Fall tuition bills for the upcoming academic year are arriving in mailboxes this month, but only 4% of Gen Z students say they’re fully funded for the entire school year, data show.
As of June, 90% of college-bound Gen Z students said they don’t yet know how they’ll fully pay for school, said a poll of 9,097 students surveyed by application site ScholarshipOwl. Gen Z was born between 1997 and 2012 and includes the high school Class of 2024. A fifth said they still needed more than $20,000 to meet the year’s tuition.
It’s true some students will have enough saved to pay that first tuition bill landing in their mailboxes now, but not knowing how to pay for the rest of the year can be stressful and wreak havoc on their future college plans.
If you find during the year, you can’t scrounge up the rest of the money, it’s “that much harder to potentially have to change direction in (the) middle of (the) school year,” said ScholarshipOwl financial expert Jennifer Finetti.
Of the 1,500 college students polled by education software firm Ellucian who dropped out, 19% cited financial uncertainty as the leading cause. The survey was taken between February 26 and March 1.
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How much do students need to pay for the full 2024-25 year?
Among the 90% of students who don’t have all the funds available to pay for college in the coming school year, ScholarshipOwl said:
- 24% need another $5,000
- 22% need another $10,000
- 13% need another $15,000
- 11% need…
