Our history

Mapping Your Future debuted in 1996 to provide career, college, financial aid, and money management information and services for students, families, and schools.

Through the years, postsecondary school financial aid offices have faced increasing pressure to cut costs and reduce staff and overhead. At the same time, students have required more online services available anytime, anywhere. In addition to these trends, student loan guaranty agencies (many of which are state agencies or nonprofit organizations) and others in the financial aid industry realized a need to collaborate to deliver uniform services across the country, rather than each organization spending money to develop unique services. They recognized that by working together, they could meet the needs of colleges and universities to cut costs, and provide innovative online college, career, financial aid, and financial literacy services.

The guarantors came together in 1996 to develop Mapping Your Future and immediately began offering information and services via the Internet.

The first phase of Mapping Your Future was to develop an informational website so students could access general career and college information with the ability to get specific state or regional information from the site. This service assisted over-burdened staff at financial aid offices by enabling students to get their information from a credible online source without having to request the information from the school.

The leaders also knew that they could do more than just provide information. They wanted to empower schools, students, and families with career and college-related services online and, while delivering those services, encourage individuals to pursue life-long success. They believed that by working together, the agencies could meet this goal.

Through this collaboration, Mapping Your Future created 22 Online Counseling sessions, released the MappingXpress document collection service, launched services like CareerShip and Show Me The Future, created numerous flyers and publications, provided informational webinars on a variety of topics.

In 2014, Mapping Your Future merged with Money Management International, a national nonprofit providing credit counseling and other financial wellness services. The merger resulted in the development of Mapping Your Future Financial Solutions, a program providing financial wellness services to a number of organizations, including employers and credit unions.

In 2020, Mapping Your Future became an independent organization and continues to be a national, nonprofit organization and a collaborative public-service project of the financial aid industry - bringing together the expertise of the industry to provide information and services for schools, students, and families.