About College Money Matters

Right now, the level of student debt in the United States is an astounding 1.6 trillion dollars. That’s a terrible financial burden, and it keeps growing every year.

At College Money Matters, Inc., we don’t want that trend to continue. So we formed a nonprofit organization based on this simple idea: Any student able to get into college can learn how to avoid paying too much in loans.

Our focus is on reaching students and their families before they start borrowing money for college – so they can make smart decisions that maximize their college choices and minimize their debt.

What you’ll find on this site reflects what students told us they needed to understand, delivered in the way they told us they wanted to learn. It’s also important to know what you won’t find here, as you’ll see in the list below:


How is College Money Matters different from other sites out there?

If you’ve been to other sites for college-bound students, you’ve probably come upon things like this:

  • Information you don’t really need right now
  • Lots of links to topics that aren’t relevant to your situation
  • Overly complicated financial language
  • Invitations to supposedly helpful programs that require you to pay a fee
  • Promotions for services or products paid for by advertisers
  • Sites that use your personal information to make money for themselves

We don’t believe any of that is helpful. So we’ve focused on the things you need to know now, and left out the rest, along with the things that can wait until after you graduate from college.


Things we want you to know

  • Be careful about statistics - Our site, and many others, use statistics and date to help explain ideas, but these examples include assumptions that could affect their accuracy and meaning. Whenever possible, we will try to let you know what those assumptions are. For example, the percentage of college freshmen who borrow money to attend college varies widely by the age of the freshman. For those starting college after years in the workforce, the borrowing rate is much higher.
  • Safeguard your information – We do not sell your information to make money, but we are obviously not responsible for what happens on sites we don't control. We provide links to sites we think provide good information, but you need to be alert as to how those sites use your information.
  • Think before you act on financial advice – We are not giving you financial advice on this site. Your financial decisions should be made based on your individual situation.
  • Contributions – We support our website and YouTube channel completely from contributions. We encourage you and your friends to donate if you like what this site has to offer.

At College Money Matters, we really work to live up to our motto: We have no interest but yours.

Let us know how you think we’re doing. We’d love to hear from you.