Student Loans Insight

Financial aid is any financial assistance given to a student to help him or her pay for the cost of higher education. The assistance can take many forms such as gift aid, which does not have to be paid back. Scholarships and grants are gift aid as well. Financial aid assistance can also take the form of self help aid, money that has to be paid back or earned. Some College Student Loans and federal work study employment are examples of self help financial assistance.

Financial aid can also come from many different sources. The federal government will fund need based financial aid assistance programs such as a Pell Grant, and Federal Work Study. Some states will also offer grants and scholarships to residents of their states. Scholarships can be sponsored by corporations, private non-profit foundations, professional organizations, and often, the student’s own college.

Scholarship eligibility requirements will be determined by the sponsors. In general, for Federal and State student aid assistance` the student must:

• Be enrolled in a degree granting curriculum.
• Be a citizen, national, or permanent resident of the United States.
• Maintain satisfactory academic progress toward a degree.
• Not be in default or owe an overpayment on any aid programs.
• Be enrolled for sufficient hours (can vary, six credits for most programs).

The federal as well as the state financial aid programs exist to supplement a family’s own resources to help pay for higher education. The financial aid office will determine a student’s eligibility for these programs based on guidelines that have been established by Congress and the Department of Education. A student will submit information about his family resources by filing a FAFSA or Free Application for Federal Student Aid. This information is then analyzed based on a standard formula that will determine how much the student and the family can theoretically afford to contribute toward a student’s educational costs. This contribution is referred to as the Expected Family Contribution (EFC). Students with very low EFCs can also qualify for certain grants like the Pell Grant and the SEOG.

The financial aid office of your school will subtracts the EFC from the estimated cost of attending there particular school. The cost includes charges that are billed directly by the college, such as tuition and fees, but will also includes other costs, such as the cost of transportation to and from school, books and supplies, meals, and other miscellaneous expenses. The difference is called the student’s need. The amount of any gifted financial aid you receive combined with any other need based assistance, such as a federal work study job, cannot exceed your needs. The financial aid office will offer you as much assistance as humanly possible; this financial aid is often a combination of federal grants, state grants, college funds, employment, and college student loans.

1. File your FAFSA by March 1.
2. Some financial aid is awarded on a first come, first serve basis.
3. Be accurate and feel everything out completely when filing the FAFSA.
4. Do not leave a field blank. If a question does not apply, enter “0″.
5. You will need to allow 4-8 weeks for financial aid application processing.
6. Make sure that all required signatures are provided on the FAFSA or it will not be processed, and all other documents submitted to the Financial Aid Office.
7. Review your student aid report (SAR, a report from FAFSA) carefully, follow any instructions provided.
8. Always keep a current mailing address on file with the Registrar.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 3:06 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.