READY FOR COLLEGE?
Lack of knowledge and understanding is one of the largest contributors to the constantly growing $1.5 trillion student debt crisis. Centerpointe is here to guide you through the initial financial steps toward becoming a college student.
Step 1: Discovery Phase
The discovery phase is a basic introduction of your overall goals. Your and your advisor will go over the college that you’re planning to attend, the school’s estimated cost per year and begin to introduce information on financial aid, scholarships, student loans and how they work.
Step 2: Education & Understanding
Now that you’ve gone over the basics, it’s time to dive into the difficult part – fully understanding your options. It’s important to try and fully utilize the resources available before taking out any student loans. This means finding ways to maximize the ability to receive financial aid and applying for any and every scholarship available to you.
Step 3: Preparing Applications
Once you fully understand what is available to you, it’s time to put it to action. Your advisor will go over the applications that will need to be completed by you, and possibly your parents, to begin your schooling on right foot. We will help to double check that all of your t’s are crossed and your i’s are dotted.
Step 4: After Freshman Year
The financial struggles that come with attending college don’t stop after your freshman year. New semesters mean additional costs and it is important to never stop communicating with your advisor to see if any additional options have come along since your last conversation. Whether it’s finding additional scholarships or trying to find the best possible student loan options, we’re still here where we said we’d be.
Step 5: Grace Period & Repayment
Now that it’s time to begin repaying your student debt, you’re in a much better position than most borrowers as you’ve had your advisor assisting you along the way. It’s time to set new goals, review your repayment options and begin the journey toward paying off your federal student debt
Timothy N.
Azusa Pacific University Student
“I’m in my 3rd year of Undergrad at APU and I’ve been working with Justin at Centerpointe for about 2 years now. My freshman year was rough because I had no idea how I was going to pay for college. Both of my parents are immigrants from Vietnam and I’m the first person in my family to go to college so we didn’t have very much guidance. My mom heard about Centerpointe from one of her co-workers my Sophomore year because they used up the little bit of money that they had to pay for my first year of college out of pocket. Justin helped me and my parents understand the differences between the different student loan types and even told me about different scholarship offers that were available to me that I didn’t know about. I was almost 100% sure I was going to have to drop out of college because I knew my parents couldn’t afford it. I can’t speak for any other company out there but Centerpointe is definitely the reason why I’m able to continue my education.”