Financial Aid

Financial aid need not be the complex labyrinth it often seems to be. This blog post will give you a general overview of the process and clarify some common misunderstandings. 

Net Price Calculators

Most universities publish these. After inputting some personal data about your own financial situation, you’ll get a rough estimate for how much it would cost for you to attend that particular college. Note that these are not actual financial aid applications. Rather, they exist simply to give families ballpark cost estimates. This a great place to start in your financial aid journey. 

Different Types of Financial Aid

Financial aid can take many forms and mean many things. There are private- and government-issued loans, for example. Here, you typically payback the loan with interest over many years. 

But that’s not what we’re going to focus on today. We’re going to focus on money that is simply given to you without any expectation that you pay it back. There are two main varieties of this.

University-based aid 

This is money given to students directly from the university. When you fill out the Common application, each school usually asks if you want to be considered for either need- or merit-based financial aid. Because this is a part of the application itself, students’ acceptance letters sometimes contain some kind of financial aid offer – a double bout of good news! 

For this to happen, students and parents typically need to submit two important forms: the FAFSA (“Free Application for Federal Student Aid”) and the CSS Profile (“College Scholarship Service Profile”).  The forms are both similar in that they’re used to determine the amount of aid you’re eligible for. You will most likely have to fill out both forms. 

Students are often pessimistic about their chances at financial aid, but each year I see many students glowing with excitement when they report that their acceptance letters also contain financial aid offers. Everyone is encouraged to take a shot and hope for the best.

Non-University Scholarships

In addition to the aforementioned university-based scholarships, there are also nonprofits, individuals, and corporations that offer financial aid. 

The good news is that there are many of these awards out there. The not-so-good news is that they’re not built into the Common application. Rather, you have to find them and apply for them individually. Thankfully, there are many websites out there devoted to these kinds of scholarships. All you have to do is input some basic information about yourself and the website will give you a list of scholarships you might be eligible for. Big Future is one example of this. 

At the end of the day, the financial aid process, though of course difficult and at times tedious, shouldn’t be completely mystifying. I hope this blog post helped clarify the overall shape of the process.