Newsroom
Use Mapping Your Future's budget calculator
By Beth Ziehmer
April 15, 2015
The April 6 Dear Colleague Letter GEN-15-06 has prompted schools to look more closely at the counseling process and other tools that can help their students borrow responsibly.
One of the questions in the DCL is "As part of its entrance counseling, may an institution require a first-time student borrower to complete a worksheet or other exercise, such as developing a budget or providing estimates of earnings after graduation?" The answer starts with "Yes. As part of its entrance counseling, an institution may require a first-time student borrower to complete a worksheet, budget, or other exercise designed to improve financial literacy and the student's understanding of the implications of borrowing."
When building or enhancing your counseling processes, use the Mapping Your Future budgeting page at mappingyourfuture.org/money/budget.cfm, which includes a link for the budget calculator, located at mappingyourfuture.org/money/budgetcalculator.cfm.
In addition to the budget calculator, Mapping Your Future offers several other calculators. The calculators are located at mappingyourfuture.org/money/calculators.cfm and include:
- Bank balancing tool – Helps you reconcile your checking and savings account records with your bank's records
- Income-based repayment calculator – Estimates your monthly payment amount under the income-based repayment plan for various federal student loans
- Savings calculator – See how valuable saving can be
- Student loan debt/salary wizard – Helps you to understand how much you can afford to borrow in student loan funds (and calculates student loan payments)
- Student loan repayment calculator – Estimates your student loan payments
- Loan consolidation calculator – Estimates your consolidation loan interest rate and payment amount
Contact the Mapping Your Future staff at feedback@mappingyourfuture.org or (800) 374-4072 with any questions.