Find Financial Aid For Your Child's College Education

Financial Aid Primer

by James Freedman

With the cost of attending steadily increasing, and most application deadlines fast approaching, parents are justifiably concerned about funding their child's college education. While there is no substitute for saving up years ahead of time, there are other options still available to parents who cannot otherwise afford to send their kids to college.

The average tuition cost has, this past year alone, increased by $1,190 at private schools, and $365 at public schools. Attending a four-year private college will carry a price tag of about $21,000--a public school, nearly $5,500, according to CollegeBoard.com.

But there's also "more financial aid available than ever before--over $129 billion. And, despite all of these college cost increases, a college education remains an affordable choice for most families," according to the site.

"Different schools have different policies about how they package the student's financial aid," said Jennifer Britz, dean of admissions and financial aid at Kenyon College. "The most important number they're trying to get at is the expected family contribution. If your expected family contribution is estimated at less than the cost of the college, then you're eligible for financial aid. They look at things like income and assets and number of kids in college--basically, what they're trying to get at is what kind of funding you have available for a college education."

According to Britz, most aid packages contain a combination of grants, scholarships, work-study programs and loans. Grants and scholarships don't ever have to be paid back, but loans do. The vast majority of aid comes in the form of grants.

Specific colleges, universities, and other institutions provide some grants. Others, however, are funded directly by the government.

"The Pell Grant is for the neediest of the needy students that apply to any institution. It's a Federal grant, and you have to have an awfully low income to qualify for a Pell Grant," she said.

In order to be eligible for most financial aid, students must complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, also known as FAFSA, by the end of June. It can be found online at www.fafsa.ed.gov. If you have specific questions about a particular school's financial aid policies and requirements, you should contact that school directly.

Some students are concerned that informing colleges of their financial situation on applications will hurt their chances of admission. Only a "handful" of schools don't consider it as a factor, but even the ones that do, don't usually weigh it too heavily. At Kenyon College, for example, only a small percentage of decisions will be influenced by a student's indication of needing financial aid.

"Some schools are entirely need-blind, and some do take into account ability to pay," said Britz. "We are primarily need-blind, but for the last five or ten percent of our decisions, we do have to [consider] ability to pay."

"The most important thing for students to remember is to file everything on deadline," said Britz, "because if you don't do it by the deadline, you could lose your opportunity to qualify for the aid."

Aside from grants, work-study programs and loans, scholarships can also help pay for a college education.

FastWeb.com is "the leading site for free scholarship search," said Baird Johnson, vice president of product and marketing. Students create an account at FastWeb.com, enter in their personal information such as grades, SAT scores, and the schools they're interested in attending, and they are able to view information on all scholarships they qualify for.

According to Johnson, there are over $3 billion worth of scholarships available each year, and "any kind of student really can find scholarship opportunities."

Scholarships are usually merit-based, don't have to be repaid, and "most of them can be used for any bona fide educational expense," he said.

Applying for a scholarship can require anything from filling out a brief form to writing essays or even, in some cases, performing scientific research or creating art. Others, like the National Merit Scholarship, are based on a student's standardized test scores. While a student's GPA is usually an important factor, not all scholarships even require a student's transcript be submitted.

"Each one has different requirements," said Johnson. "A student needs to... figure out which ones they have an interest in and aptitude for."

Students should get started searching--and applying--for scholarships as soon as possible.

"There are a few scholarships that are available with deadlines out until the summer, but usually by that point it's very slim pickings," he said. "If they're a senior at this time of year, they'll receive a ton of scholarships that all have deadlines within the next couple of months."

Scholarships, totaling around $3 billion a year, may not seem like a significant part of the $129 billion of financial aid available to students each year. Still, when it comes to funding a college education, ever bit helps.

And, applying for scholarships is free, so "there's no downside to looking for scholarships and finding out which ones you qualify for," said Johnson. "Somewhere around 6 percent or so of students win an outside scholarship of some kind, so it's a good number of students who do win, but it's not the majority of students," he said. "Students have to identify which ones they should apply for, and which ones they have a good chance of winning. The more scholarships a student applies for, the more their chances of winning increase."