SoFi Blog

It’s that time of year again: back to school time. And while students are anxious to walk through their school halls, check off their back to school lists, and make sure they have plenty of friends in every class, graduates may be struggling to pay off their debt.

Unfortunately, student loan debt is at an all-time high and continues to rise. The average student loan debt for 2017 graduates was $39,400 amounting to $1.48 trillion in total student loan debt. This exceeds the amount of credit card debt in the United States by $694 billion.

In the summer of 2016, we surveyed around 1,000 young professionals for The Impact of Student Loan Benefits, a white paper outlining the effect of student loan debt on employee recruitment. We found over 60% of respondents reported that student loan debt is one of the top two financial concerns in their lives. While student loans are clearly a stressor for millennials, there’s a way to prevent them from causing students so much anxiety.

The need to plan a funeral can take you by surprise, leaving you very little time to make arrangements when someone you care about passes away. Having some understanding of what goes into planning for a funeral can only help, especially since funerals tend to happen so soon after someone passes. Your loved one deserves to be honored with dignity when they pass, and in turn, you and your family deserve the opportunity to say a proper goodbye. Ultimately, you want a funeral to be meaningful, and knowing how to facilitate that is key.

Finding the money to pay for a funeral is a high priority. Funeral costs determine the kind of funeral you can have—where you can have the funeral, how many mourners can come pay their respects, and the type of burial or cremation ceremony you can have. However, money is usually the last thing on your mind when a loved one passes away. That’s why it’s a good idea to know how to cover funeral costs, so that you’re not left financially scrambling while grieving. In this article, we’ll look at a breakdown of funeral costs, and outline the ways you can pay for a funeral.

If you were to put together a “Dream Job” list, you’d probably have a few positions on there because you love the work (think illustrator or travel blogger)—and a few because you love the salary that comes with it (say, pro athlete).

Dream job ideas aside, when you’re searching for a new job, you’re probably pondering a similar question: What should you prioritize, the type of work that you’ll be doing or your income?

In an ideal world, you’d snag a well-paying job that you adore, but that combination isn’t exactly easy to find.

The bottom line: There’s no one answer that’s appropriate for everyone. After all, when it comes to what employees value the most, there’s a lot of variation from person to person. But there are some key questions that you can ask yourself in order to figure out what suits you best.

August 7 marks Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, the day that marks how far Black women have had to work into 2018 to make as much as white males did in 2017. This means that a Black woman would have to work for 19 months and one week to take home what a white male typically earns in 12 months.

To raise awareness of the pay gap and its negative effect on Black women and families, SoFi is proud to partner with Lean In to launch #38PercentCounts. It’s the second of three public awareness efforts this year rooted in the idea that equal pay matters.

By Alison Norris, CFP, SoFi

Starting today, SoFi has teamed up with Ladder to bring you simple and affordable term life insurance. Within five minutes, you can receive an online quote for coverage ranging from $100,000 to $8 million and ensure your family’s security instantly.