Blood drives, weddings and regional festivals are all routine events at Hamden’s Whitneyville Cultural Commons. But on Sept. 26 and Sept. 28, dozens of local parents gathered around plastic folding tables in the Commons’ musty church basement for another reason: college financial planning.
The attendees, most of whom are parents to high school juniors or seniors, came to the free workshop hosted by Enlighten 567, a national financial seminar host that finds local experts and puts on seminars to learn about the college financial aid process.
Among the topics were different types of student loans, the difference between need- and merit-based aid, as well as the form needed to apply for aid, the Free Application for Student Financial Aid, or FAFSA.
Naomi Saunders, whose son is a senior at Hamden High School, said she attended to make sure she had “crossed all her T’s and dotted all her i’s” so her son has “the least amount of student loans” possible.
“I just wanted to make sure that I was doing exactly everything that I need to do in order to get him into college — a good school — and pay for it properly,” Saunders said of her son, who she noted is a high-honors student-athlete. “I feel like if you did not do that as a parent, you’d be doing a huge disservice to your children.”
Ernie Plourde, a senior planning adviser at SEEC Financial Services in Cheshire, led Thursday’s seminar. He said getting accurate information on financial aid and student loans was a crucial complement of college planning because “a lot of times, the parents don’t know what to do.”
“The information I’m giving them, they can’t get anywhere else,” Plourde said. “To have an advocate that’s going to help you get through every step and answer all of your questions. professionally — can’t even put a price tag on that.”
Although Plourde has more than four decades of experience as a financial consultant, he did not become a college financial planner until parents began bringing to his attention the rising costs of college tuition.
“The parents are coming in, and they’re saying, ‘Ernie, have you checked out the prices of college lately?’” Plourde said. “They said, ‘Take a look at it, because we’re going to need some help with it.’”
When he looked into how expensive university tuition can be, he said he realized that, for most middle-income families, the cost of a college education was simply unaffordable.
“So, I talked to a couple of my associates nationwide. They said, ‘Yeah, we’ve been getting the same thing from our client base. We need to get together and put together some kind of program to help these families out,’” Plourde added.
Cami Fetta, mother to a Hamden High School senior, was clear about why she attended the workshop – “To figure out how to pay for this,” she said.
“Our son is first generation ever to go to college here,” Fetta said, noting that both her and her husband were immigrants. “So, we just want to find out the best things so our son has a better opportunity.”
Attendees received a packet of information on college finances, including a financial aid offer letter, several news clippings about student debt and the rising cost of attendance as well as a few scholarship applications.
Plourde’s presentation was noticeably dated — the financial aid letter used as an example was for the 2006-07 academic year, the data he included was over a decade old and one of the federal student loan programs he spoke about, the Perkins loan program, expired six years ago.
But Plourde, who acknowledged several times during the presentation that his information was outdated, argued it did not matter — it was all going to change anyway, he said.
“As soon as the parents get the hang of it, they change it,” he said. “It’s not fair.”
Nevertheless, Saunders said that, by the end of the session, she felt like she had “a handle on the basics.”
“I feel like there’s still more that I need to learn and sort of dive into, but I do feel like I can take away a lot from even just sitting here for an hour and a half,” she said. “I was one of the parents that are trying to navigate this thing by myself, so coming here was really an eye-opener and a great opportunity to get more information.”