You have looked at the FAFSA and thought "Why bother? We probably won't qualify for financial aid anyway."
It is important to understand how the financial aid process works and then determine how important it is to your family, before dismissing it as a waste of time.
In order to understand how to maximize financial aid eligibility, you need to know why. The Department of Education has devised a formula to determine a family’s "true" disposable income for meeting college costs.
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form is used. Some Private schools require the CSS Financial Aid Profile (Profile), an additional form.
Both take into account parent income and assets, student income and assets, number of people in the household, number of kids in college, age of the oldest parent, etc. The resulting number is a dollar amount representing what your family should be able to contribute to this child’s education. (Rarely does a family agree with this number.)
The number is referred to as the "Expected Family Contribution" or EFC. That figure is compared to the college’s "Cost of Attendance" (COA) and the difference, if there is any, is the family’s "demonstrated financial need" (NEED).
The lower the EFC, the greater the eligibility for financial aid. Some schools will meet 100% of this NEED, most will not. Either way, you want to lower your EFC to create the greatest amount of eligibility for financial aid and hope the college meets most or all of it.
If your EFC is more than the COA and cannot be lowered, there will be no eligibility for need-based financial aid. If your family makes too much money for need-based financial aid (over $200,000 per child in college) then strategies will not help unless drastic measures can be taken, such as parent income reduced significantly. Also, If the student will be attending a low cost school – such as a state or community college, the EFC must be able to be lowered to less than the school’s COA to qualify for need-based aid.
If you feel you will qualify for need-based financial aid, then be sure to lower your EFC as much as possible to maximize that need, then attend a school that has the resources to meet 100% of that need.
You can buy a report ($139) which will teach you how to lower your EFC with this link.
You can also get a list of schools that have a history of meeting 90-100% of financial need for $89.
That said, if you feel that your family will not be able to qualify for need-based financial aid, you should try to get as much merit-based financial aid as possible. Every dollar of merit-based financial aid reduces what you have to pay (earn, pay taxes on, then pay) or borrow (accrue interest, earn more, pay more taxes, then pay back.)
Merit based aid is awarded from two sources: private foundations and colleges themselves.
If you will not receive need-based financial aid, be sure to only consider colleges with merit-based aid. Not all colleges will give students money for merit. In fact, none of the Ivy League schools will. The $89 list mentioned above shows which colleges have generous merit-based awards. The list does not include all schools with merit based aid, but does include the more generous institutions.
Private foundations are the other great sourse of merit-based aid. Most awards are labeled "scholarships" and are won through a competition based on essays, grades, test scores, and/or community service. Each scholarship has its own criteria.
It is important to follow the rules that the individual scholarship committees establish. There are all different.
Once the scholarship is awarded, the money is held "in-trust" for the student until the student's school confirrms that the student's enrollment is completed. The scholaship committee then releases the funds to the school to be credited to the student's account.
Finding scholarship information is easy in the Internet age. If you have not done so, sign up for our free weekly service to let you know of scholarships whose deadlines are approaching.
You can also get a really long list of scholarships by clicking on this banner for FastWeb.com:
Other Resources:
Financial Aid Information Site
One-stop shop for anything about college financial aid
For more information, Click Here!
Free Money For Nursing School!
14 Things You Don't Know That Can Get You a Free Nursing Degree!
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How To Send Your Child To College Free
Digital book informing parents how to send their child to college with virtually no money. For more information, Click Here!
Student Aid Alliance
The Ultimate Guide to Student Loans & College Planning.
For more information, Click Here!
Half Price College
College Financial Aid and Scholarship Information.
For more information, Click Here!
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