Today’s young people deserve well-informed financial guidance as they make decisions about their future. This summer, CARA has been developing workshops and resources to help both the students at schools we partner with and the peer leaders we train gain financial autonomy. On June 10th, we hosted a session on “Uncovering Your Financial Power” for our peer leaders, which covered a series of financial topics. Jose Souffront, a financial counselor at Ariva, spoke to our students about credit; Jonathan Wroble, Co-Founder of Get A Financial Life NYC, presented on what NOT to do with your money; Juleisy Polanco Garcia of PlanningGems spoke about money & mindset; Nancy Nierman of EDCAP presented on student loans; and our fiscal sponsor, the Fund for the City of New York, ran a session on “What You Need to Know About HR.”

This year, CARA’s research and policy team has also been writing a new report and developing supplemental resources to help high school staff and students to navigate the question: how much is “safe” to borrow for college? We had the opportunity to present a draft of this report at this year’s Student Financial Aid Research Network (SFARN) conference at the University of Louisville. With the full report coming out later this year, SFARN was a great opportunity to discuss the findings with experts on financial aid from across the country.

Keep an eye out for the report this fall!