hi I'm Sal Khan founder of the Khan Academy I just wanted to welcome you to this resource on navigating the college I guess application admissions and paying for process and you know for me this is a super important thing college was a big part of my life obviously we all know you learn a lot in college but it also opens up your mind you have it's important to be in a community that really challenges you between your peers your professors I met my wife in college many of the same people that I worked with in college I remember I had a I was in an entrepreneurship competition my junior year and many of the people who are on my team then I'm still working with now 20 years later on Khan Academy and I I think would be fair to say if I hadn't had that experience Khan Academy might not exist and and because College can be such a mind expanding and eye-opening experience it's really important that everyone realizes that it's actually more accessible than most people think when I was a kid my mom raised us as a as a single mother and I just assumed that we would never be able to afford a selective private four-year university but my sister who was three years older when she applied to college she got into actually several really good schools and her first choice when she applied you know when I looked at the actual dollar amount for the tuitions there's no way that was actually the tuition at that university was more than my mom made in a year but they gave my sister a financial aid package some was was contributed by my mother but my sister had to take on a loan do some work study but they made it so that she could go and that opened the possibilities for me when I when it was my time I applied where I thought that I could drive the most and I applied for financial aid and like my sister they made it possible for me to to have that that very rich and and important experience in my own life so my my biggest hope is that as you go through these resources you look at it from your own lens and it opens up the same type of possibilities that that I that I was lucky enough to have in my own life