Sunday May 18, 2025

When Funding is the Be-All and End-All

Hello Reader,

I hope spring is treating you well and as it gets warmer we are reminded that summer is just around the corner. At this time prospective college students in the current admission cycle should be finishing up their college plans, having accepted their preferred offers on May 1.

However not everyone is celebrating. For some students having admission offers that do not come with adequate funding is the same thing as having no offers at all because they cannot afford to attend those colleges or are unwilling/in no position to take on student loans.

For example in the last week, I have talked to at least three prospective college students (all international students) who received admission offers but did not receive financial aid packages that cover their total college costs. They each had at least a $20,000 deficit in their total cost of attendance, which their families could not cover. A couple of these students went as far as applying for their visas but were denied for lack of adequate funding. For these students admission without funding was no admission because they could not move ahead with their dreams of pursuing an American education. For these students funding is the be-all and end-all of the college admission process.

So what should these students do? I advised them to reapply and go about the college admission process the proper way, by making funding foundational to the entire process. Since the ultimate goal is to attend a U.S college or university fully funded without incurring debt, whether or not a college provides funding should be a foundational consideration.

Of course there are other considerations to be made when making your college list. These include location, programs of study offered, availability of certain extracurricular or co-curricular activities, desire to work with certain faculty, etc. While these are important, prospective students want to make sure that in addition to their preferences for choice of where to study the number one consideration remains whether or not the college/university provides funding. If it does, and then if it meets their other criteria, that is a college to add to their list.

Prospective students should avoid picking colleges solely based on if they had heard of the college from their social circles or if it is well-known. The reality is that there are scores of colleges in the United States that offer either need-based or need-blind financial aid to admitted students, including international students.

Need-blind schools do not take applicants' finances into consideration when making admissions decisions. Once admitted a financial aid package is put together for the student. A select few of these schools go on to meet 100% of the student's need. Need-based schools provide financial aid based on a holistic analysis of a student's family's financial picture. Such a package could be a combination of grants, work-study, loans, etc.

In the CFF College Fully Funded^®, our admissions coaching program for prospective undergraduate students, funding is the number one consideration. We work with committed students whose families cannot afford to pay for college out-of-pocket to find, apply, and secure admission with full funding into U.S. colleges and avoid debt.

Our students have secured admission with funding offers worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per offer at selective and non-selective colleges across the country including the Ivy League, Lehigh University, University of Miami, Union College, Agnes Scott College, University of Maryland College Park, etc.

Enrollment is ongoing for prospective first-year and transfer students, who plan on applying to U.S. colleges and universities in the fall of this year to begin college in Fall 2026. The registration deadline for the summer session that begins on June 9 is May 23rd. Start by booking a no-fee, no-obligation How to Get College Fully Funded Strategy Call today. ​

And please feel free to forward this to friends and acquaintances with high school juniors or prospective transfer students who will apply to college later this year. You can take advantage of our generous referral policy. Feel free to reach out to find out more.

Our goal is to help as many families as we can avoid astronomical student debt.

To college fully funded,

Dr. Faith Okpotor Founder and CFF Head Coach National Center for Higher Education Access Award-winning academic and tenured professor

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