As leaders at Western Governors University, we meet remarkable students every day. Most are juggling full-time jobs, often more than one, while raising children, caring for family members and navigating life’s challenges.
The Spring 2025 Student Financial Wellness Survey, conducted by Trellis Strategies, provides insights into how this plays out in our students’ lives. The report focuses on student financial health, basic needs and mental health. While Trellis has conducted an annual survey of on-campus and hybrid students for years, this year’s report marked the first time it examined online learners and compared them with their on-campus peers. Drawing responses from more than 16,000 online students, 4,000 of them from Western Governors University (WGU), the report provides a clearer picture of the pressures today’s students face, whether online or on campus.
That picture is striking. The survey reports that 74% of online students work, more than half are parents and nearly one in five are caregivers. Online students are far more likely to feel financially responsible for others — with 71% prioritizing family support while enrolled compared to 38% of campus-based peers. The numbers suggest these obligations can compound quickly: 71% took out student loans, 52% ended up with more unexpected debt and only 27% were confident they could pay off their student loans.
However, despite facing financial hardship, online learners expressed significantly higher institutional satisfaction, earning their schools a Net Promoter Score of 59.1 — nearly four times that of on-campus and hybrid students (14.5).
To fulfill our promise as institutions of higher education, we must continue to design systems that proactively help students with persistence and completion. Student-centered scheduling, work-integrated learning, emergency aid, flat-rate tuition and program-embedded financial guidance that encourages responsible borrowing are essential tools that WGU offers students to support them on their academic journey.
Traditional loans often place too much risk on students. Alternative approaches, such as pay-it-forward funds, outcome-based loans, income-contingent repayment models and zero-interest loans, like WGU’s Reinvesting in Nursing Education and Workforce (ReNEW) Fund, better align repayment with earnings and guard against initial financial burdens. This is why institutional support for students should expand beyond enrollment, regardless of whether students graduate. Without guidance, borrowers can miss deadlines, fall behind on payments and face consequences such as wage garnishment, damaged credit scores and limited options for loan rehabilitation.
Transparency is equally critical. WGU students, for example, have access to an interactive Student Loan Scenario Calculator that allows them to adjust factors like competency units per term, terms to graduate and loan amounts to see how those choices impact out-of-pocket costs and future loan repayments. This tool, paired with resources like the College Scorecard, enables students to understand tuition costs alongside graduation rates, employment outcomes and expected earnings.
Despite the complexities of paying tuition, 80% of survey respondents believe college is a good investment, and 86% believe it will improve their quality of life, suggesting these students are hopeful despite the enormous pressures they face. Our individual and collective responsibility is to support students with infrastructure that meets them where they are, so that students can approach their degrees as sound investments — not financial risks. Then, students can be confident in their investments for the future, enjoy their academic journey and thrive beyond it.