Stacking Funding Options for College: A Better Alternative to Federal Loans

Educators and guidance counselors are helping students and families navigate a higher-education landscape that is rapidly shifting. While undergraduate federal loans remain unchanged, some graduate degrees, such as education, nursing, social work, and mental health, are no longer categorized as “professional” for federal lending purposes. These degrees still fully qualify for federal student loans but now have borrowing caps of $20,000 per year and $100,000 total.

The Trump administration states the intention behind the loan limits is to encourage institutions to contain tuition costs and to discourage borrowers from taking on more debt than their future salaries can sustain. Excessive student debt is a root driver of the national student loan crisis. These new caps provide an opportunity to explore some of the innovative ideas for funding education, many of which have existed for decades.

Instead of taking one large loan, students can combine smaller sources to stack funding more sustainably. Scholarships + Employer Support + Service Programs + Small Federal Loans = Affordable Degree

The resource below is compiled for school staff and families to discuss funding opportunities that reduce long-term debt and increase financial stability with students. Note that programs are constantly changing and updating, and website links may also change. However, these resources will serve as a valuable guide for college funding options.

Funding Options Beyond Federal Loans

National Service, Healthcare, and Human-Services Programs With Loan Repayment

National Health Service Corps (NHSC) – Loan Repayment Program

For licensed healthcare, dental, mental-health, and behavioral-health providers serving in federally designated shortage areas.
Repayment: Up to $75,000 for 2 years of service. 

NURSE Corps Loan Repayment Program

For registered nurses, nurse faculty, and APRNs working in facilities with critical shortages.
Repayment: Up to 85% of student debt over 3 years.

National Teaching and Education Programs With Tuition Support or Loan Assistance

Teach For America (TFA)

Members receive AmeriCorps benefits, including a stipend, grants, and interest-free loans.
Stipend: Up to $6,500 

AmeriCorps – Segal Education Award

Available to students in hundreds of national service roles, not limited to teaching.
Award: Up to $7,395 toward tuition or student loans.

Federal Teacher Loan Forgiveness

Teachers serving 5 consecutive years in low-income schools may qualify.
Forgiveness: Up to $17,500.

Military Programs With Tuition and Loan Repayment Benefits

Army College Loan Repayment Program (CLRP)

For eligible new enlistees in specific job roles.
Repayment: Up to $65,000.

Montgomery GI Bill

Provides tuition, housing allowance, and books for service members and veterans.

ROTC Scholarships

Covers full tuition at participating colleges in exchange for service commitments.

• Army ROTC

• Air Force ROTC

• Navy/Marine ROTC

Employer Tuition Assistance & Reimbursement Programs

These are available nationwide and often cover degrees in fields recently reclassified by the Department of Education.

Common examples:

Hospital Systems (nursing, allied health, mental health)

Most major hospital networks (HCA, Kaiser Permanente, AdventHealth, NYU Langone, etc.) offer $5,000–$20,000+ in annual tuition assistance or loan repayment.
Students should check each employer’s HR Benefits page.

Large Corporations

Many companies offer tuition programs regardless of major, such as:

• Amazon Career Choice: 100% tuition for high-demand fields

• Target, Walmart, Starbucks, and others also offer full tuition programs.

School Districts

Paraprofessionals, substitute teachers, and staff in many large districts receive tuition support to become teachers, counselors, or social workers. Here is an example of what staff at NYCPS can receive. Visit each district’s website for information.

Scholarships and Private Grants (National)

These are the lowest-risk funding streams because they never require repayment.

• FastWeb – Largest national scholarship database

• CollegeBoard BigFuture Scholarships & Search Tool

• Scholarship America

• Jack Kent Cooke Foundation (high-achieving, low-income students)

• UNCF Scholarships

Private & Nonprofit Loans

These can supplement the federal cap, but students must understand they lack federal protections (income-driven repayment, PSLF, etc.).

National lenders and nonprofit options include:

• Sallie Mae 

• Earnest

• SoFi 

• College Ave

The FAFSA Still Matters

Even as students look toward alternative funding pathways, completing the FAFSA remains essential. It unlocks access to federal grants, work-study, and need-based institutional aid—resources students should not miss out on, even if they plan to minimize borrowing.

Educators can remind families that:

• The FAFSA is required for Pell Grants, which do not need to be repaid.

• Many national scholarships and foundation grants require a FAFSA on file.

• Colleges use FAFSA data to award institutional scholarships and need-based aid.

• Completing the FAFSA does not obligate a student to take a federal loan. It simply ensures all options remain available.

FAFSA application

What Educators Can Emphasize to Students and Families

• Federal loans are still available, just capped.

• Relying solely on federal loans is not necessary or wise.

• These national programs significantly reduce long-term debt.

• Stacking funding sources is often the most effective strategy.

• Students need full information in middle and high school, not after the FAFSA is filed.

Why This Matters for Educators

This is the moment to equip students with knowledge, not fear. Federal caps shouldn’t be seen as barriers. Instead, they can be safeguards, steering young people toward funding strategies that align with financial reality and career sustainability. When educators help students explore these national programs, they empower them to build a future without being weighed down by overwhelming debt.

Using AI Actors Like Tilly Norwood to Build Media Literacy

AI-generated characters aren’t science fiction anymore. Whether we’re ready or not, our students are already watching, engaging, and asking smart questions.

My latest article in Tech & Learning helps educators reframe the conversation. Instead of viewing AI performers as a threat, we can use them as powerful entry points for teaching media literacy, storytelling, authorship, bias, and critical thinking.

The article includes real classroom prompts, instructional ideas, and a fresh lens on how to turn AI into a meaningful learning opportunity.

To read it, visit Tech & Learning. 

The New Writing Process in the Age of AI – A Must-Read for Educators

Writing has undergone significant changes in the Age of AI. 

If you’re still asking students, “Did you use AI?”, you’re missing the bigger question: How did they use it?

In the article The New Writing Process in the Age of AI (Tech & Learning), I explore how AI can serve as a powerful thought partner and why relying on revision history or AI detectors misses the real learning.

More importantly, the piece offers practical checklists for students and educators to guide responsible, reflective, and ethical AI-supported writing.

Read it. Share it. Then ask your students: How are you using AI to strengthen your writing?
👉 Read the full article

Stop Misusing QR Codes in Education

QR codes are everywhere, but that doesn’t mean they’re always the right tool. In my latest article for Tech & Learning, I break down when QR codes help—and when they just create friction.

If you're using QR codes in slides, agendas, or PD sessions without thinking about your audience's devices, you might be doing more harm than good.

🔗 Read the article on Tech & Learning

Learn how to:

• Design for accessibility
• Avoid common QR mistakes
• Provide better access for all learners

Know someone who needs this? Pass it on.

Using Copilot as a Leadership Tool to Strengthen Staff Growth

 

Seeing What We Miss Every Day

School leaders and coaches spend their days immersed in communication, including emails, chats, meetings, notes, and documents. Buried in that digital stream is a story about how we coach, collaborate, and connect. Yet those insights vanish at day’s end.

AI tools like Microsoft Copilot already summarize meetings, capture notes, and draft next steps. But what if they could do more, like analyzing the patterns within those everyday interactions to reveal staff members’ strengths, superpowers, and areas for growth?

That’s where AI moves from assistant to analyst, and from automating tasks to amplifying talent.

From Administrative Support to Human Insight

With the proper license, Copilot connects to your organization’s emails, Teams chats, meeting transcripts, and documents. That means it doesn’t just automate tasks; it can also surface insights from the way we work, uncovering behavioral and professional trends that drive authentic growth.

Imagine Copilot highlighting:

• Communication champions who elevate conversations, mediate conflicts, and help others problem-solve.

• Creative catalysts who consistently generate innovative ideas or propose practical solutions.

• Emerging leaders whose collaboration patterns reveal mentorship and initiative.

• Support needs among staff whose engagement dips or follow-through wanes, signaling potential overload or burnout.

• Learning opportunities where recurring requests for clarity suggest targeted professional learning needs.

These insights could provide a real-time, evidence-based view of how a school’s culture functions, without a single survey.

Data-Driven Professional Growth

Once visible, those communication patterns become the foundation for personalized professional learning.

Copilot could:

• Generate summaries that identify team or individual strengths and growth areas.

• Suggest PD resources—LinkedIn Learning courses, internal modules, or curated learning.

• Help leaders create customized growth plans built on authentic daily interactions rather than static evaluations.

Instead of PD being something done to staff, it becomes a reflection of staff, based on real evidence that makes growth feel natural and self-directed.

The Future of Professional Learning

Imagine a system where professional learning evolves in real time, guided by your team’s authentic interactions. That’s the next step: helping educators learn with greater awareness, empathy, and efficiency by analyzing how they already communicate and collaborate.

It’s time for AI not just to take notes, but to take notice in ways that help us lead with more insight, connection, and impact, so staff can best support our students.

Learn More 

• Deliver Insights to Managers – Microsoft 365 Copilot Scenario Library

• Designing Microsoft 365 Copilot to Empower Educators, Students & Staff

Lights, Camera, Learning! Exploring Google Veo's Potential in the Classroom

Google Veo has the potential to supercharge creativity in education. This text-to-video and photo-to-video tool turns your ideas into rich, cinematic video, and now with native sound. Think of it as a next-gen storytelling engine, one that can be a game-changer for classrooms, afterschool programs, and student portfolios. 

Veo is available to those who subscribe to Google AI plans, offering innovative possibilities for educators.

Why Google Veo Matters for Educators

Educators have long used video as a powerful medium for engaging students and helping them demonstrate understanding. But creating high-quality video traditionally required time, equipment, and technical skills that many educators simply didn’t have.

Enter Google Veo:

• Just describe the scene, and it creates a video. The video can be shown on computers, laptops, mobile devices, and social media.

• Want cinematic lighting or dramatic pacing? It listens. The model now offers improved realism, physics simulation, and prompt adherence.

• Need visuals for a story, a poem, a science concept, or a historical reenactment? Done. And now, you can add native audio, including dialogue, music, and sound effects.

• Have a favorite photo you want to animate? The new photo-to-video capability can transform a still image into a dynamic video clip.

This kind of tool is a game-changer for differentiated instruction, multimodal learning, and project-based assessment.

Classroom Use Ideas for Google Veo

With Sample Prompts You Can Try

1. From Page to Screen: Student Writing Projects Use Case: Take a student’s original poem or narrative and turn it into a short film with synchronized sound. Sample Prompt: "A peaceful forest with a small tree growing beside a river under the golden glow of sunrise. The scene feels hopeful and magical, as if something important is about to begin. Include soft wind rustling leaves and birds gently chirping in the background."

2. Historical Reenactments or Alternate Realities Use Case: Ask students to write an alternate history scene and bring it to life visually. Sample Prompt: "What if the American Revolution took place in modern-day New York City? Soldiers in 18th-century uniforms march down a present-day Manhattan street. Skyscrapers loom above, and people watch, stunned, filming with their phones. Add the sounds of military drums and people gasping in surprise."

3. Science in Motion Use Case: Bring scientific processes to life that are hard to visualize with static diagrams. Sample Prompt: "An animated cross-section of a rainforest ecosystem showing the water cycle: clouds forming, rain falling, water absorbed by roots, transpiration through leaves, then evaporation. Label parts of the cycle subtly as the animation plays. Include the sound of falling rain and a gentle stream."

4. Personalized Phonics & Literacy Videos Use Case: Customize early literacy content to be culturally relevant and student-centered. Sample Prompt: "A friendly cartoon dog named Otto bounces across the screen, introducing the 'SH' sound. He points to fun visuals: a shark, a ship, and a shoe. Each time the word appears, it's spoken clearly and emphasized with playful animation."

5. Student-Generated Explainer Videos Use Case: Combine student-written scripts with Veo visuals to produce educational explainer videos. Sample Prompt: "A calm, slow animation showing the water cycle: evaporation from oceans, condensation into clouds, precipitation as rain, and collection in rivers. Use classroom-style visuals with soft music and floating text labels. Narrate the stages of the water cycle."

Educators must be at the table as these tools develop to ensure they are inclusive, ethical, and aligned to learning goals, not just wow factors. To promote transparency, all videos generated by Google's generative AI models include a digital SynthID watermark. By combining storytelling, critical thinking, and ethical AI use, we can unlock new forms of learning and expression that were not easy to bring to life just a few years ago.