Online Resource Prepares Student for Change in College Plans

Editor’s Note: The following is a feature from the USA Funds^® 2007 annual report. USA Funds Education Access Report is highlighting the students featured in the annual report to show how USA Funds is getting results for students. To access the full report online, you’ll need Adobe Reader.

Ruth Kirklin had her heart set on studying at the U.S. Air Force Academy. When she learned last spring that she had not been accepted into the academy, she and her family were devastated.

But PathfinderHS helped soften the blow.

Thanks to the online college planning program that Kirklin used during her junior and senior years at Edgewood High School in Merritt Island, Fla., she understood the importance of having several options in place for postsecondary education. So Kirklin and her family turned to Plan B.

“Now I’m doing well in college,” Kirklin says, “and I love it.”

Kirklin, 19, will receive her associate degree in education in fall 2008 and then begin work toward a bachelor’s degree.

PathfinderHS is a product of Envictus Corp., a Virginia-based organization that works to assist high school guidance staff. Envictus combines software, training and professional development in helping schools to incorporate PathfinderHS’ customized college planning information in their curricula.

USA Funds has partnered with Envictus to bring PathfinderHS into 30 schools serving more than 25,000 students in Florida. USA Funds also is sponsoring the implementation of PathfinderHS in the states of Arizona, California and Washington.

Edgewood Junior-Senior High School began offering PathfinderHS to its 1,000 students in spring 2006.

Neleffra Marshall, Edgewood assistant principal, appreciates that PathfinderHS makes it easy for her to incorporate college planning material in courses as early as seventh grade. She also says her students are well-served by the program’s ability to provide information about postsecondary training opportunities throughout the nation.

Edgewood’s students and parents like that PathfinderHS saves them time, Marshall says. Instead of wading through a variety of separate books and online sites themselves, they access just one site for the information they need. And, she says, because they can access the program anywhere, parents and their children can plan for the students’ college and career futures together.

Kay Kirklin of Merritt Island is one of the parents who value the portability of PathfinderHS.

“I’m an involved parent,” says Kirklin, whose daughter Ruth is the youngest of six children. “The fact that Ruthie could use PathfinderHS at home showed that it isn’t off-limits to me, that it really is a tool for both students and parents to use.”

The Kirklins turned to PathfinderHS for financial aid information, career planning tips and details about colleges that Ruth Kirklin might want to consider based on her own interests and aptitudes. While their success in using PathfinderHS is impressive, it’s not atypical, according to a pilot implementation test of the program in 2005.

In that test, Florida high school students who had used PathfinderHS showed significantly greater knowledge of key aspects of the college planning process than they did prior to using the tool. After viewing PathfinderHS, about 99 percent of the students had a solid plan for pursuing college admission. Prior to using PathfinderHS, only 18 percent had such a plan.

Eighty-one percent of students who had used PathfinderHS showed that they had a plan for paying for college — up from 55 percent who had such a plan prior to PathfinderHS. In fact, before using the program, only 4 percent knew about the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, the form required to apply for federal aid as well as many types of scholarships and state aid. After using PathfinderHS, about 90 percent demonstrated knowledge of the application.

For Ruth Kirklin, having an understanding of such college planning information meant that when she got that disappointing news from the Air Force Academy, she was ready with alternate plans. She selected Brevard Community College in Cocoa, Fla.

Based on what she’d learned from PathfinderHS, she knew that going to Brevard Community College would permit her to build on dual enrollment credits she’d already earned there while she was in high school. She could graduate early — which would save her money and provide her the opportunity to then pursue a bachelor’s degree in elementary education in Colorado, where she and her fiancé will move following their June wedding.

With grants, Ruth Kirklin currently pays no education-related expenses but the cost of her books — and has not taken out a student loan.

“Good for me,” she says. “I know a lot of kids have a college they want to go to. They think, ‘This is where I’m going, and if I don’t get accepted, I don’t have a backup plan.’ Thanks to PathfinderHS, I did have a backup plan.”