Continuing Education Training Institute (CETI) features the industry’s top experts.
CETI brings together national leaders in continuing education with business experts to explore workforce trends that impact your students and your programs.
Doug Foresta (DF):
Hello, and welcome to the CETI 2018 Conference. This is Doug Foresta with Sean Steinmarc from TFC Tuition Financing. Sean, Welcome.
Sean Steinmarc (SS):
Thank you very much. I’m glad to be here.
DF:
Let me ask you, can you just say a little bit about TFC and what you do.
SS:
Sure. Our goal is to make education affordable for every student. We help schools finance the students who don’t qualify for traditional loans. Or, maybe, they’re not fully covered by loans and grants and need that extra little bit of help. So, we provide them solutions, low interest rate, or no interest rate, plans, in some cases. Really, our goal is affordability.
DF:
Tell me a little bit about who would be eligible for financing. Give me a little bit about, how would I know if I’m… What are some of the eligibility criteria?
SS:
We get that question a lot, especially directly from students and parents.
DF:
Absolutely.
SS:
So, we work directly with schools. The first step is, in order to be eligible for TFC solutions, the students would have to attend one of our partner schools. That’s not saying that we can’t get inquiries from other students. What we’ll do is, we’ll reach out to whatever schools they’re interested in, and we’ll try to see what we can do and form that relationship with the school. We have programs. We had an inquiry just today about a student asking if we are credit based, “What happens if they have bad credit?” Those are the students that need our help the most. And, those are the students that we want to focus on, students that do not have good credit. A lot of the time, these are, you know, underage, 17 or 18-year-olds.
DF:
Right. These are not people that have ideal credit or…
SS:
It’s not bad credit. They might just not have any.
DF:
Any credit. Right.
SS:
Sometimes, generally, too, if you’re looking at, for example, in career education or continuing education, a lot of the times these are people, students, that are looking to change careers, looking to improve their lives. Somebody looking to improve their life will not always have the best credit. Now, the big thing that we focus on, again, is the low interest. We’re not a predatory lender. There are some companies out there that people have experience with. This is why we work directly with the schools, to make sure that we’re providing the right solutions for their students.
DF:
So, say a little bit about that. So, if I want to go to a certain school, can you finance, pretty much, any program?
SS:
Yep. We have no limitation on programs, students. We have done everything from cosmetology schools, beauty schools, makeup schools, truck driving schools, zoology. We’ve had a taxidermy school, underwater photography, diving. There’s really nothing that we haven’t done.
DF:
That you haven’t financed.
SS:
We, also, we’re in K-12 a bit, as well, private schools. Sometimes it’s younger students who need help. But, the bread and butter that we’ve been working with is higher ed. Really, every program you can imagine.
DF:
I would imagine that this could be really life changing for someone who wants to go back to school but just can’t, simply, pay for it all at once. Right?
SS:
Absolutely. And, we hear that a lot from our students after they graduate and after they finish their payment plan. It’s a really satisfying aspect of their education, to be able to say, “I went to school. I was able to afford it. I was able to pay it off.” And, as long as students are successful, we find that we have great success with a lot of these students paying off their tuition.
DF:
Can you say a little bit about the range of payments, the length of payment plans, that’s available for students?
SS:
Sure. There’s, actually, quite a range. We do not have any set specified criteria for individual students. Really, our goal is affordability. So, if a student can pay off within a couple of months, great. If they need a much longer time, we can handle that. We have certain programs, so, certain schools, for instance, will have, maybe they’ll have a student that gets a lot of Title IV funds or maybe they’ll have a student that’s covered very heavily by state grants but has a $1,000 shortfall, $500 shortfall. With that, a student would not be able to come to school even though they have all this money. Instead, they put a payment plan, maybe for two months. On the flip side of that, we have, let’s say, going to medical school, where it’s way more expensive, and students actually do need maybe 20 or 30 years to pay that back, kind of like a mortgage which is unfortunate. But, the goal is affordability. You can’t afford a $120,000 education and pay that off in a year or less.
DF:
Not even if you’re going to be a doctor.
SS:
Not even if you’re going to be a doctor. Exactly. And, if anybody pays off early, that’s great. It really is a great success story.
DF:
That’s really fantastic. And, then, you said you have certain schools that you work with. Are you looking for new schools to partner with?
SS:
Yeah. We’re always actively seeking out new schools with whom we can partner. Any school that might be interested in partnering with TFC, offering better solutions to their students, can just reach out to us. Any student that is looking to utilize TFC can go to their student finance area. They can ask if they currently use us. If not, just put us in touch. We’re always looking to see how many more students we can help and how many more schools we can help.
DF:
That’s beautiful. So, where should we send people today?
SS:
So, people can go to TFC. That’s like Tom Frank Charlie. TFCTuition.com is the website they can check out and reach out to us. Or, they could call 1-800-832-2733. We’re here, and we’re here to help.
DF:
Sean Steinmarc from TFC Tuition Financing. Thank you so much for joining us, today.
SS:
Thank you. Have a great day.
DF:
You, too. Thank you.
