025. Rep. Michael Baumgartner, a Washington state Republican, sponsored the measure.
Cassidy, who is co-leading a Senate companion bill with North Carolina GOP Sen. Thom Tillis, called for protecting college campuses through “transparency,” noting that his legislation would be the next step in that effort.
Thursday’s hearing also came as the administration continues its efforts to dismantle the 46-year-old Education Department, including through a series of interagency agreements that outsource several of its responsibilities to other departments.
Though Democrats saw a need to root out “malign” foreign influences in higher education, a handful took aim at the administration’s cuts to federal research funding and broader “attacks” on higher education.
“While I agree that it’s important to stamp out dangerous sources of foreign influence in our higher education system, I think it’s important that we also address how cuts to research funding can increase foreign influence on the global stage and undermine U.S. competitiveness,” said Sen. Angela Alsobrooks.
The Maryland Democrat pointed to the impact of the administration’s cuts to the National Institutes of Health, the country’s premier medical research agency under the Department of Health and Human Services that is headquartered in her state.
Sen. Tim Kaine pointed to a loss of researchers in the United States as a result of research funding cuts.
“This administration has canceled billions of dollars in federal research, making many of our researchers vulnerable to being recruited by universities in other countries, not necessarily China, but Canada, the (United Kingdom) and universities in Europe,” the Virginia Democrat said.
Sen. Patty Murray said she found it “absurd” that Trump and Republicans are “willing to burn billions of dollars a day” in the ongoing war with Iran, when she and many others are fighting “tooth and nail” to get the administration to “release billions of dollars that Congress appropriated to be delivered to our students.”
“It’s not happening, and states like mine are having to routinely file lawsuits,” the Washington state Democrat said, while also calling on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to testify before the panel on the ongoing dismantling efforts.
Cassidy said the panel was in talks with the department to schedule McMahon’s testimony.
Transparency dashboard
The department’s public transparency dashboard — housed on a portal launched in January where colleges and universities are responsible for disclosing foreign gifts and contracts — also came to the forefront during Thursday’s hearing.
The dashboard, visualizing four decades of data, offers a snapshot of the foreign funding disclosures submitted by colleges and universities.
At least 559 institutions have disclosed $72.1 billion in foreign gifts and contracts between 1986 and late January 2026, according to the dashboard.
But the current version of the dashboard’s usability is limited by an inability to filter by year.
Robert Daly, senior fellow at the Asia Society and former director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center, told the panel the dashboard’s cumulative nature is one of its “biggest silences.” The tool does not allow the public to see any fluctuation over the years in the amount of money in foreign gifts and contracts received by schools.
He added that “not only do we need to see how giving from each country is moving over time, we need to be able to distinguish different kinds of giving.”
John Zumbrunnen has been named the University of Wisconsin–Madison's provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin announced Monday.
In 1926, the idea of studying dance as an academic pursuit was almost unheard of. But one Wisconsin woman’s unique approach to teaching dance changed the field forever.
People walk past blooming trees on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in April 2025. (Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — American colleges and universities received gifts and contracts worth more than $5.2 billion from foreign entities in 2025, according to the U.S. Department of Education, which also recently published summaries of foreign investment in U.S. higher education dating back to 1986.
Qatar, the United Kingdom, China, Switzerland, Japan, Germany and Saudi Arabia marked the largest sources of reportable gifts and contracts to U.S. institutions in 2025, according to the agency, which released the latest funding disclosures this month.
The department also made public roughly 40 years of data on a transparency dashboard that offers a snapshot of the foreign funding disclosures submitted by colleges and universities. The administration described the move as a transparency effort, but critics say it lacks key context.
The dashboard shows cumulative data since 1986, when Congress amended the Higher Education Act of 1965 to mandate colleges and universities receiving federal financial assistance disclose any foreign gifts or contracts valued at or above $250,000 annually.
The provision, known as Section 117, “came about due to concerns about malign actors trying to either use educational platforms to promote agendas that were not in the national interest or about getting access to American youth or about exerting influence on institutions,” said Rick Hess, senior fellow and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank.
And while the Education Department this month heralded the dashboard as a major step toward transparency in foreign influence in U.S. education, the tool does not separate gifts and contracts by year, limiting its use to help the public spot trends or identify major gifts.
Details about the gifts and contracts, such as what was given or what work was contracted, are not displayed on the dashboard.
Trump priority
President Donald Trump and his administration have sought to increase transparency requirements when it comes to foreign funds entering U.S. colleges and universities.
Part of the administration’s effort includes an April 2025 executive order that sought to “end the secrecy surrounding foreign funds in American educational institutions” and to “safeguard America’s students and research from foreign exploitation.”
The public transparency dashboard is housed on a portal, launched in January, where colleges and universities are responsible for disclosing foreign gifts and contracts.
The Education Department announced Feb. 23 that it would partner with the State Department on foreign gift and contract reporting under Section 117.
The move — one of several interagency agreements announced so far by the administration — is part of the administration’s ongoing efforts to dismantle the 46-year-old agency.
State will help the Education Department manage its foreign funding reporting portal and “use its national security and foreign national academic admissions expertise to review and assess the industry’s compliance with the law, share data with the public and federal stakeholders, and identify potential threats,” the Education Department said.
Nearly $70 billion disclosed
At least 555 institutions have disclosed $67.6 billion in foreign gifts and contracts between 1986 and mid-December 2025, according to the dashboard.
The institutions that have received the most funding in foreign gifts and contracts since Section 117 was enacted are Harvard University in Massachusetts, at $4.2 billion; Carnegie Mellon University, in Pennsylvania, at $3.9 billion; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at $3.5 billion; Cornell University in New York, at $3.1 billion and the University of Pennsylvania, at $2.8 billion.
The dashboard also includes a separate section on the total value of transactions in foreign gifts and contracts with “counterparties located in countries of concern,” such as China, Russia and Venezuela.
The universities that received the most money from counterparties in these “countries of concern” are Harvard, at $610.8 million; MIT, at $490.1 million; New York University, at $462.5 million; Stanford University in California, at $418.5 million; and Yale University in Connecticut, at $400.2 million.
Concerns from higher ed groups
Some higher education groups expressed concerns over the dashboard, including limitations they see with how the data is portrayed.
The cumulative nature of the dashboard does not allow the public to see how the amount of money in foreign gifts and contracts received by schools fluctuated throughout the years.
“There’s no way to kind of break out what the funding is by the year, or perhaps by the funding cycle, so you can’t really see any funding trends,” Sarah Spreitzer, vice president and chief of staff for government relations at the American Council on Education, told States Newsroom.
The association serves as the major coordinating body for the country’s colleges and universities, representing roughly 1,600 institutions.
Spreitzer emphasized a lack of context throughout the dashboard, including on the list of foreign entities of concern and whether such funding is active or reflects past funding.
For instance, the U.S. Department of Commerce designated the Chinese tech company Huawei as an entity of concern in 2019.
Huawei has provided roughly $22.7 million in funding to American universities, overall, according to the dashboard. But the dashboard doesn’t show the gifts and contracts all came prior to the entity-of-concern designation, Spreitzer said.
“None of our institutions have taken funding from Huawei since 2019, if not earlier, when we were informed of the concerns around Huawei,” Spreitzer said. “However, the way that the information is presented, it seems to imply that our institutions are still taking funding from Huawei.”
Spreitzer said that the dashboard “demonstrates that our schools are complying with Section 117 and they are meeting their reporting obligations.”
“I hope that people are not making broad assumptions based on how the data is presented right now,” added Spreitzer, who hopes the administration will continue making improvements to the dashboard, such as separating the disclosures by year and adding additional context.
Prior to its closure last year, Northland College in Ashland borrowed $22 million from its endowment fund to cover its financial shortfall, causing funds to dwindle to $3.3 million this year.
UW-Madison’s Sébastien Philippe is an expert in modeling nuclear war. He’s now working with the United Nations to research and reduce the risk of that happening, but he told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that an arms race may already be underway.
"Wisconsin Today" spoke with the directors of two higher education child care centers about the needs of student-parents and the challenges they face when it comes to seeking child care and education.
Marquette was one of 41 colleges named in a recent report that alleges the schools encourage low-income families to take out Parent PLUS loans while they at the same time offer financial aid to upper-income students.
Michael Clayville and Erin Lesser of Appleton attended the ceremony in LA, where their group Alarm Will Sound won for their recording of Donnacha Dennehy’s “Land of Winter.”
UW-Milwaukee is consolidating several student cultural and resource centers into a new “unified, student-focused hub.” That's leaving some students worried about access.
The entrance to the Wisconsin Assembly chambers. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
The Wisconsin Assembly advanced proposals that would restrict executive rulemaking powers and eliminate “race-based” programs in higher education Thursday.
Wisconsin Republicans have been looking for ways to limit agencies’ administrative rulemaking abilities and exercise additional control over the process in the aftermath of several state Supreme Court rulings.
One of those rulings, the Evers v. Marklein II decision issued on July 8, 2025, found unconstitutional statutes that allowed the 10-member Joint Committee on the Review of Administrative Rules’ to review and suspend administrative rules.
AJR 133 would allow state lawmakers to suspend indefinitely or temporarily administrative rules that are promulgated by state agencies with a vote of the full Senate and Assembly. The proposal passed 52-45 along party lines.
“No body of our state government is more accountable to the people of our state than the Legislature, and these bills will restore our ability to represent our constituents and provide them with the regulatory accountability and predictability they need to prosper,” Rep. Brent Jacobson (R-Mosinee) said during the floor debate.
Constitutional amendment proposals must pass two consecutive sessions of the Legislature and be approved by a majority of voters before becoming law. This is the proposal’s first consideration. It still needs to pass the Senate to advance to a second consideration.
The Assembly also concurred in four bills related to administrative rulemaking that were part of a package titled the “red tape reset,” which was introduced in May with the support of the conservative legal group Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL).
One bill SB 277 would have all administrative rules sunset after seven years unless a rule is adopted again through an agency process. The Assembly amended the bill, so it will go back to the Senate.
Three of the bills will now go to Evers for consideration. Those include SB 276, which would allow those who have challenged the validity of an administrative rule to receive attorney fees and costs if a court declares a rule invalid; SB 275, which would limit the use of scope statements to one proposed rule; and SB 289, which would require agencies to make cuts to offset the cost associated with new regulations.
The constitutional amendment as well as several other bills are the result of a task force organized by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and chaired by Jacobson.
AB 910, which passed on a voice vote, would establish a process to review fees every 6 years.
AB 955, which passed on a voice vote, would repeal the current language in state law that allows agencies to promulgate rules interpreting the provisions of any statute enforced or administered by the agency if it is necessary to enforce the statute. The bill would replace the language, prohibiting agencies from promulgating rules interpreting the provisions of any statute without explicit and specific statutory authority.
AB 994, which passed on a voice vote, would restrict agencies from promulgating rules if they are delinquent in complying with the reporting requirement and expand the process for repealing certain rules.
AB 995, which passed on a voice vote, would change the default effective date for permanent administrative rules to the first day of the seventh month after the date of final publication.
Democratic lawmakers sought to get votes on the floor on several issues, introducing an array of amendments to Republican bills. Some of those included protecting access to contraception and abortion in Wisconsin, requiring former lawmakers to be at least a year out of the Legislature before they can become lobbyists and clarifying the residency requirements for lawmakers. However, none received votes as Republicans took procedural steps to avoid bringing them up.
“These are going to keep coming forward,” Rep. Lisa Subeck (D-Madison) warned her Republican colleagues as she criticized them for not voting on the bills. “Democrats aren’t giving up on fighting for our constituents, whether we’re talking about the government, whether we’re talking about reproductive freedom or frankly, whether we’re talking about things that would reduce the cost of living for folks in the state. The Republicans time and time again, refused to take a vote.”
The Assembly also approved several bills that will now head to Evers’ desk.
The Assembly passed SB 652 which seeks to eliminate “race-based” programs offered through the state’s higher education system, including the minority teacher loan program and minority undergraduate grants. Under the bill, it would instead require the programs to focus on “disadvantaged” students, meaning those who have “experienced any unfavorable economic, familial, geographic, physical or other personal hardship.” It passed 53-45 along party lines and will now go to Evers for consideration.
SB 498, which passed, would place a number of restrictions in state statute that Republican lawmakers argue would help protect free speech. Those include barring UW institutions from restricting speech from a speaker, creating “free speech” zones, charging security fees as a part of a permit application and sanctioning people for discriminatory harassment unless the speech “targets its victim on the basis of a protected class under law, and is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars a student from receiving equal access to educational opportunities or benefits.”
SB 405, which would create a civil cause of action against health care providers who perform gender transition procedures on someone under the age of 18 if the patient claims to be injured, passed along party lines. It will now go to Evers, who is likely to veto it.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison saw a 17 percent decrease in federal research funding since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, according to outgoing Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin.
Students have a chance to save money on college credits and the time it would take them to complete a degree. But studies show opportunities are not consistent across Wisconsin or demographics.
Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said her experience leading UW-Madison during a "complex time," which included encampments, DEI and federal funding cuts, prepared her to head the Ivy League university.
Reading Time: 7minutesClick here to read highlights from the story
The U.S. Department of Education delayed wage garnishment for people whose student loans are in default.
Nearly 125,000 Wisconsinites have student loans that are in default.
The Wisconsin Coalition on Student Debt offers a toll-free, confidential helpline at (833) 589-0750 and via email at studentloanquestions@debtsmarts.org.
It’s a tumultuous time for student loan borrowers.
Following years of waiving payments and penalties after the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Department of Education announced in December it would soon begin garnishing the wages of borrowers who’ve defaulted on their loans.
Then, Jan. 16, department officials reversed course, saying they would wait to start “involuntary collections” until other changes to the student loan system take effect. They did not specify how long the delay would last.
Another major student loan change is pending court approval. The agreement, which settles a lawsuit brought by the department, would end the popular Biden-era repayment plan Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE). The plan offered borrowers more flexibility than any other.
Meanwhile, other changes to borrowing and repayment programs will reduce the options available to current and future students.
More than 720,000 Wisconsinites hold student loans, according to U.S. Department of Education data analyzed by researchers at the Education Data Initiative. Of those, 74,000 were in default as of last September, meaning they hadn’t made a payment in at least 270 days, and the number has likely grown since then. Overall, the state’s borrowers owe around $23.6 billion. What do all these changes mean for them?
“There have been so many announcements … The landscape is going to continue to be really confusing,” said Carole Trone, executive director of the Wisconsin Coalition on Student Debt, which runs a helpline providing free, confidential advice for people who have loans or are considering taking one out.
“Borrowers often express that they’re confused and overwhelmed,” Trone said. “What our organization is thinking of is how we can reach those borrowers and help them work through their confusion and feel confident with the path forward.”
The helpline received about 160 calls last year, and it can accommodate far more, Trone said. For privacy, staff don’t record any details about the caller or the reason for the person’s call, and they don’t ask for login information for callers’ loan accounts. To reach the helpline toll-free, call (833) 589-0750, or email studentloanquestions@debtsmarts.org. Staffing for the helpline is provided by Ascendium Education Group. Ascendium is a financial supporter of Wisconsin Watch, but is not involved in editorial decisions.
Wisconsin Watch spoke to Trone about what borrowers and prospective borrowers need to know right now. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How does the helpline work and why was it created?
The helpline was originally set up back in the early days of the pandemic … When you call the toll-free helpline, you’re going to talk to a live person. These are trained professionals whose work, day in and day out, is working with student loan borrowers, helping them navigate the complicated process and helping them understand what might be confusing that’s come out in the news or in notices they’ve gotten.
The helpline is not a replacement for talking to your loan servicer (the company where you send payments) or logging in to your account at studentaid.gov and seeing what loans are recorded there. But what our helpline is designed to provide is a very accessible, no-wait-time forum where you can ask one-on-one, “Hey, I got this notice. What do you think it means?” or “I haven’t been paying. What should I start with doing?”… It’s a really good starting point for anyone.
In 2020, there was this historic payment pause for loans because of the challenges from the pandemic. In Wisconsin, we don’t have a statewide helpline for student loan borrowers. We don’t have an ombudsman, we don’t have a higher ed agency. These are where borrowers in other states can often turn to, so we wanted to be able to provide a resource.
The Department of Education has threatened to start garnishing wages. What should borrowers in default know?
This option to garnish wages was around last year. What’s new is that they (took) the next step, which is starting to send letters out to affected borrowers. Policy says you’re supposed to have 30 days notice before (garnishment) happens. The other thing they can do is withhold your tax refund if you’re in default or severely delinquent on your loan.
The other thing that could be almost as damaging is that your credit score is going to be affected. And just to give you a sense of how really devastating this impact could be, if you did a four-year program and you took out loans for each semester, that’s probably eight semesters minimum, so you’ve got eight loan lines. If you are late in paying, that means you’ve got eight nonpayment reports going to the credit agencies. What was happening even last year was that credit reporting had resumed, and people may not have been aware of it until they went to take out a car loan or a mortgage, and they couldn’t because their credit score tanked maybe 100 or more points.
What can borrowers do if they’re in default?
First, we know borrowers are feeling a lot of emotional pain over this. If you’re stressed out, if you’re embarrassed, if you’re overwhelmed, sometimes people just can’t move forward on this. I want to encourage people to call our helpline or email us. That is exactly what we are here for.
There are ways that you can get out of default that are tied to your income levels … You can start to rehabilitate your loan. You have to request a form from your loan servicer. They’ll need to know your income to be able to set an income-driven repayment amount. And if that amount is too much, you need to let the servicer know that … Based on your income, that mandatory payment can be as low as $10 a month. The point is to show that you are making on-time, monthly payments for nine months, and that will restore your loan. But you need to be serious when you’re doing that.
What advice do you have for borrowers who are currently signed up for the SAVE repayment plan, which is set to end soon?
If you’re in SAVE, you’re still in what they’re calling “administrative forbearance” because of all this litigation. But as of last August, your loan balance is growing because they resumed collecting interest. If you’re in the SAVE program and you are eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, you should know that while you’re in (administrative forbearance), you’re not making any progress toward the payment count that you need … There will be a timeline for when people have to move out of the SAVE program, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they have that timeline starting as early as summer.
If you’re trying to figure out what you can do, you can call our helpline. There is also a really helpful loan simulator tool on the studentaid.gov website. You can say “My number one priority is to be eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness,” or “I want to pay off my loan as fast as possible,” or “I want the lowest possible payment,” and it can give you pretty accurate scenarios of what you can expect your payment amount to be.
Provisions in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will eliminate some other repayment plans and add some new ones. What should prospective borrowers know?
The goal is to create fewer programs and fewer options.
The goal is to create fewer programs and fewer options. In principle, I think everyone would appreciate more simplicity. What has happened is that all these repayment plans have come out of different administrations and regulatory initiatives. Those are now getting caught up in the courts. One thing to know is that Public Service Loan Forgiveness came through Congress (rather than the regulatory process), and that’s why it’s on much firmer ground.
There will be basically one income-based repayment plan, called RAP (Repayment Assistance Plan), and there’s the standard repayment plan. It’s not like on July 1 of this year there’s a light switch and everyone is in RAP. Many of those (existing) plans will continue on the terms those borrowers agreed to. It will be new loans that will start to have only those two options.
Starting July 1, there will also be lower limits on how much students and their families can borrow. How do you anticipate that those changes are going to affect students?
We know that in areas like health care or in fields like law, people do (sometimes) borrow more than what these new limits are going to be. And so there’s been a lot of attention now to who’s going to be affected by that. If you’re borrowing more than the $200,000 limit, for instance, to be a medical doctor, what’s that going to mean? … Colleges and professional schools are concerned that people who are currently in their programs will hit the final year or two years of their programs and not be able to borrow the money to complete their programs.
There is a concern that the contingent of borrowers who don’t have the assets (and) the strong credit ratings to be able to turn to the private loan market won’t have options and therefore won’t pursue these degrees.
What should people know before taking out private student loans?
Private loans have a lot fewer protections than federal loans. They do not have forbearance, so when you take out that loan, repayment pretty much starts as soon as you’ve taken it out. They don’t have income-driven repayment options. If you take out a loan to go to a college and they’ve misrepresented the value of their degrees or what jobs their graduates are getting, there are federal protections that you don’t have with a private loan provider.
The big thing related to equity is that if you don’t have a high enough credit rating to qualify for the loan, you’ll be denied. And so, in the worst-case scenario, we’re worried that for these high-cost health care degrees, we will see a lot fewer first-generation, lower-income students going into those professions.
A lot is changing now, but what’s a piece of advice that you’ll keep giving?
I think there is justifiable concern about student loan debt, but we are seeing signs that many more students are hesitating or choosing not to pursue postsecondary education because they figure that’s the only way to avoid student loan debt. The challenge with that approach is that the economic studies say most jobs are going to require some kind of postsecondary credential. So we do want to make sure that students and potential borrowers read up and learn about what their programs are going to cost.
In Wisconsin, the average amount of student loan debt that an undergraduate takes on is about $33,000 for someone who completes their degree. So when you hear the stories of huge amounts of debt, those things happen. It’s heartbreaking to see those stories, but it’s not the norm.
Editor’s note: This story was corrected to reflect that the Wisconsin Coalition on Student Debt helpline received about 160 calls last year.
Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Wisconsinites owe $23.6 billion in student loans, and thousands of Wisconsin borrowers are in default. But Carole Trone, executive director of the Wisconsin Coalition on Student Debt, doesn’t want those kinds of numbers to scare students away from college altogether.
“I think there is justifiable concern about student loan debt,” said Trone, whose group helps Wisconsinites figure out costs before, during and after college.
“But we are seeing signs that many more students are hesitating or choosing not to pursue postsecondary education because they figure that’s the only way to avoid student loan debt,” Trone said. The problem with that plan, she said, is that studies suggest most of the jobs of the future will require some sort of credential beyond a high school diploma.
She’d like students to hear a different number: $33,000. “In Wisconsin, the average amount of student loan debt that an undergraduate takes on is about $33,000 for someone who completes their degree. So when you hear the stories of huge amounts of debt, those things happen. It’s heartbreaking to see those stories, but it’s not the norm.”
Trone talked with Wisconsin Watch about what students can do at every step in their education to reduce what they borrow and increase the chance they’ll be able to pay it back.
“It has finally, truly gotten better, easier, simpler — at long last — so it is completely worth it to do it,” said Trone. “It keeps your options open.”
Forget the ‘dream’ school
“I caution people about talking about their ‘dream college,’” Trone said. Instead, she urges students to make a list of things like how much they’re willing to pay, what kinds of programs they’re considering and the typical salaries for those professions.
Then, she recommends students use the Department of Education’s College Scorecard website to compare schools.
“Not all programs cost the same, and not all programs are worth the same … You want to look for colleges that have strong graduation rates. You want to see how many students get financial aid. You want to see what the net cost of attendance is,” Trone said.
Meet with an adviser
Sometimes students end up paying more for school because the school doesn’t accept their prior credits, or because they need a class that’s seldom offered.
“If you’re trying to bring credits into that institution, talk to someone about that. Don’t just assume that those credits will transfer,” Trone said. “Try to map out what classes you need to take, and meet with your adviser and figure out when those classes are being offered.”
Limit loans
When colleges send financial aid offer letters, they list the maximum amount the student can borrow. But students have the option to borrow less or decline loans altogether, and they can make those decisions until around the time they’re enrolling in classes.
“Make sure that you have really thought about do you actually really need to borrow this money, because you’ll be paying it back with interest,” Trone said.
“The most important thing that you can do to be able to repay any loans you take out is to finish your program,” Trone said. People leave school for all sorts of reasons, including family commitments and job changes. “A lot of that can be really unavoidable … but those are the borrowers that often have the most difficulty in repaying their loans.”
Update your contact information
One simple step can help keep borrowers on track: signing into studentaid.gov to update their contact information regularly.
“After you’ve left college, that’s the time when lots of folks are moving around or changing email addresses,” Trone said. “When things start coming due or there’s changes, they need to be able to reach you.”
Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
In a state where marijuana remains illegal, UW-Platteville is enrolling continuing education students in its online cannabis program to learn about the cultivation, compliance and safe usage of marijuana.
Login
