A Game to Help Students Pay the Right Price for College<br />In an ideal educational world, experiential games like this would be core elements<br />of a financial literacy master class that every high school student would take.<br />In playing, students see running totals of their debt but can also track academic focus, the connections they’re making<br />that could be useful later and their overall happiness — crucial factors in actually finishing college and graduating with a job that can help them repay their debt.<br />In the last big economic downturn, back when Tim Ranzetta was in the student loan analysis<br />and consulting business and working with colleges, borrowers often found their way to him, too.<br />A big part of the reason, Ms. Nicholson said, is that the firm recognized that paying for college is not just about debt but also about investment.<br />That last one comes from Ms. Nicholson’s personal experience, for she eventually realized<br />that focus and happiness were sometimes counterpoints and she might have received a better return on her investment in college if she’d had more fun and more friends.<br />After successful stints in the paper-shredding and executive compensation industries, Mr. Ranzetta turned to student loan consulting when his older siblings started sending their own children to college<br />and threw up their hands in confusion and despair when trying to borrow to pay for it.<br />And he would get off the phone with the same frustration each time over how little the people who actually use them know about student loans.
